I was reading about deploying Exchange Server in Virtualized Environment (Server-Virtualization). I found few statements just want their details. 1. The Exchange Server guest virtual machine can not have the Unified Messaging server role installed. Why ? 2. Virtual disks that use differencing or delta mechanisms (such as Hyper-V's differencing VHDs or snapshots) are not supported. 3. Making virtual machine snapshots of an Exchange guest virtual machine is not supported. Is it mean we can not take snapshot of virtual machines that have Exchange server. But after few lines in that article it was written in "High Availability and Disaster Recovery Considerations" that " All four configurations are supported in a virtualized environment." I am referring article from here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc794548.aspx

hi,Microsoft provides support for virtualizing all of Exchange 2007's roles except for UM, because UM uses a third-party Real Time Collaboration (RTC) stack. The vendor that made the stack doesn't support virtualization, so virtualizing UM would cause a support problem. A number of companies have virtualized the UM role with no problems, but it's officially unsupported until the RTC vendor supports virtualization. UM running on early Hyper-V builds had voice quality problems but these have been resolved.and look at ;http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/101132/q-why-isnt-virtualization-supported-for-the-exchange-server-2007-unified-messaging-um-server-role.htmlregards,Exchange - MVP | www.cozumpark.com | www.mumincicek.com

Thanks Mumin, I also found that in Exchange Server 2010; UM is supported.

Virtualized Environment recommendation and support is same for Exchange 2010 and no changes from Exchange 2007 so far...Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Hi Amit, perhaps I misunderstood that. I checked out but I could not found the line what I read tomorrow :) But now I am confused with Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 (Beta) , which one should I choose? I checked out new features of 2010. I found that were already available in 2007 SP1 then what's new in 2010 ? For 2010 : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298136(EXCHG.140).aspx For 2007 SP1 : Goto New enhancements and features in Exchange2007 in the below page http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996018.aspx The only thing I got is few features have been removed from 2010 such as Local continuous replication (LCR) Single copy clusters (SCC)

Well, You need to use Exchange 2007 because Exchange 2010 is in Beta, can NOT be used in production but you can test in lab environment to check the new features and performance. Full version is not yet sheduled when it will be released.Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

One more thing, I checked out that Exchange Server 2010 has come up with a new feature for "High Availability". It is Shadow Redundancy ". So If we enable this role then "Do we need to have CCR? I guess not". Some resources say that if we will use 2010 then we do not need to use RAID . Because It itself makes several (approximately 16) copies of a single data. Please verify my information, "Am I getting right?" or you have something better to say. I got inforamtion from here. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351027(EXCHG.140).aspx http://blogs.technet.com/ewan/archive/2009/04/15/exchange-2010-beta-high-availability-strategies.aspx

Shadow Redundancy is the High Availability feature for the emails which are NOT delivered to mailbox or which are still in transit, let's say mails are being processed by Hub transport server and server got failed then mails will be lost but shadow redundancy make sure that it is successfully delivered to all of next hopes. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351027(EXCHG.140).aspx So you still need DAG (new feature of Mailbox Server High Availability) with Shadow Redundancy (new feature for Hub Transport Server High Availability). http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd351223(EXCHG.140).aspx Yes, Exchange 2010 database and store database engine has optimized for low cost storage and JBOD storage. But to have upto 16 copies of data you need to have those many Exchange servers in DAG (Database Availability Group) to host mailbox databases. http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/storage.aspx Why don't you create a thread in Exchange 2010 forum if you have any questions regarding, you will get better resources there with multiple way of answering technique :) But still you need to use Exchange 2007 since 2010 is scheduled to release in second half of 2009. Exchange 2010 Forum:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchange2010/threads Amit Tank | MVP - Exchange | MCITP:EMA MCSA:M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

Hi Amit, I hope you are still hearing. As We know UM Role is not supported in VM (But it can be deployed). I have only one physical server . This server has several VMs. My Exchange Server is also in one VM. I am thinking to use this exchange server for all stuff except UM. So for UM, Is there any solution ????? Can I use any UM service from Microsoft (if it exists) that will work with my existing infractructure (Active Directory accounts, sharepoints etc). Good News is that my infrastructure is On-Paper, so I can change anything, anytime. -Master