Hello,I have just started in a new organization and the vendor is running the Exchange 2003 servers. I really need to understand why these servers are setup and how they did it. They are not sharing any information with me so I turn to you.There is one server at the main office Exchange 2003 STD with some mailboxes on it and there is another at the vendors location that is running Exchange 2003 with some mailboxes on it. The vendor is telling me that these two servers are connected through the VPN and to the employees of this firm they all connect to the same server (doesn't matter where they are located).How is this possible? Is it possible? Are both exchange servers running with the same name or different name? Do you have to have two mx records in order to do this? How does mail route to these servers?Please if anyone can shed some light or let me know where I can read up on this it would be greatly appreciated.Thanks in advance,Susie2345

If these are mapi Outlook clients, Exchange will simply redirect users to their correct mailboxes - if that is what you are asking.

Thanks they are using mapi - but how are the exchange servers replicating. Is there some setting in the Exchange Management Configuration? Or do the mail clients that connect at the vendor location connect to a different named exchange server with a different IP and the clients that are in the office connect to another exchange server with a different name and IP. Would both servers have to get their own MX record to point the SMTP to?Please and thanks

Not knowing what they have setup, there is no need for replication. When you configure an Outlook Mapi profile, you can enter the name of any Exchange Server ( or a global catalog for that matter), Outlook ( and any correctly configured mapi client) will then "find" the correct mailserver where the mailbox is located after the referral by the Exch Server and update the profile accordingly.Outlook 2007 uses autodiscovery to do this without any input from the user as well.More info:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256976How MAPI Clients Access Active Directoryhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232838.aspx Autodiscover and Exchange 2007

Exchange servers needs MX record in order to deliver emails. if your Vendors email domain is xyz.com and your domain is abc.com these domains should be registered by ISP and respective MX record will be created pointing to your Exchange servers Ip address. When you want to send email to your vendor you just type in their email address and send it. your exchange understands that it is for remote domain so it travels via internet and look out for mx record and from their it gets the ip of your vendor and delivers the email. in this case your exchhange and vendors exchange donot replicate anything. if your vendors exchange server is part of your exchange ORg in that case both exchange servers replicate AD config partitions and Domain partions as well as other system settings Let me know if you need more clarificationVinod |CCNA|MCSE 2003 +Messaging|MCTS|ITIL V3|

Exchange servers needs MX record in order to deliver emails. if your Vendors email domain is xyz.com and your domain is abc.comthese domains should be registered by ISP and respective MX record will be created pointing to your Exchange servers Ip address. Vinod |CCNA|MCSE 2003 +Messaging|MCTS|ITIL V3| Technically, a mx record is not needed to deliver email (though of course it's a best practicve). If the mx record does not exist, the A record for the domain will be tried.

Hi,Whether the two Exchange servers belong to one organization? If it is, the delivery between the mail office and the vendor is RGC. When the local Bridgehead has a message to send to a target Bridgehead, it will attempt to resolve the target Bridgehead name using a DNS MX query. If this returns no result (which is normal since MX records exist usually for domains and not server names) then the Bridgehead will simply perform a standard A record query to get the IP address.ThanksAllen

Hi,I guess each Exchange servers has some mailbox for the users located in each location. Mailbox flow happens between the servers. Normally Main site will have MX records pointed and then it will forwared to the local server or the remote server depending the user mailbox locationRegadrs,Krishnahttp://smtpport25.wordress.com