I am looking for insight as how to design a multiple site Exchange 2007 deployment. I will explain my current configuration and go onto what I want to accomplish. I am not so much worried as how to convert my current configuration as I am which way is best. Here is a simple Visio design of our current mail config: Link Site Layout: Site A is in a datacenter and is connected to the internet and connected to Site B through a transparent 10Mbps Metro-E link. Site A is listed as a seperate site in AD Sites & Services with a unique IP subnet (10.10.0.255). Site A has an Active Directory server (Server 2003 x64), Terminal Server/Gateway (Server 2008 x64), and an Exchange server (Server 2003 x64 w/ Exchange 2007 SP1). The Exchange server hosts the CAS, HUB, and Mailbox roles. Site B is listed as a seperate site in AD Sites & Services with a unique IP subnet (10.10.10.255). Site B has 30+ users connecting to Exchange via Outlook 2007 (Cached mode) through the Metro-E connection. Site B also contains its own AD server as well. Goal: What I want to accomplish is to add an Exchange server to Site B so that the end users can connect there. The reason it is at Site A is because the backup storage is located there and it is the edge of the network. My hopes are that there is a way to have two Exchange servers replicate both ways. This would accomplish having the backup solution andaccess for users when connecting to TS and/or remotely. It would also help the response time and lag for the Site B users. Any ideas? We have many more servers but I have listed the ones that matter in this senario. Feel free to ask any questions. Thank you in advance, Myles

Hi, There is no way of configuring exchange server to replicate 2-ways natively (requires 3-party software). There are a number of fault tolerance configurations in Exchange CCR and SCR but neither will do what you prefer. What is the reason for placing an exchange server in site B? With the available bandwidth and users using cached mode they should have agood response time if servers are placed in site A. Leif

Dear customer: Thanks for Leif's reply. Exchange 2007 SP1 include the following built-in features that can provide quick recovery, high availability, and site resilience for Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers: Local continuous replication (LCR) LCR is a single-server solution that uses built-in asynchronous log shipping technology to create and maintain a copy of a storage group on a second set of disks that are connected to the same server as the production storage group. LCR provides log shipping, log replay, and a quick manual switch to a secondary copy of the data. Cluster continuous replication (CCR) CCR, which is a non-shared storage failover cluster solution, is one of two types of clustered mailbox server deployments available in Exchange 2007. CCR is a clustered solution (referred to as a CCR environment) that uses built-in asynchronous log shipping technology to create and maintain a copy of each storage group on a second server in a failover cluster. CCR is designed to be either a one or two data center solution, providing both high availability and site resilience. CCR is very different from clustering in previous versions of Exchange Server. Standby continuous replication (SCR) SCR is a new feature introduced in Exchange 2007 SP1. As its name implies, SCR is designed for scenarios that use or enable the use of standby recovery servers. SCR extends the existing continuous replication features and enables new data availability scenarios for Exchange 2007 Mailbox servers. SCR uses the same log shipping and replay technology used by LCR and CCR to provide added deployment options and configurations by providing the administrator with the ability to create additional storage group copies. SCR can be used to replicate data from stand-alone Mailbox servers and clustered mailbox servers. Single copy clusters (SCC) SCC, which is a shared storage failover cluster solution, is the other of two types of clustered mailbox server deployments available in Exchange 2007. SCC is a clustered solution that uses a single copy of a storage group on storage that is shared between the nodes in the cluster. SCC is somewhat similar to clustering in previous versions of Exchange Server; however, along with numerous improvements, there are also some significant changes. Of course, you can add another maibox server in site B, but we cant keep the new mailbox servers databse synched with database on the first maibox server in site A. they are separate and independent of each other. For more information High Availability, please refer to the following article: High Availability http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124721.aspx hope it helps. If anything is unclear, please feel free to let me know. Rock Wang - MSFT

Both Leif & Rock's answers were what I was looking for. I understand the concepts of LCR and CCR, but since SCR was added with SP1 I was unclear how it would work into the total solution. I appreciate your help and advice.

Dear customer: Standby continuous replication (SCR) is a new feature introduced in Microsoft ExchangeServer2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1). As its name implies, SCR is designed for scenarios that use or enable the use of standby recovery servers. SCR extends the existing continuous replication features found in the release to manufacturing (RTM) version of ExchangeServer2007 and enables new data availability scenarios for Mailbox servers running SP1. SCR uses the same log shipping and replay technology used by local continuous replication (LCR) and cluster continuous replication (CCR) to provide added deployment options and configurations. SCR enables a separation of high availability (comprised of service and data availability) and site resilience. For example, SCR can be combined with CCR to replicate storage groups locally in a primary datacenter (using CCR for high availability) and remotely in a secondary or backup datacenter (using SCR for site resilience). The secondary datacenter could contain a passive node in a failover cluster that hosts the SCR targets. This type of cluster is called a standby cluster because it does not contain any clustered mailbox servers, but it can be quickly provisioned with a replacement clustered mailbox server in a recovery scenario. If the primary datacenter fails or is otherwise lost, the SCR targets hosted in this standby cluster can be quickly activated on the standby cluster. For more information about SRC, please refer to the following information: Standby Continuous Replication http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/bb676502(EXCHG.80).aspx Hope it helps. Rock Wang - MSFT