Can anyone give me some recommendations for Exchange redundancy? Our exchange server crashed last week due to hardware failure and took forever (only 1 day, but 1 day is too long since this is business critical) to get back up an running again. I need a solution to provide some type of redundancy in case this ever happens again. Would a second exchange server be my best bet? I've heard some nightmares with a second exchange server; how only one can act as a domain controller and just plugging it up to the network only when needed may not work as simple as it sounds, etc... Any advice would be appreciated.

What version of Exchange are you running? Also, you should never install Exchange on a DC if you can help it.Tim Harrington - Catapult Systems - http://HowDoUC.blogspot.com

Exchange 2007 is what I am running. Well, I have one DC running my Active Directory. I thought my exchange server though was a DC as well.

With Exchange 2007 you have SCC, CCR, LCR, and SCR. There are only two that are really viable. Use CCR for local high availability. This will give you multiple copies of your database. You will have to separate out the MB role from the CAS and HUB roles to provide HA for the MB role. You can install CAS/HUB on 2+ other servers and load balance them with either Windows NLB or a hardware LB. SCR is for Site Resilliency. This will allow you to replicate you MB data to another site in your organization. Here are some links to get you started: http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/high-availability-recovery/deploying-exchange-2007-sp1-ccr-cluster-windows-server-2008-failover-cluster-part1.html http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/high-availability-recovery/clustered-continuous-replication-failover-standby-continuous-replication-part1.html http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/high-availability-recovery/testing-scr-production-environment-part1.html I would also suggest you getting more than one DC in your environment. Tim Harrington - Catapult Systems - http://HowDoUC.blogspot.com

Thank you. I will definitely take a look at those articles. I'm real novice with Exchange to the sense that I know how it operates, but not how to fix it when it breaks. As for the second DC, I swear I think my previous IT guy who deployed the Exchange server made it a DC too. It's hosting an Active Directory and has the options for Domain Controller Policies, etc... May sound like a dumb question, but how can I tell? Even if it is, you are suggesting a separate DC that's not Exchange for HA as well?

AD is the most important service, without it, nothing else will work (Exchange, file shares, log ins, etc.). You really need at least 2 DC for redundancy. Preferrably in different physical sites. You can open up AD Users and Computers and look in the Domain Controllers OU. This will list all servers that are DCs. Also you can see from AD Sites and Services tool. While you can install Exchange on a DC, it is strongly recommended not to.Tim Harrington - Catapult Systems - http://HowDoUC.blogspot.com

I felt a little dumb for asking where the list of DC's were once I looked in AD (I had seen it before, just wasn't sure where). Kind of odd... we have three DCs; one serving no purpose except AD, one being our Exchange which is also hosting a replica of our AD and the other being a decommissioned Exchange server (Exchange 2003). What's the worst that could come of having exchange be a DC?

Someone runs DCPROMO and it breaks Exchange. More reasons not to. Applies to 2007 as well http://theessentialexchange.com/blogs/michael/archive/2007/11/13/exchange-server-2003-and-domain-controllers-a-summary.aspx

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 14:11:12 +0000, AndyD_ wrote: > > >Someone runs DCPROMO and it breaks Exchange. Or there's a problem with the GC. Exchange won't use another GC if it's running on a machine that *is* a GC. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP