Hello We have 3 offices: UK, Thailand and USA. They are connected via a VPN Each office has one Exchange server and they are all in one routing group with the UK server as the bridgehead. The network in UK has an intermittent network problem and when the network drops out the people in Asia lose their email. This usually happens while it's the middle of the night in the UK so they have to wait for me to get in to the London office and reboot the router before their email comes back up. I need to configure it so the Thailand and USA servers can carry on working independently if the network drops out in the UK. How would you recommend I did this? Thanks

Is UK your Hub site? & mailflow to/from internet is also via UK bridgehead server? When you say "when the network drops out the people in Asia lose their email" it is applicable to internal and external(yahoo, gmail etc..) mailflow as well right...?Regards, Pushkal MishrA

You need to be clear on what they are actually losing. Inbound email, outbound email or all email. The easiest thing to do is put each location in to their own routing group, then configure routing group connectors. Put an SMTP Connector in to each routing group to send the email to the Internet or a smart host. You will need to get the ISP to configure a PTR record on the external IP address to match the server. Inbound email will be a little more troublesome, because you can't control the email delivery as easily. If the UK server is going offline, then multiple MX records will work for you, as email can be delivered to any Exchange server in the ORG. Exchange will ensure it gets to the right place. However do ensure that all servers are up to the same standard with regards to patch levels, AV and antispam protection. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources | In the UK? Hire Me.

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:51:59 +0000, Symzie wrote: >Hello We have 3 offices: UK, Thailand and USA. They are connected via a VPN Each office has one Exchange server and they are all in one routing group with the UK server as the bridgehead. The network in UK has an intermittent network problem and when the network drops out the people in Asia lose their email. This usually happens while it's the middle of the night in the UK so they have to wait for me to get in to the London office and reboot the router before their email comes back up. I need to configure it so the Thailand and USA servers can carry on working independently if the network drops out in the UK. How would you recommend I did this? Thanks If you have routing groups you have Exchange 2003 (or earlier). Knowing which release of Exchange you run would help. If you have only one routing group you don't have a "bridgehead". All servers in the same routing group are peers. One of them serves as the "routing group master", responsible for managing the routing information withing the routing group. The members of a routing group are all supposed to be "well connected". That doesn't sound like your situation. Assuming you're running Exchange 2000 or 2003, you should create another two routing groups (named "Thailand" and "USA"?) and move two of the other servers to their respective grouting groups. Then create two (and possibly three) Routing Group Connectors: UK-Thailand UK-USA USA-Thailand (optional) Now, why the people in Asia "lose their mail" when the network in the UK has a problem is unknown. Since they have their own Exchange server, is it safe to assume that there's also a Global Catalog server co-located with it? If there isn't, there should be. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

Hi, When the router fall down, the office in UK will lost connection to internet, and the VPN will drop down. So UK will not able to send and receive email. Besides, the three Exchange servers are in one RG. So the Exchange servers communicate without connector. They always communicate with each other directly (Single Hop Routing). You can’t schedule and restrict the mail flow within RG. In my opinion, the mail flow between USA and Thailand will not be affected if GC located in USA or Thailand. Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.