Right now we have Exch 2003 and it's on a machine at a collocated facility. We're looking to ease the user experience and have another server at the office site to minimize the time it would take to open attachments, since the mail server for those users would be local. Is there a way to have certain mailboxs local to one site and others from another site with them all passing through the one at the collocated location? We have a much heftier firewall at the data center and consistent VPN to the data center, so locally, everyone in the office is pointed to the exchange server in the datacenter. I would like to be able to specify a certain group of employees that work in the office and their mail be passed on to the next exchange server and have them work together. Is this possible? If so, what would this take?

A mailbox can only exist on a single Exchange server. It can either exist on the one at the data center or on the one at the remote site. Could you use Outlook 2003/2007 in local cache mode for your remote clients? That would greatly improve the user experience.

Hi, Just like Jim said, mailbox only can be owned by one mailbox store, one storage group. For your issue, I recommend you to use RPC over http, RPC over HTTP enables client programs to use the Internet to run procedures that are provided by server programs on distant networks. so that users in the local network can connect directly to an Exchange2003 server within a corporate environment over the Internet. MAPI and RPC over HTTP http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996632(EXCHG.65).aspx Deployment Scenarios for RPC over HTTP http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124876(EXCHG.65).aspx How to Deploy RPC over HTTP for the First Time on Exchange Server 2003 SP1 (Front-End/Back-End Scenario) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa995869(EXCHG.65).aspx Hope it helps. Xiu