Exchange Server 2007 Setup

prieurdp · Joined: 21 Feb 2008 Posts: 2

Hi

I am new to Exchange so please forgive my beginners questions.

I work for a smallish company of about 20 people. We have two offices
connected with a VPN. Currently we have one Exchange 2003 Server
running at the main office. We, in the smaller satellite office,
connect to this server, we are not currently on a AD domain. The
domain that the current Exchange 2003 server is on, is coming apart a
bit, so we decided to start from scratch with Exchange Server 2007. It
is also based on the .com domain, we wish to change it to .local

After reading through the Exchange deployment guides, a Standard
deployment will probably fit our scenario best. I am going to setup
the domain on our side, then install Exchange 2007. The main office
will then later join our domain and the FSMO roles will be transferred
to a new domain controller over there with Exchange 2007 with our
server remaining a secondary domain controller. Now what I am not sure
about;

Our email currently gets delivered to a Linux server at an external
ISP, where SPAM/AV filtering gets done. The mail then gets delivered
to the Exchange 2003 server. The problem is, we want the two offices
to be able to function independently from one another (on the same
domain), as we suffer from frequent telco and power outages in South
Africa, causing the two offices to loose connection on the VPN. For
instance, if the main office goes down, we must still be able to send
email without interruption from the satellite office and internally at
the satellite office (and vice versa for the main). I assume receiving
at the satellite office would then be impossible as that will only be
able to happen on the Egde Transport server at the main office (or do
we need an Edge Transport server if we are already running the Linux
box?).

To conclude, we wish to implement a redundant Exchange setup, allowing
the offices to operate as independently as possible from one another
on the same domain. What would the recommended topology be to use, has
anyone setup something similar that can share a few tips, any pitfalls
to look out for? If anything is unclear please let me know so that I
can try to explain better.

I wish to get this done with the minimum possible amount of physical
hardware and OS installs as we are a small company and licensing fees
do actually hurt us Smile

My preferred solution would have been a hosted
Exchange platfrom but that is not going to happen.

Thanks a lot!

Archived from group: microsoft>public>exchange>setup

Bharat Suneja [MVP] · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 1043

- You don't need an Edge Transport server - you're reeiving inbound mail at
your service provider which does antivirus/antispam and delivers to you.
- Assuming both offices are in different AD Sites, setup a Send Connector in
each site for address space * (not sure if you are delivering outbound
through the service provider or directly. If through the provider, add their
hosts as smarthosts on the Send Connectors). Make the Connectors scoped
(available only to their AD Site).
- For inbound mail: Make sure servers at both locations have Receive
Connectors that can accept inbound mail from the service provider (including
appropriate firewall access rule to allow inbound smtp from provider, and
recommended A records in external DNS if the provider uses fqdns to fwd to
your servers).
- For redundancy of inbound mail, you will need to talk to the provider and
determine if they can use multiple SMTP hosts in their config for redundancy
(as Exchange can). If they can, provide them the FQDNs/IP addresses for both
your servers. Make sure you test this by stopping transport service at each
location, and ensure mail is routed through the other server.

--
Bharat Suneja
MVP - Exchange
www.zenprise.com
NEW blog location:
exchangepedia.com/blog
----------------------------

"prieurdp" wrote in message @62g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
> Hi
>
> I am new to Exchange so please forgive my beginners questions.
>
> I work for a smallish company of about 20 people. We have two offices
> connected with a VPN. Currently we have one Exchange 2003 Server
> running at the main office. We, in the smaller satellite office,
> connect to this server, we are not currently on a AD domain. The
> domain that the current Exchange 2003 server is on, is coming apart a
> bit, so we decided to start from scratch with Exchange Server 2007. It
> is also based on the .com domain, we wish to change it to .local
>
> After reading through the Exchange deployment guides, a Standard
> deployment will probably fit our scenario best. I am going to setup
> the domain on our side, then install Exchange 2007. The main office
> will then later join our domain and the FSMO roles will be transferred
> to a new domain controller over there with Exchange 2007 with our
> server remaining a secondary domain controller. Now what I am not sure
> about;
>
> Our email currently gets delivered to a Linux server at an external
> ISP, where SPAM/AV filtering gets done. The mail then gets delivered
> to the Exchange 2003 server. The problem is, we want the two offices
> to be able to function independently from one another (on the same
> domain), as we suffer from frequent telco and power outages in South
> Africa, causing the two offices to loose connection on the VPN. For
> instance, if the main office goes down, we must still be able to send
> email without interruption from the satellite office and internally at
> the satellite office (and vice versa for the main). I assume receiving
> at the satellite office would then be impossible as that will only be
> able to happen on the Egde Transport server at the main office (or do
> we need an Edge Transport server if we are already running the Linux
> box?).
>
> To conclude, we wish to implement a redundant Exchange setup, allowing
> the offices to operate as independently as possible from one another
> on the same domain. What would the recommended topology be to use, has
> anyone setup something similar that can share a few tips, any pitfalls
> to look out for? If anything is unclear please let me know so that I
> can try to explain better.
>
> I wish to get this done with the minimum possible amount of physical
> hardware and OS installs as we are a small company and licensing fees
> do actually hurt us Smile

My preferred solution would have been a hosted
> Exchange platfrom but that is not going to happen.
>
> Thanks a lot!

prieurdp · Joined: 21 Feb 2008 Posts: 2

Thanks Bharat! Always handy to have MVP's answer one's questions Smile

I did not mention that we admin the Linux box ourselves, we only
colocate it at the ISP, so we will be able to make any setup changes
we want to, if needed.

Cheers

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