Clustering / Fault Tolerance

Simon Young · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

We recently had a failure of our Exchange 2000 servers (hardware failure)
and for the time it took to source replacement hardware and reinstall the
server, we were without email services for a day and a half. In light of
this (hindsight being 20/20 vision and all that) we are looking to provide
better fault tolerance for the future and the best way to provide this will
be to have a backup server

I think the best way to do this will be with a cluster server environment,
but before I go down this route, I was wondering if there was a way we can
have the second node at a different location to ours (i.e. on a remote
server farm) as this would not be connected to us via a VPN solution and
therefore will have no concept of our active directory environment

Apologies if these are silly questions, im not to good on the way exchange
(or windows) operates from a clustering standpoint

Is there a better way to do this?

Thanks in advance

Simon

Archived from group: microsoft>public>exchange2000>clustering

Jamestechman · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 14

You are looking at doing geographically dispersed clustering. This is
really complex and I believe require third party apps as well. Here are
some good resources. You can also look at software based DR solutions
such as messageone among many other vendors.

http://www.messageone.com/email-continuity/?ac=g101c&gclid=CPOjzMKmnIcCFRaBFQodxh5yvQ

Geographically Dispersed Clusters in Exchange Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/geocluster.mspx

Multi-site data replication support for Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=895847

James Chong
MCSE M+, S+, MCTS, Security+
msexchangetips.blogspot.com
ftp://mail.msexchange911.net/

Simon Young wrote:
> We recently had a failure of our Exchange 2000 servers (hardware failure)
> and for the time it took to source replacement hardware and reinstall the
> server, we were without email services for a day and a half. In light of
> this (hindsight being 20/20 vision and all that) we are looking to provide
> better fault tolerance for the future and the best way to provide this will
> be to have a backup server
>
> I think the best way to do this will be with a cluster server environment,
> but before I go down this route, I was wondering if there was a way we can
> have the second node at a different location to ours (i.e. on a remote
> server farm) as this would not be connected to us via a VPN solution and
> therefore will have no concept of our active directory environment
>
> Apologies if these are silly questions, im not to good on the way exchange
> (or windows) operates from a clustering standpoint
>
> Is there a better way to do this?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Simon

Brian Desmond [MVP] · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 10

Simon-

This is doable, check out some of James' links. It is rather expensive and
complex, and I would seriously look at whether a) it's worth the cost to you
and b) you're going to be able to manage it

--
Thanks,
Brian Desmond
Windows Server MVP - Directory Services

www.briandesmond.com

"Simon Young" wrote in message %23Yryk0GHA.324@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> We recently had a failure of our Exchange 2000 servers (hardware failure)
> and for the time it took to source replacement hardware and reinstall the
> server, we were without email services for a day and a half. In light of
> this (hindsight being 20/20 vision and all that) we are looking to provide
> better fault tolerance for the future and the best way to provide this
> will be to have a backup server
>
> I think the best way to do this will be with a cluster server environment,
> but before I go down this route, I was wondering if there was a way we can
> have the second node at a different location to ours (i.e. on a remote
> server farm) as this would not be connected to us via a VPN solution and
> therefore will have no concept of our active directory environment
>
> Apologies if these are silly questions, im not to good on the way exchange
> (or windows) operates from a clustering standpoint
>
> Is there a better way to do this?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Simon
>

"Russ Kaufmann \ · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

"Simon Young" wrote in message %23Yryk0GHA.324@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> We recently had a failure of our Exchange 2000 servers (hardware failure)
> and for the time it took to source replacement hardware and reinstall the
> server, we were without email services for a day and a half. In light of
> this (hindsight being 20/20 vision and all that) we are looking to provide
> better fault tolerance for the future and the best way to provide this
> will be to have a backup server

You might also consider that you are using a six year old program and
probably should consider upgrading to 2003 while you are at it.

> I think the best way to do this will be with a cluster server environment,
> but before I go down this route, I was wondering if there was a way we can
> have the second node at a different location to ours (i.e. on a remote
> server farm) as this would not be connected to us via a VPN solution and
> therefore will have no concept of our active directory environment

No AD = No Exchange. Sorry, that just won't work.

> Apologies if these are silly questions, im not to good on the way exchange
> (or windows) operates from a clustering standpoint
>
> Is there a better way to do this?

Sure. If you really find that you just have to have it up and running no
matter what, you can:
1. Install Exchange 2003 in a server cluster
2. Create a standby cluster in a remote location (where AD is available,
too)

There are also many third party applications that you might consider.

--
Russ Kaufmann
MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
ClusterHelp.com, a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner
Web http://www.clusterhelp.com
Blog http://msmvps.com/clusterhelp

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