asked on

Exchange redundancy

I have exchange 5.5 running, and I want to create redundancy incase the server crashes. What is the recommended way to create redundancy for Exchange 5.5. I heard from someone that I should put exchange 5.5 on 2 servers and then balance mailboxes between the two and move mailboxes when one crashes. Is this the best way for someone one Exchange 5.5 and NT 4.0?

thanks

robinsonbpc

It depends on your budget and whether you are looking for uptime, data backup or a combination. The overall idea would be to eliminate any Single Point Of Failure (SPOF's). The best way but probably the most expensive is to cluster your server. If you split mailboxes between 2 servers then you really don't have redundancy what you have is reduced the number of users affected when a server crashes. But when that server crashes you still have to recover data from it and restore user mailboxes.

darrenburke

Exchange 5.5 clustering is not great. It works in an Active/Passive mode which means that the second server in only used when the first crashes. You should maybe consider moving to Exchange 2000 as this support Active/Active clustering. This means that all you hardware and investments are always utilized. Connections are split between the two but with automatic failover if one fails.

ptran2000

ASKER

robinsonbpc, the redundancy is mainly for uptime, if for some reason the primary Exchange server crashes, then I want the other server to kick in (failover support). My company is very dependent on email, so I want to have something up in about 1-2 hours if the primary Exchange server crashes.

Darren, Active/Passive is fine with me as long as the Passive Exchange server can kick in within an hour or so. I have no experience with clustering servers, do you need enterprise version of NT for this or just the standard version on NT server?

thanks

Beluga

Exchange 5.5 on NT clusters can be a pain. Plus, there seem to be precious few consultants and support people who know NT clustering. When you have cluster questions, you can't always get answers.

If you need high-availability (ie. "always-on"), I would suggest looking at Exchange 2000 and Windows 2000. Alternatively (particularly if you don't want to upgrade) you could look at standby servers and 3rd party clustering options. Here are two examples - I can't vouch for their compatibility with Exchange, but they're worth a look:

Legato Co-Standby Server:
http://www.vinca.com/products/availability/costandbyserver/

NSI DoubleTake:
http://www.nsisw.com/main/pages/Products/DTspec.html

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

robinsonbpc

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Brian Mulder

Hello ptran2000

this question is open for more then 2 months
time to clean up
if not stated otherwise

my recom will be
-PAQ
-points to robinsonbpc
-this will be finalized by an EE Moderator
-with no further update (15.09.2002)

PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS ANSWER

HAGD:O)Bruintje
posted by ToolzEE v1.0

Jgould

Question has been closed as per recommendation

JGould-EE Moderator