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Add a IC Smart Host for failover only

Hi

I have a question:

Within the Internet Mail Connector on Exchange 2003 (SP2) I have a smarthost setup to forward SMTP mail to our 3rd party gateway servers. We have 2 of these servers (running MailMarshal but that's not really important).

I know that I can add multiple smarthost IP addresses to the IMC by seperating them with a semicolon. However doing this just load balances the mailflow, a bit like DNS round-robin I guess. What I would like to do is use the second IP address as failover ONLY. Does anyone know if you can change the behaviour of Exchange 2003 to do this?

If not then does anyone know anyway to use Windows DNS to provide failover rather than round robin? I know that SRV records can provide this type of functionality but are set to specific apps\client requests only. Would Exchange support SRV for smarthost lookup?

In summary I am not after a load balancing\round robin solution, just failover.

Thanks in advance

F

Sembee

Exchange doesn't have the capability to use a failover for smart hosting.

If you are using two internet connections, then I tend to suggest using a third party smart host. Then use a device to manage the outbound traffic.

Simon.

btitf

ASKER

Simon,

Thanks for your reply.

Could you elaborate on 'a device' please?

Thanks

F

Sembee

There are routers that can manage dual WAN connections. Cisco probably have one and I think Linksys do as well.

Simon.

btitf

ASKER

OK thanks Simon, we are going down different paths here though I think. I can put all this in place but it doesn't solve my question which was could Exchange use a failover smart host rather than round-robin. If you are saying that it can't then could you please point me at documentation to back this up?

Thanks for your help

F

Sembee

There is no documentation to back it up, at least none that I am aware of. From experience I know that Exchange cannot do it. If you put two SMTP Connectors in place, then it will simply try the first. If that fails, then it doesn't try the second, but queues the email. The only time that it tries a second SMTP Connector is when there are restrictions on the first one.

Simon.

btitf

ASKER

Simon,

I only have one SMTP connector. What I have done is added two smart hosts to it. 10.0.0.1 and 10.0.0.2, bracketed and divided by a semicolon. Exchange quite happily round-robins the two smart hosts. I just wanted to know if I could make IP number 2 failover only. I'm not sure that I explained this properly?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Sembee

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