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Exchange 2003 Redundancy on SBS 2003

We have a SBS 2003 DC with a Win 2003 R2 SP2 as secondary DC. To my understanding, the Exchange built into SBS is the standard edition and will not support clustering so my question is: what's the best practice for maximizing Exchange availability in the event of a SBS failure? Any suggestion including possibly upgrading Exchange is welcomed, I just want to get a better sense of what's possible with SBS as the platform.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Stephen Manderson

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randy915

ASKER

We have a runnin backup of the Exchange but I'm more worried about a complete failure such as an extended power outage. The solution we decided on is to use our other domain's Exchange server and manually recreate the AD accounts; if a diaster happens, just change the MX record to the new domain and have email funnel to there. Any comments about that procedure?

Jeffrey Kane - TechSoEasy

That solution doesn't make sense. If a disaster happens you need to fully restore the SBS anyhow. Email will not get lost as long as that's done within 72 hours, as most all sending servers would keep trying to send email for that period of time.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Stephen Manderson

Yes that is the case, however with regards to not being able to cluster the exchange server for redundancy I was suggesting that having a bare metal backup would allow a temporary server to be put in place with minimal effort to minimise downtime.

Jeffrey Kane - TechSoEasy

Sorry, I wasn't referring to your suggested solution Steve... but rather Randy's thought of trying to use another domain's Exchange server.

Jeff
TechSoEasy