Nyacton
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Connecting Exchange Servers Across the Internet
Our main Exchange 2003 server is at a hosting provider. We have a site-to-site VPN connection to them but we always access the mail server through the Internet, not the VPN. I recently added an Exchange 2003 backend server plus an Exchange 2003 frontend server at our local office in preparation to move all email locally. This would be a gradual transition where mailboxes would be moved over a few at a time. I've done testing on this setup and all servers can communicate with each other fine through the VPN; all mail is delivered to the appropriate mailboxes. I moved my mailbox to the new local server and used the new frontend server for a week without incident. When I went live with this new configuration, I made the change in internal and external DNS to point all users to the new frontend server. Things were fine for a day or two but then the VPN hardware on our side became nonresponsive. Turns out it could not handle the load.
My question is is there a way for the local and hosted Exchange servers to communicate with each other over the Internet instead of the VPN route? Every search I've done on this topic involves using a VPN connection. I'm looking for a definite yes or no on whether this can be done, and if it can what are the steps to do it.
My question is is there a way for the local and hosted Exchange servers to communicate with each other over the Internet instead of the VPN route? Every search I've done on this topic involves using a VPN connection. I'm looking for a definite yes or no on whether this can be done, and if it can what are the steps to do it.
ASKER
Thanks for the response. Right now, all live accounts are on the hosted Exchange. I have a test account on the local. DNS is back to the way it was. If I connect to OWA, which is pointing back to the hosted server, with an account that has a mailbox on the local server, it's going to fail. That's why I need the front end server...I don't want to have to have multiple OWA addresses or manually configure email clients. As for the VPN, there is only one tunnel. The device itself becomes nonresponsive after a while (can't ping or get to web interface) but machines on the other side are still accessible but intermittently.
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ASKER
Everything I've been reading says it's bad news to open the Exchange servers to the Internet which is my original question. Thanks for the help.
Then why can't you change the DNS to the way it was?? since you have less user on your local. So when the user that reside on the HOST connect it will connect directly with HOST. but when you want to connect to your mailbox it will first contact the HOST server first then the HOST server will forward the request to your FE server. This way the VPN traffic should be minimal.
Also, Check your VPN configuration. It should not matter where the user connected to. Either HOST or FE server. there should be only 1 tunnel open between your server and HOST.
to link both exchange over internet, I think it is possible but you will have to open lot of ports. which is increase security risk for your server too.
port use by exchange need to open
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