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vphul

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Outlook Web App

Hello,

I should be very grateful if anyone can assist me.

My organisation currently has four Exchange servers, one front-end 2003 running Outlook Web Access in our DMZ, one back-end running 2003, and two 2010 servers in a DAG both running the Mailbox, Client Access, and Hub Transport roles.

I'm trying to setup Outlook Web App to work with the Exchange 2010 servers, and want to use one FQDN to access one server, and then the second, should the first one fail.  I've setup a cname entry in our DNS to redirect traffic sent to mail.domain name to server1.domain name, but how can I redirect traffic to server2 if necessary.

I've read a lot about Outlook Web App, but can't find any reference to using it with a DAG.

In addition, I know that in Exchange 2010 you shouldn't have a Client Access Server in the DMZ, but is there any problem having the Client Access Server and Mailbox Server running on the same machine?

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oldhammbc
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Hello,

To get the failover to work you will need to setup a client access server array. This basically sets up load balancing beweek both servers. Here is a guide on how to do it.. http://howtoexchange.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/configuring-client-access-array-for-exchange-2010-walkthrough/

In all honesty ive never setup a CAS array when the mailbox role is also present on the server but from what I can see there is no reason why it wouldnt work!!

Hope that helps!

Dave J
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Akhater
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vphul

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Many thanks oldhammbc and akhater.

I've now discovered that Outlook also uses CAS to connect to the mailboxes on an Exchange 2010 server, so though I've got a DAG, if the first server goes down, Outlook won't automatically connect to the second server, unless I create a CAS array using two other servers, or a hardware load balancer.

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ASKER

Akhater,

Looking at the question "Outlook 2007 won't connect to 2nd Mailbox Server in a DAG", where you said "when one server fails you have to manually change the dns record for the cas", can I ask you to expand on this for me please.

Many thanks
well first you need to create a cas array in all cases.

technically speaking a cas array is just a "virtual" name you give for outlook to connect to. no more no less

Now after you create this name, outlook will try to connect that name so in DNS that name should point to a specific IP address


1) you do a windows NLB for your CAS and you point the cas array name to the NLB ip, not possible if cas are on the mbx server in a DAG
2) you have a hardware load balancer and your point the cas array name to the load balancer IP address that will load balance the cas (great option but costly)
3) you create 2 DNS records in the DNS for the cas array name each pointing to one of your CAS servers. the draw back in that case is that, say server1 fails, dns server will not know and will still give its IP to clients so you will need, upon failure, to go to DNS and delete this record
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Many thanks for your help Akhater.
no prob my pleasure