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CAS Array - DR Site

Hi Experts,

I have 8 Exchange servers in total.

4 in Site A
4 in Site B

Each site consists of:

2 HUB/CAS
2 Mailbox servers in a DAG

I have a CAS Array for the live site.

Cas name:

CAS_ARRAY_LN
Site: London
FQDN: mail.domain.local
Members: EXCH01, EXCH02

-------

I will be looking to fail this site over, changing DNS records to point what I need to the servers in Site B.

My question is:

Do I simply need to add the 2 servers in Site B, into the same CAS array and edit the Site location of the Client Access Array when I swap over?
The DAG is stretched between the 2 sites, so only 1 site will be operable at one time. (which is fine).

Out of curiosity too, is there a way of creating an Active/Active site going forward, so we can utilize the servers better?

I'm thinking: I would need to create additional databases and split up the mailboxes into different databases and split these across Mailbox Servers. Assign the mailbox servers to a specific CAS array and set up autodiscover on these servers to point to the CAS NLB in Site B?

Thanks,
Mark

Neil Russell

Exchange 2010 has a whole new aproach to DR compared to previous versions. I would suguest you start by FULLY reading and understanding the following.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638137.aspx

MarkMichael

ASKER

Sorry, but I don't post here to be pointed to articles. :)

I have set up the rest of the DAG for site resilience. I'm simply looking for help with the CAS array and answers to my questions above.

Thanks.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Ajay Sharma

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PowerToTheUsers

What do you use to create the CAS Array? A hardware loadbalancer? Windows NLB (Network Load balancing)? DNS Round Robin?
The way you are "clustering" the CAS-servers in one location now will have impact on how you can move the client access to the other location...

MarkMichael

ASKER

I have
2 CAS servers in SiteA
They are using mail.domain.local as their ClientAccessArray

I assume I will add the 2 CAS servers in SiteB into membership of the mail.domain.local ClientAccessArray and set the Site name to SiteB.
Possibly removing the SiteA members from the CAS Array once we have failed over?
Am I able to edit the current config of the cas array, or will i need to delete and re-create it?

I am using a Windows NLB on the CAS servers.
I have TMG for Reverse proxying Servers from the Internet. The A record for these will be changed on public DNS servers which we host for our site. TTL is set to 20 seconds too.

Thanks for the help!