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bruce_77

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Exchange and AD servers

Hi

Running Exchange 2007 SP3 and Exchange 2010 SP1 environment.

If I go to the EMC > Mailbox Server > *Server* > System Settings

I can see a list of DC's and GC's that the Exchange server is using. Same for CAS and HUB servers.

I had some questions based on this:

i. I understand Exchange 'refreshes' which AD servers it uses every 15mins? Is this correct, or does it just carry out a search every 15mins for what is around and not necessarily change them?

ii. From what I've read, DC/GC's are either in-site or out-of-site. Exchange prefers to use in-site AD servers, but if there are non available, then it will use ANY out-of-site one, there is no method of working out the closest or most effective ones.

iii. Will Exchange choose out-of-site AD servers if the in-site ones are too busy, or do they actually have to be unreachable/down before Exch will consider going out-of-site?

iv. Going back to the System Settings view of which AD servers are being used, is it possible to get this via Exchange Management Shell?

v. Does anyone know a Powershell command that will pull a list of AD servers a particular Exchange server is using, and then run a dcdiag on them?
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Radweld
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If you run a powershell command with the FL option, like get-exchange server | fl then one of the reults is titled originating server, this is a DC that was queried for this data. Exchange will use in site GC and only use out of site GCs if the insite GCs fail to respond.

There is a command called get-adserversettings that will return the DC and GC information Exchange is using.
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e_aravind
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just an fyi , I had seen with Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2003 that they are weak finding another DC when a DC is having issues. I had an exchange 2003 DC which saw the 2003 AD domain controller was still pingable and it didn't switch to another DC until I pulled the nic cable. The DC was having hardware issues and windows was shutting down very slowly.

Another common mistake is that the Exchange server will be setup in a rush and only have a single DNS server in the tcpip properties.

Mark