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Raptor
Asked: 2010-08-16 20:49:15 +0800 CST

Failover Cluster : Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

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The scenario is:

I got 2 identical 2U rack mount servers with Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise. They are :

  1. in same domain.
  2. both installed Exchange 2010 in Hyper-V
  3. both are domain controller

If I want to enable failover clustering for both Exchange 2010, ensure zero downtime. What are the steps? Thanks for advice.

hyper-v exchange-2010 windows-server-2008-r2 failovercluster

2 Answers

  1. If I understand you correctly, you have a pretty weird setup. A single Enterprise VM with Exchange and DC? Why not install separate VMs? You're licensed to do that (An enterprise license allows you to install 4 VMs provided your host machine is doing nothing more than HyperV and backup). Here's the setup I would recommend to you. It has the advantage of being highly available and shared nothing (meaning no single point of failure provided your network is redundant. Using Hyper V failover requires shared storage which becomes a single point of failure. A Hyper V cluster can only be as reliable as the SAN that holds the VHDs).

    • Install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Server Core on each server
    • Install Hyper V role on each server
    • Setup a VM on each machine as a DC (unless you already have other DCs. A preferred setup would have at least 1 physical DC). Make sure you disable time syncing on these DCs.
    • Setup a VM on each machine as Exchange servers.
    • Setup a Database Availability Group with these 2 Exchange servers
    • Enable database copies of each database on each server
    • Setup a CAS Array and assign it to each database
    • Get a hardware load balancer and create a DNS record pointing the CAS array name to the hardware load balancer

    I don't think there is such a thing as zero downtime. There is such a thing as high availability. This will give you high availability and if done right can feel to your users as if there is no downtime.

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  2. Best Answer

    If I want to enable failover clustering for both Exchange 2010, ensure zero downtime. What are the steps?

    RTFM.

    First, failover cluster DOES NOT GIVE ZERO DOWNTIME. Bad news, isn't it - happens because you did not read the documentation. Failover cluster will start exchange / a VM on another server if the first fails. It takes some time (seconds) to realize the original system is down, plus the time it takes for the system to start (larger for a VM), so while the time is small, IT IS NOT ZERO DOWNTIME.

    Second, Exchange can do that a lot better WITHOUT a failover cluster. Exchange has it's own cluster mechanisms that can work with multiple data copies... which means one less thing that can g o wrong (corrupt files in a node crash), so it is (a) superior to failover cluster and (b) faster in switching.

    So, I sgugest getting your requirements straight, and then using Exchange integrated mechanisms to ensure uptime.

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