[THIN] Re: OT: Exchange upgrade
- From: "Henry Sieff" <hsieff@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2005 10:13:23 -0500
1) IMF consists of two filters - one runs on the smtp virtual server and
screens mail as it comes in. The actions for this filter are delete, archive,
allow. The second one acts on the mailbox itself; its actions are to move email
into a junk mal folder. If you cluster the mailbox server, you could do a
front-end server as part of your site and run the smtp component on that, to
get some of the benefit of imf.
Clustering exchange has pro's and con's; with todays redundant hot swappable
everything servers, though, clustering really only protects you against a
catastrophic mobo or physical problem which takes down the whole chassis. I
don't remember the last time something like that actually happened to one of my
servers - its always power supplies, nic's, ram, hdd - things which can now be
made redundant and hot swappable. So, the tradeoff may not be as worth it in
the exchange arena.
You will need enterprise 2k3 for clustering support. That and the ablity to
have multiple storage groups and databases is worth the extra costs imo.
2) This would work, and yes, standard edition supports multiple servers with
one as bridgehead. You can also do front-end/back-end using one front-end
server that acts as proxy for say two backend mailbox servers.
3) this would work also
We moved from 5.5 straight to e2k3. My recommendation is to go
front-end/back-end, using enterprise, highly redundant hardware on the back-end
and screw the clustering. The front-end/back-end allows you to offload alot of
the owa work off the mailbox, plus you get smoother deployment of rpc-http if
you are interested in that. Alternatively, do the fron-end back-end but with
clustering (you can use standard for the front-end, since it doesn't host
mailboxes) on the back-end, to give you some imf capabilities.
So, whether you do clustering or not depends on whether the risk of failure on
the sort of hardware you can deploy and he downtime which would result while
you restored to a standby is tolerable or not. FWIW, some very sharp exchange
guru's (Crowley, e.g.) have decided its not worth the features you lose in
exchange. YMMV.
Henry
________________________________
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Matthew Shrewsbury
Sent: Fri 7/8/2005 3:24 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] OT: Exchange upgrade
I'm considering my exchange upgrade options. I currently running Exchange 2000
(I own Exchange 2003 Standard). I am expecting to hit my 16GB limit in 1st
quarter next year so I am trying to plan an upgrade to deal with that. The
current server is a little old and needs upgrading ideally too. My users are
currently less then 90 but expect to double by next year.
Options:
1) Exchange cluster
Ideally I'd like a lot more redundancy in Exchange as it is so
mission critical. So a cluster might be justifiable.
I can only cluster Exchange 2003 Enterprise?
IMF won't work on a cluster so that is a disadvantage
2) Add a second Exchange server and move some mail boxes to the new server
(keep each database below 16GB)
Can you add a second Exchange 2003 Standard edition in the same
site and use one as a bridgehead for all incoming emails?
3) Upgrade to a single server with Exchange 2003 Enterprise
Any suggestions or answers to my Exchange questions would be most helpful.
Thanks!!
Matthew Shrewsbury, MCSE+Internet MCSE 2000 CCA Server+
Senior Network Administrator
Other related posts:
