A 2nd Exchange box

[Nzarth]

Hi

I have at the moment 2 Exchange boxes, which 1 of them is redundant as is not doing very much.

What I would like to do is to configure the 2nd machine as a backup to the 1st box (i.e. when the 1st box goes down the 2nd box kicks in ready to send/receive email).

I am not worried about data sharing as in like a cluster, just to prime the 2nd box to come online if the 1st goes down.

Can this be done and if so how do I go about it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jbud]

I think Exchange may be a little too much for what you're looking for. Specifically, you can't move mailboxes from the production Exchange server to the spare server, if the production server is offline.

I would also think that Exchange is not the most cost-effective SMTP relaying solution out there.

If you still want to use Exchange, it's easy to set it up as an outbound SMTP smart host or as a relay for bringing mail into your organization. In the latter case, the spare server could hold inbound mail in the event that the production server went offline. You would just need to point your incoming MX or smart host entries to the spare server.

As an outbound, the spare exchange server could help reduce the load on the production server, particularly if you're using DNS-based MX routing for outgoing mail on your production exchange server. You would likely need to create an SMTP connector to the outside world, and configure the spare server as the local bridgehead.

 

[Nzarth]

Thanks for the reply. Thats what was confusing me as a "senior techie" said it could be done. I just could not think how it could be as you have to move the mailboxes to the second machine- but how could you do that with the box down (apart from a restore from backup).

Thanks again.....

 

[jbud]

There is no supported way that I'm aware of, other than a complete restore to move mailboxes from the offline production box to a recovery server. One of the reasons for this is that much of the Exchange configuration is stored in AD. For completeness, here's a list of things that must be the same when recovering to a new server:

Same OS and Service Pack (including hotfixes).
Same Exchange Service Pack (including hotfixes).
Install Exchange w/ same Organization Name.
Install Exchange into the same Administative Group Name.
Must use the same Storage Group Name.
Must use the same Database Names.
Must use the same LegacyExchangeDN.

 

[Nzarth]

Again thanks for the reply. The proposed backup server has the same configuration as the new server as the mailboxes in the domain were split between the two, but I have moved them all onto the new server.

Restoring all the mailboxes to the old server could be a problem due to size of store. We just wanted a quick possible backup in case the new server went down.

Back to the drawing board

cheers

 

[jovoian]

Hello
I am writing this very late.. but figure someone might come accross it as I just did..

you can boot a dead system (if its OS related) with a winternals cd.. its a stripped down xp OS and ruuns on a cdrom.. has a few admin tools, and can map a drive so you could move mailboxes and or date for importing to the other server over the network..

 

[bigpapapump]

Where can I get that cd?