Exchange 2003 A/A to A/P migrations - gotchas ??

[thepl4yer]

I was wondering if anyone might be able to point out any gotchas or advice on the current scenario. Basically I am intending moving my Exchange organisation from one set of (old) servers to a new set and in doing so changing the config from Active/Active to Active/Passive clustering, leaving front-end servers as they are.

My intended approach would be to build a new exchange cluster. Join this into the exisiting organisation and migrate mailboxes from each of the 2 virtual servers to a new virtual server using the move mailbox wizard. Once this is complete, reconfigure connectors and remove the other 2 servers. Is there anything I need to be weary of ?


Thanks

 

[xmsre]

Seems rather complicated.

From your current design, what was the intent of A/A clustering? Many times it's to spread the IO load. I'd run perfmon to see if you're pushing it before beginning. Look at physical disk sec/transfer. For your log volumes you want under 10ms response times; for the databases, sub 40ms response times. On the network interfaces, you want to look at utilization also. In addition look at CPU utilization.

Depending on the outcome, you may want to go A/A/P in a three node cluster.


In any event, the simplist approach would be to add a node to the cluster. At this point, move group one of the vitrual servers over to the new node. Now, movemailbox from the remaining virtual server to the virtual server residing on the new node. Move any remaining groups to the new node. Check your connectors, reconfigure if necessary. Remove the now unused virtual server. Evict the original two nodes from the cluster. Add a new second node to the cluster.

 

[thepl4yer]

Well.... in addition to the replacing of the servers, the shared storage is also being replaced (i.e. moving from a shared enclosure to a SAN). I did consider the approach that you mention above, although I though that with the added problem of moving the all of the data/quorum as well it would be easier to start with a fresh cluster and just move the mailboxes. Does this make sense - or is there an easier way using a derivative of the method above. I can't comment on the reasons behind the A/A as it is before my time, but it is only 3000 users and the new hardware should handle this fine.

 

[thepl4yer]

I'm just wondering - do I need to also need to move RUS, Offline Address, Routing group master etc - how will this work in an A/A environment ?