I wrote a post earlier, but I have scrapped that design, so I am starting a new thread.
I am working on a project to upgrade our existing Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010. Prior to me hiring on at this new company, my managers purchased their licenses for Exchange 2010. They were purchased over a year ago, so I wont be able to get a refund. At my disposal I have 1xEnterprise Exchange 2010, 5xStandard Exchange 2010, and 600xStandard Cal's. Having done some extensive research, I regret to say I dont think I'll have a need for the Enterprise Exchange 2010 license.
Before I go in the specifics about how I want to lay things out, I need to explain the way mail routes through our network. For incoming mail it goes Barracuda Spam/Firewall to Symantec PGP server to Exchange environment. I didnt design the original network, but I will also state that we only have one MX record that points to the Barracuda. I realize this is a serious design flaw since if our internet connection goes down at the main site, emails will either be delayed or NDR'd. But thats something to look at in the future. For now, my focus is strictly on designing the Exchange 2010 environment.
The main thing I keep reading over and over again is if you want to do High Availability you really should design it that way from the beginning. Since I have all of these Exchange server licenses at my disposal, here is how I plan to set them up.
First I'm looking at buying 2 Kemp Technology load balancers (One active/One hot standby). I will then install 2 Exchange Standard servers and set up them up as a CAS array and hub transport.
Next I will install 2 more Exchange standard servers with the mailbox role, and set them up in a DAG. I havent decided how many databases I will use total, but for design sake, lets plan for 4 Private Stores databases in the Dag. I will also replicate the public folders to both, which will bring me to the 5 maximum databases for the standard license.
That leaves me one left over Standard Server and Enterprise server licenses.
Here are a couple of questions I have.
1) Does the above design look good to begin with?
2) I know that mailbox databases are tied to your cas server or cas array. Is the same true if your CAS server is used for OWA and OMA? The reason I ask, is would it make any sense to create one more CAS server for the OWA and OMA traffic?
3) I know people recommend RAID 10 for the mailbox database storage. Would it possibly make sense to use RAID 6?
4) We will be using 2 different mailbox quotas. One for regular employees, and one for management. I know they removed "Storage Groups" from exchange 2010. What is the best way to implement 2 storage quota's? I presume I would use separate databases for the two user types, but maybe there is something else I need to know.
As always, thank you all in advance for your advice.
I am working on a project to upgrade our existing Exchange 2003 environment to Exchange 2010. Prior to me hiring on at this new company, my managers purchased their licenses for Exchange 2010. They were purchased over a year ago, so I wont be able to get a refund. At my disposal I have 1xEnterprise Exchange 2010, 5xStandard Exchange 2010, and 600xStandard Cal's. Having done some extensive research, I regret to say I dont think I'll have a need for the Enterprise Exchange 2010 license.
Before I go in the specifics about how I want to lay things out, I need to explain the way mail routes through our network. For incoming mail it goes Barracuda Spam/Firewall to Symantec PGP server to Exchange environment. I didnt design the original network, but I will also state that we only have one MX record that points to the Barracuda. I realize this is a serious design flaw since if our internet connection goes down at the main site, emails will either be delayed or NDR'd. But thats something to look at in the future. For now, my focus is strictly on designing the Exchange 2010 environment.
The main thing I keep reading over and over again is if you want to do High Availability you really should design it that way from the beginning. Since I have all of these Exchange server licenses at my disposal, here is how I plan to set them up.
First I'm looking at buying 2 Kemp Technology load balancers (One active/One hot standby). I will then install 2 Exchange Standard servers and set up them up as a CAS array and hub transport.
Next I will install 2 more Exchange standard servers with the mailbox role, and set them up in a DAG. I havent decided how many databases I will use total, but for design sake, lets plan for 4 Private Stores databases in the Dag. I will also replicate the public folders to both, which will bring me to the 5 maximum databases for the standard license.
That leaves me one left over Standard Server and Enterprise server licenses.
Here are a couple of questions I have.
1) Does the above design look good to begin with?
2) I know that mailbox databases are tied to your cas server or cas array. Is the same true if your CAS server is used for OWA and OMA? The reason I ask, is would it make any sense to create one more CAS server for the OWA and OMA traffic?
3) I know people recommend RAID 10 for the mailbox database storage. Would it possibly make sense to use RAID 6?
4) We will be using 2 different mailbox quotas. One for regular employees, and one for management. I know they removed "Storage Groups" from exchange 2010. What is the best way to implement 2 storage quota's? I presume I would use separate databases for the two user types, but maybe there is something else I need to know.
As always, thank you all in advance for your advice.
