How to Set Up More Than One Exchange Server?

[RomualPiecyk]

Forgive my ignorance if this seems easy, but I am new to Exchange and don't know what to do!

My firm has one Exchange server, and one public MX record that points to my Exchange server.

My firm would now like to add 2 more exchange servers - one in Florida, and one in New Jersey (the current one is in NY).

How do I configure Exchange in my environment to do this? How does incoming mail to my firm know which server the recipient is on?

Any advice, tips, information will be highly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[RomualPiecyk]

Here are some additional questions I have to add to the above:

Given the scenario mentioned above, (office in Fla, office in NJ, office in NY), in between which are 1.5mb T1 connections, is my best bet to create 3 different routing groups - one for each office - and then connect them all?

2) I need to 2 additional servers to be able to send and receive internet mail as well as internal e-mail. Do I need a routing group connector for the internal e-mail, and an SMTP connector for internet e-mail?

3) Since my firm only has one MX record for the Exchange server in NY, do I need to make the server in NY a "bridgehead server" that all inbound and outbound internet e-mail will pass through?

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

 

[xyz1213]

hello

i have the same problem and can't figure it out either. does anyone else have a solution or article? thanks.

 

[SmokinRR]

To answer a couple of these questions, yes you will need a routing group for each 'site' with routing group connectors connecting the 3 sites. You will want to leave the primary MX record as is (provided you want that to be the primary server that mail travels through, which I would say yes to) and add 2 secondary MX records, 1 for each new exchange server. This will allow email to be delivered to a secondary server should the first one be down for some reason (failure or down for maintenance) If you want all your internet email to travel out through your existing server, you will add an SMTP connector for * domains in the 'Address Space' tab of the connector properties, as well as on the General tab, check the box that says 'Forward all mail through this connector to the following smart host: and in there you will put the name or IP of your primary Exchange server that you would like the email sent through. I have mine configured so that each of my exchange servers goes out to the internet on their own as I have them in different countries and the connection between is shaky to say the least, so if the connection is down between the two my primary is the only server that can send internet email. You could also setup a two smtp connectors with different costs (priorities) and have the primary go through the smart host and the second with a higher cost (lower priority) go directly to the internet using dns.

I hope I havent confused you too much, and please anyone correct me if I've said something in error here, this is from my experience one of the easiest ways to do this.

Jay