Any guides out there for Exchange 2010 stretch (geo) cluster?

[wasc]

We have two offices, and I'm looking into the possibility of setting up an Exchange 2010 stretch cluster i.e. servers in both offices.

There's plenty of documentation for doing this in Exchange 2007, but not Exchange 2010 - anyone have any idea where I might be able to find some, or has anyone done this before?

 

[wasc]

That concept has gone in Ex2010, which is why there is no documentation. Have a look for DAG (Database Availability Group). It is much simplier and easier to do what you want.

Ah thanks - will take a look. I have seen mentioned that you can achieve a multi-site cluster now with just two servers (i.e. Site A has one server with the CAS, Hub Transport and Mailbox roles on it, and Site B also has one server with CAS, Hub Transport and Mailbox).

I was hoping to get some examples for setting this type of config up since I do have some queries namely;

a) Where do I put the witness server in the above 2 server only scenario - site A, site B or even a third site (site C)?

b) Also, do you know if outlook clients in site A will use the servers in site A and Outlook clients in site B will use the exch server in site B?

 

[wasc]

Been looking into this for a while now and am looking at doing the same thing.

With DAGs you can have the active Mailbox DB for that site on it's local server and likewise for the other site, if the DB becomes corrupt or disk failure leaves it out of action then the passive one will take over at the remote site. This is assuming that you are going to have a separate DB for each site which is what I have decided to do.

As far as the CAS goes you would probably be looking to implement that as a separate server (virtual?) with one at each site but in an Array so that there is a single IP address etc for people to go to. I'm not sure if you can set the array up so that local traffic goes to the local CAS or not.. The rest of the roles can be combined meaning 2 servers at each site.

Can't help with the quorum stuff as I'm pretty new to this myself and would be very interested in any progress you make.

Thanks for the above - glad to see someone else trying it as well.

I'm not sure whether I'll go for just two servers (one in each site with all 3 roles on), or 4 servers (one mailbox in each site and one hubtransport + cas in each site) or even another combination still.

What you mentioned about DAGS is perfect - one DB for each site, passive copy at the other site. Sorts out my fears of people using the non-local copy of the DB except in a failure scenario.

 

[wasc]

So if I had a main site and a secondary site, I could have EX2010 installed at both, serving two departments of users and should either fail, they will auto failover to the other site?

Yep - that does indeed seem to be the case so i'm sure i'm not the only one interested in this