Exchange DAG network question..

ajf · 24 Jan 2011 at 20:42

Got three servers running on VMWare Server:
DC - Witness Server
2 X Exchange 2010 servers
Each Exchange server was setup in VMWare with two network cards. Both bridged.
One is 192.168.123.*
Other 10.10.2.* which was going to be replication
Subnet 255.255.255.0 on both

Seemed to create the DAG OK and the cluster services etc by going through various articles.
However it didn't create the second DAG network, only one for the 192 range which is the 'main' network.
I cannot get it to create the second network manually either. If I try and add a second DAG network I get:

Warning:
Subnet '10.10.2.0/24' isn't present in the database availability group. It will be added to the database availability group's networks, but it will have no effect until a corresponding subnet has been physically configured on a server in the database availability group.

Exchange Management Shell command completed:
New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork -DatabaseAvailabilityGroup 'DAG1' -Name 'replication' -Description '' -Subnets '{10.10.2.0/24,Unknown}' -ReplicationEnabled $true

Elapsed Time: 00:00:00

Now it could just be the subnet I am setting against the settings on the cards?
Other than that it is almost like the cards are not being seen, but I can ping between the two Exchange servers.

Thoughts?

Andrew
My head's sore and there's a big dent in the wall

Yamahahahahaha · 25 Jan 2011 at 14:38

Just to clarify, are you trying to create two separate DAGs?
Or do you want the server on the 10.10.2.* network to be using the DAG already created on the other site?

ajf · 25 Jan 2011 at 15:25

One DAG.
The way I understood it though from the articles is each server has to have two networks. One for MAPI and one for replication.
So I wanted the 192.* for MAPI as that it my main network and then the 10.* for replication.
This series of articles it what I was following:
http://www.msexchange.org/articles_...-database-availability-groups-dags-part1.html

ajf · 25 Jan 2011 at 15:28

Figure 8 in this articles explains better what I am looking at:
http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/exchange-2010-dag-creation-and-configuration,-part-2/

Yamahahahahaha · 26 Jan 2011 at 10:56

I've had a tinker but can't seem to recreate the issue you're having (following the steps on the provided links).

It looks like the software just isn't detecting the second network at all which is bizarre.
From Windows is there definitely ping connectivity between those hosts using the 10.10.2.0/24 network?

ajf · 26 Jan 2011 at 11:21

Yes, pinging is fine. I even changed to a different range and subnet mask.
I can only think it is because they are virtual cards on vmware server, but some of the articles use vmware.
Seems though that you can now use one network for replication and mapi so not as much of an issue as I thought but still odd.

ajf · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:05

Just thought I would update and say problem solved!

Whilst each virtual Exchange server had two networks cards added, they both used the same underlying VM Network.
I added a second VM Network and pointed the secondary cards to that. The DAG then straight away found the new network and added it. Manually changed the replication settings and now all seems to be as it should.

Probably a silly mistake but least it is solved!

Andrew