Hi All,
Our environment got 2 Exchange 2010 SP1 servers all roles running in a DAG on two different sites. They are virtual machines.
We want to add a new physical exchange server and make it acts as primary for one site which has more users. Current VM machine on the same site will be standby for passive database:
Current configuration
Site A Site B
Exchange1 (Current): MB01(Active), MB02(Passive) MB01(Passive), MB02(Active)
Planning Configuration:
Site A Site B
Exchange1 (Current): MB01(Passive), MB02(Passive) MB02(Active)
Exchange2 (Adding): MB01 (Active)
What is the best approach for this task? I have something in my mind as following:
- Upgrade both current exchange servers to SP2 latest rollup (From what I read, Exchange SP2 Roll up 3 will automatically redirect outlook client to what server holding active mailbox. Is that right? Our Outlook client is mixed 2003 and 2010)
- Add new server --> set up fail-over cluster --> add to DAG. Sync mailbox MB01 to new server then make it active
Is above approach good?
How can I create fail-over network configuration as above plan?
How easy we could make new physical server become Exchange1 and rename current one to Exchange2 to make it look nice (Exchange1 is active and all user connect to it, Exchange2 is passive)? Can I setup a new Virtual Machine Exchange2 with SP2, migrate all
roles to this and decommission the Exchange1 virtual. After that setup physical server as Exchange1? By doing this, we got 2 fresh exchange servers which better to go for 2013 version later on.
Thanks all.