Re: Planning Exchange 2003 front-end cluster

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From: Rodney R. Fournier [MVP] (rod_at_die.spam.die.nw-america.com)
Date: 10/26/04 

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:27:06 -0500

answers inline below...

Cheers,

Rod

MVP - Windows Server - Clustering
http://www.nw-america.com - Clustering
http://msmvps.com/clustering - Blog

"Boris Lokhvitsky" <msexpert@community.nospam> wrote in message
news:eTtv815uEHA.272@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Hello All,
>
> I would like to get some feedback from folks having had a real world
> experience with the clustered front-end / back-end Exchange
> implementation.
> I am planning to build a front-end Exchange 2003 SP1 NLB cluster talking
> to
> a back-end MSCS cluster. Hardware for the front-ends is Dell 2650 with 2
> GigE NICs on each server.

We are doing this at my day job. Though we use hardware load balancers.
Works great.

>Which NLB scenario is better for Exchange
> front-end? Should I use NLB with two adapters scenario?

I always try to use 2 NICs if I can.
The real questions are:
is the current network,
can you add a network,
do you need to reconfigure a router,
will the routers guys like how NLB works?

> Unicast or multicast
> mode is better in this case?

Again I like multicast. Keep the traffic segragated.

>Should the NICs on the same server belong to
> different IP subnets? (I couldn't figure which NIC will host the heartbeat
> communications)

Yes, the NICs are public for the Internet and NLB, and private for the lan
access and admin.

>Should I configure default gateway for both of them
> (typically you don't do that, but this case might be specific)?

No, just on the public.

> Furthermore, how will the Exchange communications take place?

Exchange will take on the private side.

>As I
> understand, both servers will appear in Exchange organization as separate
> servers. Should I configure something (virtual servers?) to make back-ends
> think that there is just one front-end, or the back-end communications do
> not use clustering feature and talk to each front-end node separately?
>

Yes, they are virtual servers in a group.

> The existing MS documentation describes pretty well NLB feature itself and
> Exchange front-end / back-end topology itself, but is very blurry in the
> area of getting them together.
>
> Thanks a lot in advance for advices and links,
> Boris
>
>

Relevant Pages

  • Re: NLB with Catalyst switches
    ... be able to stop the flooding issue on the switch so I will have to isolate ... it to a separate VLAN and place my NLB TS servers in it. ... >> performance I should use 2 NICs. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)
  • Re: Load Balanced TS Servers and Unicast Flooding
    ... Remove each on of your tse servers from the cluster, ... Start adding them back to the NLB Cluster. ... > NICs. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services)
  • Re: Load Balancing
    ... I think you are using NLB. ... groups that are assigned specific primary and secondary servers. ... Virtual IP for the cluster on one NIC and Public IP on the other NIC. ... > Or am I looking at this completely backwards....Do I need two NICS in all ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services)
  • NLB issues
    ... I have 2 Win2k3 Enterprise servers in a cluster. ... Both servers have 2 NICs, one admin and one NLB. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)
  • Re: 2 Node Network Load Balance - Duplicate NetBIOS Name
    ... This is a NetBIOS error. ... NLB is made for web applications, TS, ... MVP - Windows Server - Clustering ... Both servers have Data replication setup to an identical share on the ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)