Re: Planning Exchange 2003 front-end cluster

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
>
>

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