Thanks Neil. Your blog post is very informative. I'll write back here if I have any further questions.
RS On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Neil Hobson <nhob...@gmail.com> wrote: > You might want to read an article I wrote that gives you the 30,000 foot > view of Exchange 2010 high availability here: > > > > > http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/exchange-2010-high-availability/ > > > > Be aware that the 2-server deployment will require a hardware load balancer > for the CAS role as you cannot use Windows NLB on the same servers that are > in a failover cluster. > > > > This link is excellent for understanding what features are present in the > various versions (including Windows Standard vs. Enterprise) > > > > http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/licensing.aspx > > > > *From:* Richard Stovall [mailto:rich...@gmail.com] > *Sent:* 01 February 2010 18:49 > *To:* MS-Exchange Admin Issues > *Subject:* 2003 to 2010 planning > > > > Good afternoon one and all, and please forgive the long post. > > > > I’m thinking about proposing the upgrade from Exchange 2003 to Exchange > 2010 this year. We're currently running a single monolithic server that has > (knock on wood) been extremely reliable for going on 5 years. We’ve got > ~100 mailboxes now, and I don’t see us ever growing past 200. The > information store is currently 110GB, and the perfmon-reported Single > Instance Ratio is pretty large at 22. We have ~10 remote users who use > Outlook Anywhere, ~10 PDA users, ~10 Mac (Entourage) users, and OWA is > available to most everyone. AD is a single domain forest, is at 2003 Domain > and Forest Functional Levels, and all DCs are 2003 SP2. We have a single > physical site, and only one site in AD. > > > > Before rolling out 2010, I intend to deploy an e-mail archiving solution of > some sort. My hope is that, in addition to the obvious retention and search > benefits this will provide, it will also take some of the pressure off of > Exchange 2010's storage requirements by allowing me to finally enforce > mailbox size restrictions without reducing the availability of older > messages. > > > > I've been poking around the interweb, looking for information that will > help me determine how to design and deploy Exchange 2010 in a manner > appropriate for our environment. The most promising thing I've come up with > is a simple statement on the Microsoft page that describes Exchange 2010 > Mailbox Resiliency ( > http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/Mailbox-Resiliency.aspx). It > says, " For smaller sites, you can deploy a simple two-server configuration > that provides full redundancy of mailbox data along with Client Access and > Hub Transport roles. These changes put high availability within the reach of > organizations that once considered it impractical." That sounds like > exactly like what I'm after - a simple-to-maintain, two server solution > where all the inside roles are redundant. > > > > Does this configuration sound appropriate for an organization of the size > and characteristics described above? Does anyone have any pointers to more > in-depth discussion of this two server configuration? (Is there a > particular name for this configuration?) > > > > Lastly, from what I can gather, this can be accomplished with Exchange > Server 2010 Standard and Standard CALs. For an organization the size of > ours, I don't think I need the added benefits of the Enterprise CAL at this > point. Message hygiene is handled by the Barracuda and Sunbelt's VPE > product, and I believe mailbox resiliency is available in the standard > server regardless of CAL type. > > > > Any thoughts or comments are most welcome. > > > > Thanks, > RS >