Can unity fail over to a redundant exchange server?

[mattcalderon]

This is my question. I have searched both netpro and cisco.com to find some sort of black and white answer. I am running unity 4.2 with Exchange 2K3 on the back end and we are wondering if you can set up some type of dual partnership or fail-over between 2 exchange servers. Similar to fail over for unity, but if unity sees our message store go down, can we dynamically roll over to another mailstore? I have seen posts relating to a cluster solution on the exchange side. If you run the message store wizard you can only specify mail store and exchange server. What I am looking for is if our primary mail store goes down via network, power, etc..., can we dynamically roll over to a backup?

I have also seen posts and design guides regarding the subscribers that can span across multiple exchange servers. This is not what I am looking for. I am looking for the same thing that unity fail over provides, but on the exchange side.

Any help would be much appreicated!

[Tommer Catlin]

This is more of a microsoft solution for Exchange. If you want to have a more redundant solution for Exchange, you will need cluster Exchange or purchase a third party tool that will manage "failover" for Exchange. If you cluster Exchange, it will create x amount of servers to look like one server to the clients and connecting servers, such as unity.

Not that this site is the end all sites or answers you are looking for, gives you a little more of an idea.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1433614&page=12

hope this helps.

[mattcalderon]

This is kind of what i was thinking was the case, i just really could not get a definitive answer. So in the end when you run the message store wiz, you just point it to the Xchange cluster?

[Tommer Catlin]

Correct, the cluster will look like one information store. You may have 10 servers, but one store with multiple databases. (engineering, marketing, etc) These databases can be on a shared storage device or separate storage devices from Exchange. (creates even more of a safety net, if one storage device goes out, the entire exchange store is not offline, only that group is)

Another way to look at it, if you cant Cluster, someone mentioned this someplace is, is to have multiple Exchange servers. If you have 1000 subscribers, split the subscribers between Exchange servers/stores. If one server goes down, you are not completely out, only 50 percent of the company is down.

Just keep in mind the rules of Unity and Exchange being co-located.

cheers!