Category: MMMUG

#MMMUG

If your in and round London remember to register and check out the latest MMMUG event..

The subject of this meeting is Exchange backup and recovery and we have Microsoft’s Anthony Tyler talking about System Centre Data Protection Manager’s take on backing up exchange and Kroll Ontrack’s offering for recovery.

http://www.mmmug.co.uk/4-18th_August_2010_-_Exchange_backup_and_recovery

Remember it starts at 1800 and a link to location is here:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=EC3R+5BS&rlz=1R2GGLL_en-GBGB365&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=London+EC3R+5BS&gl=uk&ei=WG1qTK_nJsel4QaE4tykAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ8gEwAA

Wow not many spare chairs, so this was an Exchange 2010 HA session with Ewan Tsang-MacKellar.

Session started with the HA options Exchange 2007 gave us.  Then Ewan introduced us to Exchange 2010 DAG’s (Database Availability Groups).

• DAG
  • Config information is stored in the AD and the Windows Failover cluster (yeah it’s still used). 
    • It uses the cluster database, heartbeats and the quorum for a failover cluster
  • The DAG is the boundary of replication and failover.
  • Each DAG contains a number of mailbox role servers.  You can have up to 16 servers per DAG and 100 databases.
  • DAGs use Log shipping to move data to other replicas of the database with  1mb Log files. 
    • Replay process similar to Exchange 2010. 
    • Now use TCP sockets NOT SMB for log shipping.
    • Push based log shipping.
    • Can choose the TCP port now too.
    • Supports encryption and compression
  • If a database fails, Exchange will determine the best copy to use.  The CAS will then reconnect outlook automatically.  Failover times are less than 30 seconds (which seem a bit more than Exchange 2007 CCR)
  • Can spread a DAG over Active Directory Sites ;-) Can make it like an SCR target in Exchange 2007.
  • Maximum number of passive copies = # servers in DAG –1 active
  • You can co-locate other roles on a mailbox server that is in a DAG.
  • Database names are unique across an forest
  • Still uses a FSW
  • Incremental Reseeding
  • Continuous Circular logging
• Active Manager
  • HA’s brain
  • Primary (holds changable state information of each database) and secondary
    • PAM
  • One server in DAG is selected
  • Secondary
    • SAM
    • Helps CAS find the active copy of the database
    • All other servers in DAG
  • On failure of a database will select best copy
    • Copy Status [Good]
    • Catalog (healthy of crawling) [Healthy]
    • Copy Queue length [<10)]
    • Replace queue length
  • If all are okay can you set a preference
• Backups
  • Uses VSS
  • Can backup active or passive copies or select a server to backup
  • Can use a database copy as a “backup”
    • 7 – 14 day lag copy

Transport HA

• Shadow Messaging (Redundancy)
  • Hub Transport keeps a copy of a message until it gets confirmation that the message was sent.
  • Uses MsgID to identify each message.  In the event of a failure there is a possibility for duplicate messages to be sent, but the two messages will share a MsgID and “most” email systems will notice this
  • Exchange 2010 keeps a table of MsgID’s for 7 days
  • Size of transport dumpster depends on the time stamp of the worst  log copied.

Other Stuff

• Autodiscover DNS TTL lower to 5 mins

Remember, if your free tomorrow night … http://blogs.flaphead.dns2go.com/archive/2009/05/11/mmmug-may-event-2009-introducing-exchange-2010.aspx

As you will no doubt have heard, Exchange 2010 was launched to the public on the 15^th of April. This of course means that there is now a huge amount of new features and functionality to learn. So, to help you get started MMMUG will be running a series of events over the next few months covering many of the key areas.

We start on Wednesday May 27^th with an overview of Exchange 2010. I will introduce things by taking a look at the future of email, Microsoft Style! Then Brett Johnson will dive deeper into a few of the key new areas.

To sign up for the event see the link below:
http://www.mmmug.co.uk/forums/thread/28030.aspx

This event will be held in London at the MSFT offices in Cardinal Place near Victoria.

This month we are going to spend the evening introducing Exchange 2010. We will start with an overview session and then dive a little deaper into some key features.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday 27th May. Directions to the venue can be found below.

The meeting will be a mixture of PowerPoint and Discussions so there will be plenty of time to run through your questions.

The agenda for the meeting will be as follows: (although I may tweak the timings slightly)

18:15 – 18:40            Arrival
18:40 – 18:45            Introduction to speakers and the aims of the group
18:45 – 19:30            1st session; Nathan Winters, The Future of Email, Microsoft Style!
19:30 – 19:50            Food!
19:50 – 20:45            2^nd session; Brett Johnson, Deep Dive into key Exchange 2010 features
20:45 – 21:00            Summing up and suggestions for future meetings.
21:00                        The End!