RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange Routing

[Mulnick, Al]

Yep, and if not, why an entire Exchange server?  That would mean you'll move DNS, DC, GC, etc to go with it, which is not a lot of fun. If you're ISP won't do that for you, you'll want to investigate just standing up a 2K3 (or 2K) SMTP server for the interim.    Be aware that MX records are cached along with the rest of the DNS records.  You'll want to work inside of those TTL's to make sure that records are up to date for sending MTA's and at least verify that routing does what you want it to do.   -ajm     From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael B. Smith Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 3:00 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange Routing You don't need to move an Exchange server you just need to have some company act as a secondary MX (store and forward mail services) for the domain of interest.   PROBABLY your bandwidth provider will do this for you, for free. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dan DeStefano Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 2:27 PM To: ActiveDir@mail.activedir.org Subject: [ActiveDir] Exchange Routing I have a question about Exchange routing.   We have 2 Exchange 2000 servers at our main site, one that holds all the mailboxes and the other currently holds just a few mailboxes that aren’t being used, but the server is up and working. Both servers are in the same routing and administrative groups. Both servers are in the data center of our main site.   The problem is that this weekend, the power will be turned off in our building and our network will be unavailable as will user’s mailboxes. We currently have no offsite data replication or Exchange DR strategy (though it’s not for lack of trying/nagging by our department to upper management).   So, as a temporary solution, our current plan is to move the second Ex server to one of our colo sites and add a lower-priority MX record for it to our public DNS zone. The thinking is that messages sent to our domain will be sent to the second server at the colo, and this server will cache all the messages until the main server is back up and mail can be delivered to it. And, since the mail was received, no senders should receive NDRs. Then, on Monday, when the power is back, all messages will be delivered to the main server.   Is this plan going to work? If so, how long will the messages be cached by the second server? How many messages will it cache (until it fills the drive)? Are these options configurable? Does anyone see any gotchas or things to consider?   Thank you very much. I am a novice when it comes to Exchange, but trying to change that by studying my MSPress 70-284 text. Besides, I usually do not like to make any major changes to our mail/AD infrastructure without consulting you guys first.   _________________________   Daniel DeStefano