Cluster Partition Size in Exchange

Exchange Clustering Consulting Services

In support, it's become very common to see servers sized with "400gb of storage" (designing primarily for required capacity), for instance, rather than with "6 spindles" (designing primarily for required performance). It seems like this is becoming even more common as Exchange design engineers work with their company's storage people to get space carved on the SAN. Oftentimes the Exchange people and the storage people aren't both aware of the needs of Exchange storage, and so design mistakes are made early in the process.

For the latest information about Cluster Partition Size in Exchange

 

Hardware Requirements for Exchange Clustering

The hardware requirements in Windows Exchange 2003 are slightly different from Windows Exchange 5.5. For Windows Server 2003, we have the new Windows Catalog online, which you can look at to verify that your hardware is on the Hardware Compatibility List. It's very important to note that the cluster Hardware Compatibility List is completely different than for stand-alone servers. You can't just take separate pieces of equipment and put them together and call them a cluster, and consider it on the HCL. Even if all the individual pieces are on the HCL, the entire solution must be certified in order to be on the cluster HCL.

We also need to have the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator or DTC installed on each cluster node, and you also get a cluster resource for that. This is due to workflow dependencies within Exchange.

  

For the latest information about Hardware Requirements for Exchange Clustering
 

 

Exchange Clustering Summary

In Exchange 2003 setup, we no longer create the POP3 and IMAP4 resources by default. This was part of our emphasis on security in Exchange 2003. But if you are doing an upgrade from Exchange 2000, these protocols will remain in place, and you can remove them later if you're not using them. If you're doing a fresh install, these protocols will not be created. Article 818480 will give you the steps you must use to create the resources in the cluster if you add those to your Exchange Server cluster.

Keeping on with the security changes in Exchange Server 2003 (slide 12), the Cluster service account no longer needs Exchange full administrator rights in order to install Exchange. Any user in Windows 2000 with Cluster service accounts could have potentially destroyed your Exchange 2000 environment, because they could have deleted the System Attendant resource out of the Cluster Administrator. The Cluster service account needed to be delegated full admin rights. This is separated now with Exchange 2003, so that a regular user that has Exchange full admin rights does not need Cluster service account rights; everything is run under the context of their security principle.

 

For the latest information about Exchange Clustering Summary

 

 

 

Cluster Partition Size in Exchange Windows Server | Exchange Server | Clustering Windows | Exchange Server | Exchange Security | Clustering SQL | Clustering Veritas | Clustering Linux | Clustering Server | Clustering Exchange | Clustering Computing | Clustering Documents |