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We have 2 Exchange 2003 Servers.

1 is the master and is currently hosting all the mailboxes and public stores. I would like to setup a standby exchange server that is replicating all the mailboxes and public stores from the primary exchange server.

This way if the primary goes down we can default to the standby.

I have searched all over for some guidance but have not been able to find anything detailing this for Exchange 2003.

Any help is much appreciated.

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2 Answers

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This isn't possible with Exchange Server 2003 without using a third party product such as Doubletake.

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Thanks for the info – Campo Apr 7 '10 at 16:44
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What you are looking to configure is an Active/Passive Exchange Cluster. The unfortunate part about this is that you need to configure the cluster and shared resources before installing Exchange. Resources here, here, and here.

Alternatively, you can look at a 3rd party solution to set up a failover system that doesn't use the shared disk system, and uses replication over a network link to a standby server or virtual machine. There are a lot of options out there right now that you can look at.

Edit: In addition to Doubletake, some options are Neverfail, or Replay.

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Time Machine anyone? – Campo Apr 7 '10 at 16:44
yeah... like I said. Unfortunate. – Holocryptic Apr 7 '10 at 16:48
Added some additional companies in my answer – Holocryptic Apr 7 '10 at 16:54
Clustering doesn't replicate the storage groups or mailbox stores, they're stored on a shared disk,right? Clustering clusters the front-end not the back-end, or am I wrong? – joeqwerty Apr 7 '10 at 17:21
The only kind of clustering for Exch 2003 is SCC Single Copy Cluster. You're right in that it doesn't replicate because it's on the same disk subsystem. That's why there was such a market for 3rd party backup solutions (which MSFT finally started to address with 07 and 10). While it's not "exactly" what he wanted to accomplish in how he worded his question, SCC does have the failover capability if his Active node goes down. And like you and I mentioned, the 3rd party options are there for more flexibility. – Holocryptic Apr 7 '10 at 17:45
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