Exchange 2007 SP1 ET and HT: NLB or not?

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Jetze Mellema (MS MVP) - 30 Jan 2008 08:35 GMT

Hi,

I'm designing an environment with 2 Edge Transport servers and 2 Hub
Transport servers. The rest of the design consists of 2 CAS servers (NLB)
and CCR for the MB role.

To make the ET servers available I can choose for 2 MX-records and redirect
both to an ET server. So all the incomming mail will go to the first server,
unless it is not available and the second server will act as fall back
server. Or use NLB and put both servers behind a single MX record?

The same question about the Hub Transport server, use NLB or not? Why?

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Met vriendelijke groet,

Jetze Mellema (MS MVP)
Lees mijn blog: http://jetzemellema.blogspot.com/
Mijn hobby: http://www.mellema.net/homecomputers
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555375

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Leif Pedersen [ MVP] - 30 Jan 2008 22:13 GMT

Hi,

For high availability for the edge servers you create 2 MX records and point
each MX record to its own edge server.

HUB servers are load balanced automatically.

Leif

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> The same question about the Hub Transport server, use NLB or not? Why?

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Jetze Mellema (MS MVP) - 31 Jan 2008 08:52 GMT

Hi Leif,

> For high availability for the edge servers you create 2 MX records and
> point each MX record to its own edge server.

Thanks, I know that this is possible. But as I mentioned this is only a
fallback solution, no true load balancing. Because as long as the first
server can be reached, the second server will not receive any mail. So I was
wondering how you people do this, and why? Any pros or cons for NLB?

> HUB servers are load balanced automatically.

I understand. But since SP1 it's also possible to use NLB for HT servers.
Does anybody use that, why? Best practices?

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Oliver Moazzezi [MVP] - 31 Jan 2008 20:51 GMT

If you stager the priority on the MX records then it the second Edge will
only recieve mail when the Primary MX is not responding/down.

Oliver

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Andy David {MVP} - 14 Feb 2008 21:53 GMT

>If you stager the priority on the MX records then it the second Edge will
>only recieve mail when the Primary MX is not responding/down.

If anything, it will receive more mail the higher priority mx record.
Most of that will be spam.

>Oliver

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