Exchange Server 2007- What's New

Exchange Recovery Strategies Using Exchange 2007 and Double-Take for Windows Exchange Server 2007 represents a new platform for messaging, collaboration and communication from Microsoft. Interweaving with Microsoft Groove 2007, SharePoint 2007 and other products, this version of Exchange Server creates new opportunities for e-mail data protection and availability.

Download the Exchange 2007 positioning document to learn more.

To read a more in-depth overview of Double-Take for Exchange recovery, please click here.

Want to learn more about Exchange recovery? Below is an excerpt from the Double-Take white paper, Protecting Microsoft Exchange.

How to Ensure Exchange Recovery

Exchange systems can come in a variety of flavors and configurations to meet nearly every business need and budget. By far the most common system employed today is the Stand-Alone Exchange server (SAES). SAES systems are a single server running all components of the Exchange system on the same physical or virtual system. This means the server acts as a mail-transport system, routing system, SMTP server and gateway and mail and public folder database server. It may also provide spam filtering, anti-virus scanning or any other function related to Exchange.

Complexities of Exchange Recovery

The end result of this configuration is that you have a single server that must be protected - all your eggs are quite literally in one basket. Exchange recovery from Double-Take provides you with data replication of all key information for the Exchange system and any other systems running on the production server. In addition, the Double-Take Application Manager (DTAM) for Exchange can help you prepare a secondary server to take over in the event of a loss of the primary. DTAM for Exchange provides application-specific configuration, availability and management features and is a free toolkit available as part of Double-Take.

DTAM for Exchange will select the appropriate directories and volumes on your production machine which need to be protected, configure Double-Take replication, and configure the secondary server's Exchange configuration to match that of the production machine. It will also prepare the secondary server to execute the necessary commands to start Exchange services during an outage and allow failover to occur. During this configuration process, you can specify what network path the replication systems should use, if data should be compressed for transmission and if you wish to manually initiate the failover process ("one-click failover") or have it happen automatically after a timeout you define.

Exchange Recovery During Outages

In the event of an outage, DTAM will either automatically initiate a failover if the production server is unreachable for the amount of time you set, or alert you and wait for you to initiate the failover manually. Alerting for either type of failover scenario is available via SNMP, SMTP and the Windows Event Log, in addition to the native Double-Take management tools. Regardless of which failover methodology you choose, the procedure for restoring services for end-users is the same.

First, Double-Take's DNS Failover (DFO) component will update Active Directory DNS servers to re-route end-users to the recovery server. You may specify any and/or all DNS record types for update, depending on what systems you need re-directed. Double-Take Software Professional Services can also assist you with providing automated failover for customized DNS or Exchange deployments as well.

After DFO re-routes the end-users, the Double-Take Exchange Failover (EFO) component will dynamically re-assign all mailboxes and Public Folders from the failed server to the recovery server. This will allow end-users to regain access to their information the next time they attempt to connect to Exchange. Internal testing and real-world feedback has revealed that this failover process is very fast and creates a relatively small load on your existing DNS and Active Directory infrastructure - approximately 14,000 users can be moved to secondary server in around 7 minutes. In fact, while conservative failover estimates are suggested to be placed at 45 minutes for total failover, most Double-Take customers report being able to failover in less than 20 minutes - even when performing the failover across a WAN connection.

Finally, DTAM will prepare and start the appropriate Exchange and 3rd party services (anti-virus, mobile mail, archiving, etc) on the recovery server. This last step re-establishes a live Exchange server for your end-users to connect to. Outlook clients may need to be re-started, but no end-user configuration will be required. In addition, other components such as Outlook Web Access (OWA) and other e-mail integrated system will simply pick up where they left off.

To learn more about Exchange recovery and read the full white paper, please click here.

Is your Exchange recovery investment fully protected?

Exchange Recovery from Double-Take is an integral part of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan the keeps your business up and running without the fear and expense of downtime and:

• Ensures your data is available at any time, day or night, for immediate recovery or seamless failover, reducing potential downtime to minutes or even seconds
• Protects and recovers your Exchange environment from any type of outage, from a server failure to a regional disaster
• Enables complete protection in four easy steps and with automated discovery of servers and key files, automated configuration of replication and failover monitoring
• Provides up-to-the-second data protection with maximum performance and minimal use of your network and system resources.