Note on Exchange 2007 SCR
I just recently came upon this issue while editing some documentation and figured I should spread the word on what is needed when your SCR source is a clustered mailbox server.
Part of failing over to your SCR target environment when coming from a CMS (Clustered Mailbox Server) is executing the following command to move the cluster name:
setup.com /RecoverCMS /CMSName:EXCLUSTER /CMSIPAddress:172.16.1.1
Well, in order to do this you need to have at least a single node mailbox cluster in the SCR target environment. However, you also need HT & CAS roles in your SCR target environment – and you can’t install the HT/CAS roles on a clustered mailbox server.
So in order to be able to actually recover to your SCR target when your SCR source is a CMS you will need to have at least two physical boxes in your DR environment.
Box 1 = Single Node CMS & Box 2 = Combined HT/CAS
As always, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
EDIT: As a couple people have pointed out, you can failover a cluster to a standalone server but it is most definitely not the optimal solution. Per TechNet:
“If the SCR source is a clustered mailbox server, the optimal target configuration would be a standby cluster.”
…
“For example, if the SCR source is a clustered mailbox server and the SCR target is a standalone mailbox server instead of a standby cluster, the full server recovery process takes longer. The reason for this is that a standalone Mailbox server has its own Mailbox server identity which must first be removed (by uninstalling Exchange) so that Setup /RecoverCMS can be run.”
Categories: Misc
Tags: disaster recovery, Exchange Server
Comments: 1 Comment.
Ah yes I fondly remember doing this, and only half of it failing over correctly. Parts of Exchange thought it was in the Tukwila site, parts in Eastlake. The CMS came over as expected, but still detected one of the node names to be from the source, and one from the destination..
This was pre-SP1 though. :)
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