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Installing An Exchange Server 2013 Database Availability Group
Installing An Exchange Server 2013 Database Availability Group
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The first article in this series on Exchange Server 2013 Database Availability Groupsprovided an
overview of Exchange 2013 DAG concepts.
In this article well go through the installation of a simple Exchange 2013 DAG with two
members. The DAG will have a MAPI network as well as one replication network. The file share
witness will be another member server in the domain that has no Exchange 2013 server roles
installed.
if you plan to use Network Load Balancing for Client Access server high availability
(NLB is not supported to co-exist with the Failover Clustering that DAGs leverage)
if you have any reason to believe you might later remove the Client Access server role
(removal of a single server role is not possible in Exchange Server 2013)
Exchange Server 2013 can run on both Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012.
However, due to the dependency on Failover Clustering you should note the following
requirements:
Install the appropriate pre-requisites for Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server
2012
Install Exchange Server 2013 on the servers
In my example scenario I have two servers E15MB1 and E15MB2 both running Windows Server
2012. Each server is installed with both the Client Access and Mailbox server roles. A third
server E15FSW exists for the file share witness.
Note: thanks to the concept of incremental deployment a DAG can be created using existing
mailbox servers that are already in production with active mailboxes on them. There is no hard
requirement to build brand new mailbox servers to be able to deploy a DAG.
The file share witness also requires the File Server feature installed.
PS C:\> Add-WindowsFeature FS-FileServer
And you should verify that File and Printer Sharing is allowed through the firewall.
If the file share witness is another Exchange server, such as a Client Access server, it already has
the correct permissions configured.
For more information see:
Dedicated replication networks are not a requirement for Database Availability Groups, however
if you do choose to deploy one or more replication networks you must ensure that DNS
registration is disabled the network interfaces connected to those networks.
The replication interfaces are also not configured with a default gateway. In the case where
replication interfaces for the same replication network are on separate IP subnets, static routes
are configured. However in this example that is not required.
The configuration of the network interfaces is important for DAG network auto-config to be
successful. For more information see Misconfigured Subnets Appear in Exchange Server 2013
DAG Network.
In my example the server E15MB1 and E15MB2 had databases that were automatically created
during Exchange 2013 setup. To prepare for database replication within the DAG I performed the
following tasks:
Those steps may not be required in your environment depending on your existing databases.
Next, grant the computer account for the first DAG member Full Control permissions for the
CNO computer account. Note that you may need to click the View menu in AD Users &
Computers and enable Advanced Features before you can see the Security tab for the computer
object.
The other method for creating the CNO is to use Michel de Rooijs Cluster Name Object PreStaging script.
Enter the following details for the new Database Availability Group:
DAG name this should match the CNO you pre-staged earlier
Witness server this is required for all DAGs, even those that have an odd number of
members and hence run in node majority quorum mode
Witness directory this is optional. If you do not specify a directory Exchange will
choose one for you.
IP address the DAG requires an IP address on each IP subnet that is part of the MAPI
network. If you do not specify IP addresses the DAG will use DHCP instead.
Click Save when you have entered all of the required details.
Add the servers that you wish to join the DAG and then click Save. This process will install and
configure the Failover Clustering feature of Windows Server 2012 and add the new DAG
members to the cluster.
Note: if youre using a non-Exchange server for the file share witness, and you have correctly
configured the permissions on the FSW, you will still see a warning at this stage that the
Exchange Trusted Subsystem is not a member of the local administrators group on the FSW. This
is a bug that can be disregarded.
When the operation is complete the Database Availability Group will display the members you
added.
In the next part of this series we will look at configuring the database copies in the DAG.
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