Proper way to shutdown entire VCS service for IT DOWN TIME

[JSzeto]

As titled.

In our environment, there are only 3 exchange servers (2 production servers, 1 standby server).

Should I shutdown the standby server first, then the 2 production servers without the needs of touching the VCS console?

And also the proper way to start up all 3 exchange servers and VCS services?

THANKS!

[mikebounds · Accepted solution]

Shutting down  the standby server first, then the 2 production servers will work, but I think it best to offline Exchange service groups in VCS first so that you know they have shutdown cleanly, then shutdown nodes in any order.

It doesn't matter what order you start VCS nodes as the cluster won't start until the last node comes up.

Mike

[Wally_Heim]

Hi JackySzeto,

What is being done during the downtime?  The servers will need to be started up or rebooted serveral times during the downtime then you might want to set the HAD service to manual on the nodes so that the cluster does not start up while performing maintenance.

When done set the service back to Automatic and either start the service or reboot the server.

Thanks,

Wally

[JSzeto]

It will be a one time reboot process for all 3 servers so I guess I will shutdown the standyby one, then the 2 productions and see how it goes.

Will post update later