EV Archiving Exch 2010 DAG + system mailboxes

[KeirL]

Hi all

So this question has been asked mant time before so forgive me for asking for more clarification.

So I have a 8 node dag with 4 active servers on the primary site and 4 passive nodes on the DR site. Each active node hosts 4 databases and so I have 16 active databases on the primary site. Each passive node has a passive copy of each of the active databases (so that 64 passive databases on the DR site). Each active node also has a passive copy of other active node's databases.

My understanding is that each mailbox server needs a mailbox archiving task and I'd need to failover active databases to achieve this - once done I can fail the databases back to the BAU location.

My question is around the system mailboxes and how many I will need? is it one per active database = 16? or one per active mailbox server = 4?

I will have 4 x EV servers each one archiving one of the 4 mailbox servers at the primary site and I plan to configure each EV server to archive one of the passive servers on the DR site (should a database failover).

So I create a system mailbox on an active database on the primary site mailbox servers and create the archiving tasks - I then fail this database over to the DR site and create the archiving task for that server. What happens if a database fails obver that doesn't contain the system mailbox? so I now have an active database on one of the DR mailbox servers but no system mailbox for the archiving task to use.

Cheers

KL

[GabeV]

Hi KeirL,

You would need a system mailbox per mailbox server, since the archiving tasks are created per mailbox server, not per Exchange database. If you have a DAG failover from one server to another, the archiving tasks would detect the failover and the targets would be removed and added from one archiving task to another.

Let's say that you have a DAG failover from Exch1 to Exch2. During the failover, if the archiving task for Exch2 runs, the Exchange DBs from Exch1 would be active in Exch2 and the archiving task for Exch2 would archive the mailboxes in all the active databases (Exch1 and Exch2).

At that moment, the system mailbox for Exch2 would be still located in Exch2 since it would be the archiving task for Exch2. In the Enterprise Vault server where you have the archiving task for Exch1, it wouldn't be any targets under the task and the task would fail to connect to the Exchange server due to the failover.

Once Exch1 is back online, the tasks will update the targets and the system mailbox for Exch1 would be back in the original server.

I hope this helps to clarify the process.

[KeirL]

Hi Gabe

Thanks for trying to help me :o)

So to simplify things further can I reduce the scenario a bit - just a single site.

I have a two node DAG with two databases (db1 & db2) on Exch1 both active and two passive copies on my other node Exch2.

I have two EV mailbox archiving servers (EV1 & EV2) one will archive Exch1 and the other will archive Exch2 (should anything failover)

I create a system mailbox on Exch1 which resides in db1 which then allows me to create an archiving task on EV1. I failover db1 to Exch2 and create a task using the same system mailbox name as I did with Exch1 but this time on EV2 - is that right?

I fail db1 back to Exch1 and continue to archive both db1 and db2 databes to EV1

I then failover db2 to Exch2 (system mailbox is still on Exch1 which is being archived by EV1) what happens to db2? is it archived by EV2 or EV1

again - thanks for your time (and patience)

[GabeV]

In that case, it will be archived by EV2 since Exch2 has the active DB for db2, but you will get a warning in the event viewer in EV2 stating that the system mailbox is on Exch1 and it could a performance issue since the task needs to authenticate to Exch1 in order to access Exch2.

[KeirL]

Ok - that makes sense

Is that generally the acceptable way to do things? I guess so long as a warning is given the exchange administrator can take action if necessary.

I also assume it's ok for both EV1 and EV2 to be using the same system mailbox to run their archiving tasks

An alternative I suppose to to create a seperate system mailbox across all active and passive exchange servers on databases (perhaps dedicated) that can't failover to other nodes and so will always be local to the Exchange server?

cheers

[GabeV · Accepted solution]

Yes. that's correct. The system mailbox should be local to the Exchange server. However, if the system mailbox is located in one server but the task is targeting another one, it wouldn't be an issue for the archiving process.

[KeirL]

Thanks Gabe

I think I get it now

Cheers

[GabeV]

Glad to help !!