Cluster Help

Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for Exchange 2007 SP1

Have I said how much I love the Exchange team lately? These guys/gals are awesome!

So, today, I see the blog about SP1 for Exchange Server 2007 and just had to read it. There is some really nice stuff coming out as part of SP1 that you will probably want to read for yourself on the Exchange team blog. However, let me make it clear: just because it is part of the plan at this time does not mean it will ever be implemented. Plans change.

The one planned feature of SP1 that really jumped out at me is SCR. I had a wow moment.

Basically, instead of using LCR to replicate the database to a local hard drive in the Exchange Server 2007 server, SCR let's the copy of the storage group take place on a remote Exchange Server 2007 server. In the event the production server fails, then the copy generated by SCR can be mounted and run.

Questions of mine regarding SCR include:

1. Is this just a matter of mounting the store on the remote Exchange server using the database portability capability in 2007?
2. Will the transport dumpster be used to make sure that the SCR copy can be brought as current as possible to prevent data loss?
3. Is this enough to bring the masses to Exchange Server 2007?

Personally, I think this is HUGE! Remote site recovery is something every large business wants for its critical data such as email.

Fibre Channel Information Tool (fcinfo)

Released on Monday, Feb 19, 2007, this tool can be run from Windows Server 2003 or Windows 2000 to enumerate disks and configuration information for attached SANs.

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=73d7b879-55b2-4629-8734-b0698096d3b1&displaylang=en&tm

Best Practices Analyzer for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and the 2007 Microsoft Office System

Version 1.0 released yesterday. For you SharePoint guys out there, this should be a fantastic new tool for the arsenal. Download and enjoy:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cb944b27-9d6b-4a1f-b3e1-778efda07df8&displaylang=en&tm

Cluster Prep

YES! It is finally released to the public. The Microsoft Cluster Configuration Wizard released today to production.

Clusprep (Clus Prep), as it is known with affection, can be used to test the configuration before configuring for clustering. The tool can be installed on either node or another computer altogether. It should be installed on a 32 bit server, however, even then it can still inventory and test the configuration of both 32 bit and64 bit systems. Clusprep tests the hardware configuration and evaluates the OS, patches, and hot fixes.

While clusprep is not 100% fool proof, if the potential nodes all pass through the tool properly, you can be pretty confident that clustering will configure without any issues.

Good luck everyone!