Microsoft^® Exchange

With the Exchange^® Server for Windows environments Microsoft delivers a groupware- and messaging system for every company size. The Microsoft^® Exchange Server can be used for extensive and wide functionality in IT infrastructures embossed by Microsoft products. The different versions of Microsoft^® Exchange Server are suited to fit in smaller as well in bigger network environments to achieve different goals. Depending on the demands there can simply deployed and maintain intranets, manage and filter e-mail traffic, create schedules, arrange dates and manage discussions.

The availability of the Microsoft^® Exchange Servers can be easily increased by using the failover cluster solution LifeKeeper^® for Windows from SteelEye™ Technology Inc.

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Exchange High Availability Clustering

SteelEye™ LifeKeeper^® for Exchange monitors all components of an Exchange 2000/2003 system and initiates a recovery action on detection of a failure; it also provides a simple interface for manual movement of applications to eliminate outages from planned maintenance.

With support for both data replication and shared storage environments and the ability to build Many-to-One clusters, LifeKeeper provides maximum flexibility in configurations which can be deployed.

Data Replication for Mail Stores and Log files

SteelEye™ Data Replication (SDR) is designed to ensure that data is always available. In an Exchange environment, mail stores and log files are replicated in real-time from a local disk located on the active Exchange server to a local disk located on a backup server. Because SDR can operate in either synchronous or asynchronous mode, the backup server can be across either a LAN or WAN.

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The recovery process from a local system failure is virtually immediate because data is available on a hot disk where it can be easily accessed and restored. With the ability to do many-to-one replication, multiple real-time copies can be made to different locations to provide the highest possible data protection.

Used alone, LKDR provides an efficient disk-to-disk data backup mechanism. When combined with LifeKeeper High Availability clustering, it becomes a powerful component in an overall Exchange protection solution.

Disaster Recovery for Exchange

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The Disaster Recovery capabilities within LifeKeeper^® for Exchange provide a complete and unmatched automated disaster recovery environment for protection against catastrophic failures at your primary data center. By combining asynchronous data replication across a WAN with the monitoring and recovery capabilities of LifeKeeper for Exchange, a disaster recovery configuration for ultimate protection can be put into place easily.

With automated and integrated data replication and failover to a remote site, you can reliably replicate data asynchronously and reliably monitor critical resources over a WAN. LifeKeeper will migrate Exchange to the remote site only in disastrous events with a choice of full automation or a manually-activated “panic button” which lets administrators make the final decision on Exchange recovery. Access to Exchange services is restored in minutes.

Key Features

Use of the operating systems Windows Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003 (at least Standard Edition)
Support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2000/2003 (Standard and Enterprise Edition)
Low implementation effort by easily integration in exisiting IT infrastructures
SteelEye Data Replication option enables disaster recovery scenarios
Support for all Microsoft certified hardware components (see Hardware Compatibility List)
Possible depostion of data (information- and mailbox stores) on external storage or data replication volume
Different storage technologies supported: SCSI, Fibre Channel (single-path and multi-path) or iSCSI
Can build multi-node Many-to-One and Cascading clusters across any combination of LAN and WAN.
Automated or manual failover and failback of active Exchange services and client connections.
LifeKeeper Data Replication provides asynchronous volume replication with a single source system going to multiple targets to provide both local and remote copies of Exchange mail stores and logfiles.

Functions

Automatic monitoring and protection of all elemenatry Exchange services and processes
Protection and implementation of optional components (connectors like POP3, IMAPa and other addons) is possible
Cluster configuration database per node - no need of using a cluster quorum disk
Supports 2 network topologies - single subnet using IP address or different subnets using DNS
Change of configuration on the client applications not necessary
Automatic or manual (administrator confirmation) switch- or failover adjustable
Possible deployment in virtual environments
Support for active/passive and active/passive N+1 configurations
LifeKeeper provides additional monitoring and recovery capabilities, including protection for add-on services such as Virus scanners, SPAM filters, PDA connectors.