High Availability and Site Resilience

Applies to: Exchange Server 2010 SP3, Exchange Server 2010 SP2

Topic Last Modified: 2009-12-08

You can use high availability and site resilience to design, build, and operate a highly available messaging solution based on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. You can design and deploy a configuration that enables site resilience, and use procedures related to the various backup, restore, and recovery operations supported by Exchange 2010.

Use the following links to access the information you need about high availability, disaster recovery, and site resilience.

Understanding High Availability and Site Resilience: Refer to this section for an overview of the architectural changes and new features in Exchange 2010 that enable high availability and site resilience. Learn about definitions for key terms, details of changes to high availability over previous versions of Exchange, and key characteristics of the Exchange 2010 solution. Use links to learn about specific features, such as database availability groups (DAGs), mailbox database copies, Active Manager, shadow redundancy, online move mailbox, the third-party replication API, and more. This topic complements the guidance in Understanding Database Availability Groups, Understanding Mailbox Database Copies, and Understanding Active Manager.

Database Availability Group Design Examples

Review design examples for DAGs in a variety of environments:

A two-member DAG, which is suited for small office and branch office deployments.
A four-member DAG that provides high availability within a single datacenter by locating all members in the same datacenter.
A four-member DAG that provides high availability within a single datacenter, and site resilience for that datacenter, by locating two of the members in the primary datacenter and two of the members in a second datacenter.

Planning for High Availability and Site Resilience: Get Microsoft guidance for planning high availability for Exchange 2010. Learn about the general hardware, software, and network requirements for Exchange 2010 high availability, and learn about best practices for planning DAGs and mailbox database copies. Get details about the requirements for site resilience and guidance for planning site resilience.

Deploying High Availability and Site Resilience: Get guidance and use links to detailed instructions for deploying Exchange 2010 high availability and site resilience using DAGs and mailbox database copies. Refer to this section for an overview of the deployment process, and use the links for performing each procedure. Get an example of deployment from start to finish of a four-member DAG extended across two datacenters.

Managing High Availability and Site Resilience: Use links to detailed procedures for managing Exchange 2010 high availability and site resilience. Get details about how to create a DAG, manage DAG membership, create and configure DAG networks, shut down DAG members, create and configure mailbox database copies, manage mailbox database copies, and perform database and server switchovers.

Managing Database Availability Groups: Refer to this section for an overview of the various management tasks associated with DAGs, and use links to detailed procedures for performing those tasks. These tasks include creating DAGs, managing DAG membership, configuring DAG properties, configuring DAG networks, and shutting down DAG members.

Managing Mailbox Database Copies: Refer to this section for an overview of the various management tasks associated with mailbox database copies, and use links to detailed procedures for performing those tasks. These tasks include suspending and resuming mailbox database copies, and performing database switchovers.

Switchovers and Failovers: Refer to this section for an overview of datacenter switchovers and server switchovers, and use the links to detailed procedures for performing those tasks.

Understanding Backup, Restore and Disaster Recovery: Refer to this section for an overview of backup, restore, and disaster recovery procedures, and use the links to detailed procedures for performing those tasks. Learn about supported backup technologies, server recovery, database portability, dial tone portability, using the recovery database, and implementing flexible mailbox protection.

Using Windows Server Backup to Back Up and Restore Exchange Data: Refer to this section for an overview of the backup integration with Windows Server Backup, and use the links to detailed procedures for performing backups and restores using Windows Server Backup.

Recovery Databases: Refer to this section for an overview of the recovery database, as well as usage scenarios for a recovery database. Use the links to detailed procedures for creating a recovery database and restoring data using a recovery database.

Database Portability: Refer to this section for an overview of database portability, and use a link to a detailed procedure for using database portability.

Dial Tone Portability: Refer to this section for an overview of dial tone portability, and use the links to detailed procedures for using dial tone portability.