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

Topic Last Modified: 2012-01-23

You can use the Exchange Management Console (EMC) or the Exchange Management Shell to configure the properties of a database availability group (DAG), including the witness server and directory used by the DAG. The Shell enables you to configure DAG properties that are not available in EMC, network discovery and settings, the TCP port used for replication, and datacenter activation coordination (DAC) mode.

DAG property values are stored in both Active Directory and the cluster database. However, some properties are stored on in the cluster database. As a result, the underlying cluster for the DAG must be up and running and have quorum in order to set the properties for:

What Do You Want to Do?

Use the EMC to configure database availability group properties

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the" Database availability group" entry in the High Availability Permissions topic.

  1. In the console tree, navigate to Organization Configuration > Mailbox.

  2. In the result pane, click the Database Availability Group tab, right-click the DAG you want to configure, and then click Properties.

  3. Use the General tab to view DAG membership, configure the DAG's witness server, and to configure network encryption and compression for the DAG networks.

    • Modified   This read-only field displays the date and time at which the DAG's properties were last changed.

    • Member servers   This read-only field displays the Mailbox servers that are members of the DAG.

    • Witness Server   This box displays the host name or fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of a server that's external to the DAG that is used when the DAG contains an even number of members.

    • Witness Directory   This box displays the full name and path of the directory used to store the witness.log file on the witness server.

    • Alternate Witness Server   This box displays the host name or FQDN of a server that's external to the DAG and is used as a replacement for the witness server during a datacenter switchover process.

    • Alternate Witness Directory   This box displays the name of the directory used to store the witness.log file on the alternate witness server.

  4. Use the IP Addresses tab to view and modify the IP addresses assigned to the DAG.

    • Add   Click this button to add a static IPv4 address to the DAG.

    • Edit   Select an existing IPv4 address and then click this button to modify it.

    • Remove icon   Select one or more existing IPv4 addresses and then click this button to remove them from them DAG.

  5. Use the Operational Servers tab to view the list of DAG members that are currently operational.

Use the Shell to configure database availability group properties

You need to be assigned permissions before you can perform this procedure. To see what permissions you need, see the "Database availability group" entry in the High Availability Permissions topic.

This example sets the witness directory to C:\DAG1DIR for a DAG named DAG1.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -WitnessDirectory C:\DAG1DIR

This example pre-configures an alternate witness server of EXHUB3 and an alternate witness directory of C:\DAGFileShareWitnesses\DAG1.contoso.com for a DAG named DAG1.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -AlternateWitnessDirectory C:\DAGFileShareWitnesses\DAG1.contoso.com -AlternateWitnessServer EXHUB3

This example configures a DAG named DAG1 to use DHCP to obtain an IP address.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses 0.0.0.0

This example configures a DAG named DAG1 to use a static IP address of 10.0.0.8.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses 10.0.0.8

This example configures a multi-subnet DAG named DAG1 with multiple static IP addresses.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses 10.0.0.8,10.0.1.8

This example configures a DAG named DAG1 for datacenter activation mode.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -DatacenterActivationMode DagOnly

This example configures the replication port for a DAG named DAG1 to be 63132.

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Set-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity DAG1 -ReplicationPort 63132
Note:
After changing the default replication port for a DAG, you must manually modify the Windows Firewall exceptions on each member of the DAG to allow communication to occur over the specified port.

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