CCR Clusters on Virtual Machines
This is the kind of email that I like to get, basically Bri at the GTSC sent this out. It has everything in it humour and great info. It was entitled "The Grandmother of all Exchange 2007 CCR installation documents"
Read and understand how to set up CCR using Virtual Server
Bri really should be blogging himself.
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OK we’ve all been there … it’s Saturday evening and your just settling down to watch Strictly Come Dancing when your Grandma phones. She’s just bought Exchange 2007 on eBay and wants to setup a CCR Cluster in her Virtual Server environment. If your Grandma is anything like mine she’ll struggle with technology and wont know diddly about clusters … all she knows is CCR is the new big thing and she wants it . What this means is you spend the next four hours talking her through setting up the cluster, miss your favourite program and get yourself all stressed. Well to save time simply forward this email to Grandma and then settle down to watch Bruce Forsyth and the dancing safe in the knowledge that the instructions are very nearly granny-proof. Next time you go round for tea the cluster will be purring away in the under-stairs cupboard, processing all your grandparents email with high availability built in!
Alternatively you could just use the instructions yourself.
Setting up the Virtual Machines
• Install two Windows 2003 Member Servers into your domain. In my environment I called them:
E2007 CCR Node1
E2007 CCR Node2
• You might want to think about giving them 256Mb of memory as my cluster “struggled” with 128Mb.
• In Virtual Server manager create a new Virtual network from the menu on left hand side … name it something like E2007 Private Cluster network
• In Virtual Server manager edit the configuration of E2007 CCR Node1 and E2007 CCR Node2 and add a new Virtual network adapter to each, connecting it to your new virtual network (E2007 Private Cluster network)
• Start the Virtual Servers and from “Control Panel > Network Connections” create a new network connection on each (call it private and rename the first network connection to public)
• Assign a static IP address to the private networks on E2007 CCR Node1 and E2007 CCR Node2 (see my examples below)
E2007 CCR Node1 192.168.1.1
E2007 CCR Node2 192.168.1.2
• From “Control Panel > Network connections go to advanced menu > advance settings and ensure Public network appears above Private in the connections list
• On your DC create a new domain user called ClusSVC
On your DNS server create a new hostname for the cluster in DNS
Name : CCR-MNS-CLUSTER
IP address : 10.10.1.20
(This is the name and address of the cluster we’re going to create next)
Creating the Cluster on your VM’s
On E2007 CCR Node1 run Administrator tools > cluster administrator
• On the Action dropdown select “create new cluster”
• Select your domain (e.g. child.exchange.com)
• Give your cluster a name = CCR-MNS-CLUSTER
• In select computer name = E2007 CCR Node1
• IP Address = 10.10.1.20
• Cluster service account = ClusSVC
• In Proposed cluster configuration click Quorum and select Majority Node Set
• Click Next
That’s the first node added to the cluster now we add a second node to the cluster.
On E2007 CCR Node1 run Administrator tools > cluster administrator
• From file menu > new > node
• In select computer type E2007 CCR Node2
• Enter the password for ClusSVC account
• Click next and finish
OK that’s the second node added to the cluster. Next we setup the file share witness and use it as the MNS Quorum
• On a separate machine (recommendation is the local Exchange Hub Server) create a directory that will be used for file sharing (e.g. \\servername\MNS-SHARE)
• Give ClusSVC and Administrator full permissions to the directory and share
• On E2007 CCR Node1 go to a command prompt and run the following:
c:\cluster res “Majority Node Set” /priv MNSFileShare=\\servername\MNS-SHARE
• At this stage that the properties for the file share should be stored but wont take affect until the next time the resource is brought online
• In cluster admin right click “Cluster Group” and choose move. Once the group has moved to E2007 CCR Node2 repeat the move back to E2007 CCR Node1.
OK Grandma now let’s install Exchange on the cluster …
Installing Exchange 2007 on the Active Node
On your DNS server create a new hostname for the cluster in DNS
Name : Exchange-CCR
IP address : 10.10.1.30
(This is the name and address of the Exchange Server we’re going to create next)
• Install all Exchange 2007 prerequisites plus hotfix KB921181 and KB898790 on E2007 CCR Node1 and E2007 CCR Node2
• Remember the CCR Cluster will only hold the Mailbox role so you’ll need an existing Exchange Server running the Hub role in your site
• Add the ClusSVC account to the Exchange Servers group (ClusSVC needs Exchange Admin rights to start services)
• On E2007 CCR Node1 run Setup.exe from the E2007 CD
• Select Custom Exchange Installation
• Select Active clustered mailbox
• In cluster settings select “Cluster Continuous Replication”
• Put in the Exchange cluster name Exchange-CCR
• Put in the Exchange IP address 10.10.1.30
• Click next and we’re installing the active node!
• If you get any errors in setup (like I did) go to Cluster Administrator and start the Exchange resources manually
• Once installed check EMC and you should see your new mailbox Cluster listed
Installing Exchange 2007 on the Passive Node
• On run Setup.exe from the Exchange 2007 CD
• Select Custom Exchange Installation
• Select Passive clustered mailbox
• Once Installed your done.
• Try moving the Exchange-CCR group between nodes using Cluster Admin. The group should contain the following resources:
o Exchange Information Store Instance
o Exchange System Attendant Instance
o Storage\Group mailbox Database
o IP Address
o Network name
Any problems then speak to my Grandma … she’s a whiz on CCR now.
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Thanks again to Bri for letting me post this - it is a really useful piece of info