How to Configure DAG in Exchange Server 2019 / 2016 - High availability and Disaster Recovery Demo

hello and welcome everyone to IT product YouTube channel Muhammad Nia's with you today we're gonna see how to configure an exchange server for high availability within the data center or between the data center for disaster recovery purpose using database availability group DAC is a feature provided by Exchange server for high availability so high available design must include database availability group other than database availability group you need high availability for Outlook Web Access Outlook in your access so this video will give you a complete step-by-step instructions on how to set up an exchange server a high available Exchange server within the data center or between the data center or disaster recovery purpose let us start from a high-level overview of Exchange Server high availability what you see now in the screen is the minimum required to run an exchange server as a single standalone Exchange server and for high availability within the data center what you can do you can add one more Exchange server by that way you achieve high availability within the data center and to add site resilience between the data center you can add a third Exchange server as it is a second site let us say disaster recovery site then here you must have an active directory server leverage reducing Active Directory high availability which support up to 10 millisecond latency between the subnets so this is how you can achieve high availability with multiple instance of Exchange Server within the data center and also between the data center so now multiple instance of exchange servers are available within the data center and also between the data centers so for the client access high availability like Outlook anywhere or over all users connected to Exchange server over a single namespace for example mail dot IT program so if any of the server is down the clients will be redirected to other exchange servers for the client access as it uses a common namespace for example you can use DNS round-robin and add all exchange server IP to the namespace so that your clients can seamlessly continue to access exchange service without any interruption during exchange server failure then for the database high availability within the mailbox server you can create database availability group and add members exchange servers to database availability group so by this way we can maintain database copy between the exchange servers and during the failure users will be mounted to a different extent server based upon the activation preference that we have given in the dag configurations following up the areas that we need to focus to understand how to achieve an optimum deployment architectural model for exchange / 2019 in an online environment so let us start from namespace what you see now in the screen is the most recommended model and which is called as unbowed model so when you deploy an exchange server you have two options when it comes to namespace bound model and unbowed model what you see now is the unbound model so here you deploy your exchange server with a single worldwide namespace for example mail dot IT brigade comm is the single worldwide namespace that I use in my architecture so all the uses that connect to my exchange server whether it is a main data center or secondary data center or dr site they all use a single namespace called mail dot IT brigade comm to achieve this you need to go to your dns manager then add multiple IP to the same record so it used a round robin DNS or you can use geo dns or any other similar solution so by this way you can distribute the traffic equally across the data center in a site resilient pair the simplest solution and the least complex and the easier to manage and my recommendation is to use round robin DNS the most important parameter when you configure a round robin DNS in an exchange server architecture is TTL value time-to-live value of a DNS record so you have to ensure that you assign a low TTL value to any of the DNS record associated with sstrange architecture because in case of a full data center outage you remove your DN the code from the DNS manager so no more quarries will be redirected to that offline data center and a lot ETL value like a five minutes will help you to get a earlier time out in your client-side also for the internal network like the clients within the Indian on network the IP address of the Indian a load balancer is returned for example those some access from the site one they are routed to 192 168 1 dot 173 and if the client is external then a public IP is returned so this approach simplifies the end-user experience only users have to know a single namespace for example mail dot IT project come to access their data regardless of word they are connecting so this is called a split brain approach and this with plain DNS infrastructure also simplifies the configuration of exchange virtual directories for example our configuration because the internal URL and external URL values within the environment can be the same value the second method in namespace is called bound model which use multiple name space for example instead of mail dot IT program it use two namespaces male 1 dot IT Brigade calm and male 2 dot IT project so some users are connected to first data center which use male 1 dot IT project come and some other users are connected to male 2 dot IT project come for a second data center but this is not a recommended topology but there are some cases for example if you have a data center located in North America and South America you might have high latency between the data center and which can introduce users pain and operational issues in that case it makes sense to deploy a bound model with a separate namespace for each region however today there are options like Global traffic manager from f5 there are so many geographical DNS offers which provide an ability to deploy a single unified namespace even when you have a costly network links so such geo DNF solutions allows you to have your users and directed to the closest data center based on their clients IP address next is about this site close giant data center pair recommendations for exchange serval so for a high availability between the data center or between multiple sites the minimum requirement is you need a minimum two data center to have high availability in different between different sites and also you need to choose a network design with a low round-trip network latency and it is also recommended to keep everything then network redundant network path between the data center sometime it is difficult because of the cost and also it is highly recommended to have each data center should hold its own active directory SS secondary site next is about the server designed for high availability there is no special requirement for high availability other than the requirement for an exchange server but it is recommended to have a physical server but it is recommended to run physical servers and lock light attached to storage because sometimes the servers are scaled to use 80 percentage of the resources during the worst fail hour mode and virtualization also come up with a slight performance finality as well as adding an additional layer of management complexity so below you can see at the recommended hardware and based upon your organization requirement you it may vary and you need to calculate it based upon the mailbox mr. Bandhu number of users and also the connections that you're gonna hold with the exchange server next is about database availability group called as dad which is a fundamental building block in exchange server for high availability and sightless alliant data center where you can have one or more DAC but it is not recommended to stretch a dag across more than two data center so in the following picture you can see I have for exchange server in two data center and all are members of one database availability group and each mailbox have three copies three passive copy and one active coffee and the active copy is bounded at 192 168 dot one dot one seven one and the other exchanger was hold a copy of mailbox database so if something happened to an exchange server which have an active database then a passive database will be turned into an active database on an another server based upon the activation preference number and for the network design you can use a team the network because now 10 Gbps and 25 Gbps networks are available so you can use multiple network and team together for redundancy or you can use a single network in that case you need a separate line for the production and replication and Microsoft Exchange database availability group use Orem to maintain the database availability so if you have even number of exchange members in the as a node in database availability group then you need a witness server which should be a third location with a network infrastructure that is completely isolated for sightless le and data center fire I hope the previous slides and explanations gives you an idea about what is database availability group how to maintain a high availability of Exchange server within the data center and between the sides so now let us see a demonstration on how to configure a second Exchange server and how to configure high availability using database availability group the first step is we're gonna check this site readiness for example I have an exchange server running with an active directory this is the this is what I have in my site and I'm gonna add a second Exchange server here we start the demonstration so I'm going to install a second Exchange server then we will verify the installation after that we will export the SSL certificate from the current server to the new server then after that we need to configure sent in to save connector as we did in the first exchange server then we gonna configure virtual directory configuration for Outlook enable access autodiscover and/or W axis then as we explained we need a single worldwide namespace so for that we need to configure DNS and then we will be adding the IP address of the second exchange server to the DNS record then we need to move the database to a new drive by default the database comes in the folder where we installed exchange server so it is a good practice to move to a new drive so you can have a similar drives in the other exchange server that is what required for replication then we're gonna configure a permission accounts that required for database availability group then we see how then we will see how to create a database availability group finally we will see a demonstration on how to run the failover and how the active and passive mailboxes are switching between the failures so let's look at the infrastructure what I have in my demo environment I have an active directory running 2019 and an exchange server 2019 let us login to the exchange admin center and see when you go to the servers you can see I have just one exchange server that is exa 2019 and I have a two database both are mounted and my extensible is installed in C Drive now and you can say there is another server already Exchange Server 2019 this is going to be the second server in the database availability group I just joined this is a fresh install server I just joined to the domain that is all let's start the installation open the PowerShell and run the following command this is what we liquor to run before you install an exchange server those who watched my first videos of extends over 2019 might have an understanding about how to install extends over 2019 the only difference between the first installation and the second installation is you don't need to go for a schema update or active directory preparation as all the steps are saying let's download the Visual Studio C++ package all the URLs are given below the video so you can just click there and download it next we can I install Unified Communication Manager API 4.0 runtime the link for this download is also available below the video click Next and complete the wizard for the installation you installation has completed click and close all other windows now let us run the other commands to install all the features that required for an exchange server you need to restart your server after you install these features you another features installation has completed you can restart your server after that you can go to your exchange server setup file and start the installation click Next then accept the license agreement click Next then select mailbox row click Next choose a location to install exchange server and s train server organization name then click Next once it complete the prerequisite analysis then go to install now the installation is in progress you now the installation of extends over second instance has completed once you complete the installation of your second instance log into your second exchange server then open exchange admin console then let us verify the installation you now the exchange admin Center is ready let's go to the server and see the available exchange servers in your Active Directory now I have two exchange server Exe to and exe 2019 and look at the virtual directory you will see external URLs are configured only to the exchange server that I have installed first one so we need to configure s channel URL and Indian L URL so we can make it a single namespace as I explained and when you look at the database you will see ed default database has created look at the certificates you will see certificate only assigned to the previous exchange server or the first exchange server not to the new one when you look at the new one you will not see any certificates installed so when you set up virtual directory we need to set up certificates and also we need to configure database availability group let us start from the certificate so I'm gonna export exchange certificate from the first server to the second server the location I have ended here is for the new server Exe - and you have to end the certificate name with dot PFS and give a password once you fill up the details click OK now a new now the exchange server certificate has exported to the share folder now let us install this exchange certificate to the local machine now you can enter the same password what you have put when you export the certificate now the certificate has imported let's go to the new exchange server you can select the server from here now you can see the certificate certificate IT program this is the one we exported from the previous server or the first exchange over to the new one so let us go to edit and assign the services so here you can assign iis and smtp so we finished with certificate export and import to the new server next used to configure send connector and receive connector to configure the send connector select mail flow then go to send connector you don't need to create a new send connector what you can do is you can edit the existing send connector then you can add the new exchange server to this end connector for that go to the scoping then drag down and select the new exchange server now you added both exchange to the same send connector so both exchange can use this end connector and based upon your configuration it can send emails now go to receive connectors and you see there are two additional receive connectors other than the default connectors in the new exchange server I have only default connectors to review the configurations of the additional relays that you have in your first exchange server then go and create the same receive connectors in the second exchange server so the configuration of receive connectors and send connectives has completed next we're gonna set up the virtual directories so when you look at the first Exchange Server external URL it is mail dot IT project come and look at the new exchange server URL there is no you are and the internal URL will be like the local host name of this exchange server to make our job easier let's use a PowerShell script to set up all the virtual Directors you can download these from the internet and the link is available below this video coppy to see drive once you complete the download so you can run from the power ship now open exchange management shell so once the exchange admin console is open you need to run some commands to bypass the execution policies once you bypass the execution policy you can run the power she looks script that we have just downloaded then enter the fully qualified domain name this is the single namespace that you have to enter for example for my first exchange server use mail dot IT project comm so for the second exchange server also I'm gonna use mail dot IT brigade comm so complete the PowerShell script wizard for all the audibly a ecp email address book virtual URLs you now the configurations required for virtual directory has completed the configuration of virtual directory has completed with a single worldwide namespace there is mail dot IT program so it is time to add the IP address of your exchange server the new exchange over to the DNS records for that here this is a local DNS manager you can do the same for your public dns manager for example to the GoDaddy or any other DNS manager so Open DNS then go to the error codes then create a new error code then put mail dot IT Brigade comm then enter the IP address of new Xing server now you can see I have two records for the same address that is mail dot IT program so it used round robin to redirect the traffic between the service when you want to configure database availability group you need to keep your mailboxes in to same volumes for example here I have a new volume that volume name is called e you need the same volume in other extreme servers also so the database will be replicated from this volume to the same volume in other exchange servers so here you can see there is two databases and this database at present it is installed in C Drive to create a new database you can add a database and give a database and also a database file path 9 and choose a server to host this database for example DB 0 1 and you can see the database path is C I'm going to change to e so this will come to my new drive which I have just created for database availability group anyway for this demonstration I'm gonna move the existing database to the new volume that I have just created for database availability group and for that open exchange management shell open as an administrator copy the partial command then learn in your exchange management shell so when you copy this command you need to rename the identity based upon your mailbox database name then also you need to give a a DB file path because in your environment it may be a different Drive name now the logs and database will be moved to the new drive and during this operation the database will be temporarily dismounted and it will be inaccessible to all the users in their database now you can repeat the same method for all other databases if you want to move to a different drive other than C Drive or any from any other drives the most important part in creating high availability for exchange server is database availability group that is called dag which is the base of high availability and site resilience which provide automatic recovery for server and database failures basically dag is a Windows failover cluster which used to replicate the data between each exchange members so you can have multiple exchange in one database availability group when you add an exchange member to the dag group the Windows failover cluster for will be automatically enabled so the member on the exchange server dag can have one or more copies for database using those copies database level failure will happen in this demonstration I'm gonna show you how to configure a dag for extends over 2019 we have two node members and we need a one file share witness server this file share witness server we will use our active directory so one witness over with the active directory role and two exchange over 2090 when we start the dag configuration the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna add witness servers local administrator group here it is a active directory server as an exchange trusted system member in Active Directory open Active Directory users and computers then go to administrators group then select members and add exchange trusted systems then click OK so let us create a database availability group for that open your exchange admin Center then go to servers the database availability group then give a name for database availability group then give a witness server address fully qualified domain name then enter a witness directory location if you don't have this folder ready at this location it will automatically create now I'm gonna add exchange service to this dag database availability group so I just select one exchange server I can select both together for the demonstration I'm gonna add one you can say the operation progress the now Exchange Server has added to the dag successfully repeat the same step to add the second server now I'm gonna add the second server to the same database availability group you can do this together or we can do separately now the dag is ready and the exchange servers are members of this tag when you look at the database you can see this database is saved in a drive in the first server and when you go to the second server and open the II drive you will not see anything though because there is no data or now copy available at this location at present so now I'm gonna create a copy of MD b01 to exchange over 2 so that select the database and wait add a copy and you can see an activation preference number is two and okay I have to browse there and select whether you want to create the copy so I choose exe to the current server is exe 2019 and the activation reference number is two once it complete the seeding let us do the same operation for the second database for that select the second database and create a copy and select the second server and put an activation for reference number then click Save now let us go to the II drive the empty drive that we found before we create a database copy and you can see a program file folder is ER and when you open it you will see two databases and the log folder so a copy has created in the second server you can see the status of database copies active mountain and passive healthy so here for example database 0 1 is actively mounted on exchange 2019 and passive health on second exchange server so what we can do now I can activate the database on the second server by simply clicking activate so if you have a plan to fail over this is the best step you can just click activate on the available server then you can do your maintenance you can restart the exchange server then once it is back you can remount it or reactivate it ok now it is activated in the second server you can see active mounted and the first copy is passive healthy now this time you can way start the first exchange over as all the users are connected to the second exchange server the second database is still mounted to the first extends over I'm gonna power off the first exchange server to see whether it automatically mount in the second server so the first server is off now let us refresh and see the status of mounting back to the second exchange server you can see the passive service in town that is the status now and the second database which was actively mounted in the 4 server you can say the passive disconnected and healthy that is a second status now you can see it is actively mounting and the passive service down in the first exchange server which we just powered off active mounted so now all the users are connected as we powered off manually there will be interruption until it gets mounted to the second exchange server so we saw both scenarios that is all thanks for watching this video I hope you all enjoyed this video for more videos subscribe my youtube channel

Channel: ITProGuide

Views: 68,009

Keywords: Configure DAG in Exchange Server 2019, Configure DAG in Exchange Server 2016, DAG, Step by step, Disaster recovery, High availablity, Exchange server 2019, Exchange server 2016, Exchange server, Microsoft, How to configure, Database availablity group, Disaster Recovery Demo

Id: eZcmbKHOMlg

Length: 32min 17sec (1937 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 01 2019