Exchange 2007 – High Availability Solution - Single Copy Cluster
 
 Those are new to this exchange 2007 they might feel single copy cluster might be a new cluster version for exchange. Guys, this not a new version at all, it is just a name they have give to our existing cluster environment what we had in Exchange 2003. i.e., Active\Passive Cluster.
 Single Copy Cluster will consist of one Active Directory having two member servers which is known as NodeA and NodeB. This two member servers will have one common shared storage which is called as Quorum Disk. Quorum disk is the place where the exchange database will be stored. And on each node exchange application will be installed. And they will get an identity of virtual server which is going to be displayed in the public environment, when you create a clustered environment, it will ask you to give a virtual name for the server however in the background either NodeA or NodeB will process your request. The Node which is taking the ownership of the database is called as Active Node and the node who is sitting ideally and monitoring the status of active node is called as passive node. Both Active and Passive Node will communicate through private nic card i.e Passive node will contact Active Node by every 30 seconds and if passive node is not getting response through private nic, then it will communicate through public nic card and then also it is not getting response from active node, it will assume that active node is no more alive and it will take the ownership of shared storage.

So now you can realize how important our cluster environment is, whenever we are talking about high availability.

Requirement for single copy cluster:
 Active Directory
 DNS
 One dedicated server for Hub-Cas.
 Two Member Servers for installing Single Copy Cluster
 Two member server should have two nic card : one should be having public ip address i.e connected to your live environment of AD and another nic card which we can call as Private nic card for communicating between the nodes.
 Both the member servers should have identical OS, SP and application as well.

My Lab Scenario:
 Active Directory: I have one server called as “Main DC” who is my AD\DC\GC and DNS as well. Ip address range 192.168.1.1 and FQDN : maindc.happy.com
 Hub-Cas : I have one dedicated server for hub-cas where I installed Exchange 2007 sp1 and ip  address range is 192.168.1.2
 Two Member Servers

1) SCC-1.happy.com (First Member Server FQDN)
            a. Having two nic cards
                i. Public card : 192.168.1.x
                ii. Private card : 10.1.1.1

2) SCC-2.happy.com
            a. Having two nic cards
                i. Public card : 192.168.1.x
                ii. Private card : 10.1.1.2

Now I need to have single copy cluster environment for my mailbox.
I have shared storage in my member servers. The first thing I need to do is making it as NTFS partition. So Right click my computer => Manage => Disk Management
Figure 1:
 

Note: If you are using any cluster admin account to manage the disk partition or configuring it make sure that you have given the local administrator rights.

Right Click the disk i.e 200 mb and click on New Partition, then it will show you a welcome screen
Figure 2:
 

Then select the partition type – I selected primary partition Figure 3:
 

Then we need to specify the size of the partition, I selected the default one:
Figure 4
 

Then next assigning the drive letter or path Figure 5:
 

Then choose NTFS as format partition – Figure 6:
 

Then finally we will get the summary of the partition which are going to create
Figure 7
 

After the completion this how it will look figure 8:
 

Configuring the first node (SCC-1):

Click on Start => Run => cluadmin . or Program files => Administrative tools and cluster and select Create a new cluster
Figure 9:
 

 Then select the domain name and give a name for your cluster environment. I have named it as clusenvmt
Figure 10:
 

 Then Select the first node of the computer, by default it will select your existing computer
Figure 11:
 

 Then it will analyze the configuration
Figure 12:
 

 Give one public ip address range
Figure 13:
 

 Then give the cluster service Account information for the cluster configuration
Figure 14:
 

 Then it will display the summary about the current configuration what we have choosen.
Note : When you click on Quorum it will display your shared storage.
Figure 15:
 

 Once you click on Next : it will create a cluster
Figure 16:
 

Then click on Finish
Figure 17:
 

 Now lets see the connect cluster console
Figure 18:
 

Now we have configured the cluster for Node-1 (SCC-1)

Configuring Passive node for a cluster:
Lets add the SCC-2 to the current configured Clustered environment

 Click on File => New => Node
It will show you the welcome screen, click on Next and then it will prompt you to add the computer who is going to be the part of the cluster environment. So here we need to add Node 2 server (SCC-2) and click on Next
Figure 19:
 

 Give the password for configuring the cluster : by default it will display the service account of cluster administrator which we have used for configuring Node1
Figure 20:
 

 then it will give you the summary of the configuration for the node2 (SCC-2)
Figure 21:
 

 Then it will add SCC-2 (computer Server) as second node for our cluster environment
Figure22:
 

 After adding the node click on Finish
Figure 23:
 

 Now lets take a look on cluster admin console
Figure 24:
 
Now I have configured my cluster…

                                                Installation of Exchange 2007 sp1 on clustered environment

 Prepared my AD
 Installed all the prerequisite requirement like installed .net framework, DTC hotfix & windows powershell
 Installing Exchange application
 At the time of installation select customize
Figure 25:
 

Under Cluster Setting: select Single Copy Cluster and select the path of your shared storage:
Figure 26:
 

Then give a virtual ip address
Figure 27:
 

Now it will do a readiness check
Figure 28:
 

Now click on Install
Figure 29:
 

Once we install it, take a reboot of the server and install the exchange binaries file on passive node (SCC-2)
Installing Exchange application on passive node
Log on to passive node
Figure 30:
 

Then it will do a readiness check
Figure 31:
 

Then click on Install
Figure 32:
 

Now lets take a look on Active Node Cluster – SCC-1
Figure 33
 

Note : if you see the above figure you will notice that information store, system attendant & search service are set to Manual.

Lets take a look on the passive node services
Figure 34:
 

Note: in the above figure it is showing i.e IS and system Attendant manual and stopped.

From the powershell you can try get-clusteredmailboxserverstatus to know the status of clustered mailbox server.

I hope that this article is being very informative for you all. Thanks for your time and patience in this matter.

Upcoming Article:

Exchange 2007 – High Availability Solution – Standby Continuous Replication

Related Articles:

Exchange 2007 - Local Continuous Replication (High Availability)

Exchange 2007 – High Availability Solution – Cluster Continuous Replication 

Reference Link:

Single Copy Clusters