OT: MS Exchange 5.5

Yahoo Archive
1
I can see it now. Just one crashed system and they use you for bait. Or is
it the plank for that one. Yarrrrrrrrrrr.

Shirley

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Lipham [mailto:pml@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 11:20 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5

Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD
1050 Caribbean Way
Miami, FL 33132

I did it for a few years. Pretty cool at first, floating around with about
5 systems to keep running. After they started building new ships we were
shipped off to France (armpit) and worked 16 hour days in the shipyard. It
was time to go. I talked to a buddy of mine a few weeks ago. They now have
21 different shipboard systems to take care of. No more fun in the sun for
them!

Paul L.

Pier to Pier, eh? Are you working on a Ship? : ) Now that's the ticket.
Onboard IT Manager for a tropical cruise line... Where do I apply?

Les



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




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2
Our December shutdown is coming quickly, and one of the projects on
my list, deals with our Mail Server. Email is absolutely critical
for us. We have customers that won't even communicate with us in any
other manner. Therefore, it is important to be able to have a backup
plan in place, in the event that I lose the server. Has anybody done
anything similar? i.e replicated servers, Cloned Hard drive and file
replication, etc. The Mail server only handles MS Exchange 5.5 on NT
4.0. The ideal scenero would be one that would get me back up in
minutes. Just looking for opinions before I set a game plan.
Migration to 2ooo Server is planned for 1st quarter 2003, but could
possibly be done sooner on the Mail Server.

Thanks,

Les Tingley
IT Manager
Decorated Products
3
I use Norton Ghost to make a mirror copy of a server. I have found it the
simplest and most reliable method. Its also very fast.


1)Boot a workstation(Target) with enough hard drive space to store the
backup file.
2)Boot the server to Ghost Boot Disk(Source).
3)On the server, enter the IP Address of the Target Machine to create a Pier
to Pier network connection.
3)From the menu choose to backup Drive to Network
4)Choose your drive that you want to mirror on the server.

I would try it a time or two on a workstation but I think you will find it
very easy.
The restore works in reverse.

Thanks
Jeremy Leonard
IT Manager
K-T Corporation


-----Original Message-----
From: Les Tingley [mailto:ltingley@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 9:14 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5


Our December shutdown is coming quickly, and one of the projects on
my list, deals with our Mail Server. Email is absolutely critical
for us. We have customers that won't even communicate with us in any
other manner. Therefore, it is important to be able to have a backup
plan in place, in the event that I lose the server. Has anybody done
anything similar? i.e replicated servers, Cloned Hard drive and file
replication, etc. The Mail server only handles MS Exchange 5.5 on NT
4.0. The ideal scenero would be one that would get me back up in
minutes. Just looking for opinions before I set a game plan.
Migration to 2ooo Server is planned for 1st quarter 2003, but could
possibly be done sooner on the Mail Server.

Thanks,

Les Tingley
IT Manager
Decorated Products



Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
4
Thanks Jeremy,
I've used Ghost many times for PC H Drives. This would be an ok solution,
but would be best if it was an automated process.
Pier to Pier, eh? Are you working on a Ship? : ) Now that's the ticket.
Onboard IT Manager for a tropical cruise line... Where do I apply?

Les

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Leonard, Jeremy [SMTP:jleonard@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 9:46 AM
> To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
> Subject: RE: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5
>
> I use Norton Ghost to make a mirror copy of a server. I have found it the
> simplest and most reliable method. Its also very fast.
>
>
> 1)Boot a workstation(Target) with enough hard drive space to store the
> backup file.
> 2)Boot the server to Ghost Boot Disk(Source).
> 3)On the server, enter the IP Address of the Target Machine to create a
> Pier
> to Pier network connection.
> 3)From the menu choose to backup Drive to Network
> 4)Choose your drive that you want to mirror on the server.
>
> I would try it a time or two on a workstation but I think you will find it
> very easy.
> The restore works in reverse.
>
> Thanks
> Jeremy Leonard
> IT Manager
> K-T Corporation
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Les Tingley [mailto:ltingley@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 9:14 AM
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5
>
>
> Our December shutdown is coming quickly, and one of the projects on
> my list, deals with our Mail Server. Email is absolutely critical
> for us. We have customers that won't even communicate with us in any
> other manner. Therefore, it is important to be able to have a backup
> plan in place, in the event that I lose the server. Has anybody done
> anything similar? i.e replicated servers, Cloned Hard drive and file
> replication, etc. The Mail server only handles MS Exchange 5.5 on NT
> 4.0. The ideal scenero would be one that would get me back up in
> minutes. Just looking for opinions before I set a game plan.
> Migration to 2ooo Server is planned for 1st quarter 2003, but could
> possibly be done sooner on the Mail Server.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Les Tingley
> IT Manager
> Decorated Products
>
>
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have
> already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
5
At 02:13 PM 11/26/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>Email is absolutely critical for us. We have customers that won't even
>communicate with us in any other manner. Therefore, it is important to be
>able to have a backup
>plan in place, in the event that I lose the server. Has anybody done

The MX (Mail eXchange) records in your DNS designate the servers to handle
your domain's email coming in from the Internet. You can use nslookup on
windoze or unix to check anyone's configuration:

d:\>nslookup
> set query=mx
> decorated.com
Server: ns1.xxiii.com
Address: 208.62.177.49
Aliases: 49.177.62.208.in-addr.arpa

Non-authoritative answer:
decorated.com MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = mail.decorated.com

decorated.com nameserver = ns1.wgeld.org
decorated.com nameserver = s2.wgeld.org
mail.decorated.com internet address = 207.78.1.26
>exit

You have the one server configured, shown in the "MX preference = 10"
line. You can setup additional servers and add them to your DNS with a
lower preference number. If the sender can't communicate with the first
one on the list, it will automatically try the lower preference
servers. Part of the beauty of standard Internet and unix protocols is
simple redundancy, fault tolerance and automatic fail-over switching :)

SendMail or PostFix running on Linux or FreeBSD would run you zero $$ in
software and could run on an old Pentium box. Can't tell ya' much on how
compatible it would be with your internal Exchange clients, but it would be
fine for capturing external mail till you were back up and running. Check
with your ISP too; they can configure a server at their site to be a
backup. That would cover you if your local Internet link went down too.

-Wayne Cox
Twenty Three -- Information Technology Consulting
828-685-2338



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
6
Les,

Check out Sunbelt Software's "Double Take" ...
<http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=111>
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/product.cfm?id=111

I did a fair amount of research on this subject last Dec/Jan and found 2
products on the market. Double Take and Survive-IT from CAI. After talking
to DELL server support along with a number of other references I came to the
conclusion that Double Take was a much better product then Survive-IT.

Unfortunately, since my budget has been a $ 0.00 this year I have been
unable to pursue it beyond the initial R&D.

You will run into some issues:

* You cannot replicate a PDC or BDC ... Your Exchange server needs to be a
stand alone server for this to work
* You can replicate 3 or 4 machines onto 1 backup machine if it has the
storage to absorb the load. This makes it a little easier to cost justify.
* MS being the lovely jerks they are will tell you that you need a 2nd
license for Exchange even though the replicated box, by definition, will
never be "Live" concurrently with your production box.
* You may want to setup the network pipe between the production box and the
backup box on another subnet so you don't adversely effect the performance
of you main net.
* You should also be able to replicate a Vantage server although I don't
know what licensing issues you may run into. Hopefully, EPICOR has a better
attitude about this than MS.
* The basic concept here is that a shadow box with a different IP address
receives all updates to the primary. When set up properly if the primary
box dies for any reason the shadow box "Assumes" the identity of the primary
box including changing its IP address along the way.
* The shadow box could be in another state, a different building, or in the
same room. The only issue is whether your pipeline can handle the update
stream and whether you can run "From" the remote site effectively. IE.
Vantage over a T-1 is painful.

This is pretty fascinating software actually. In my book it's in the "How
to survive anything" reading list.

Have fun,

Todd Anderson


-----Original Message-----
From: Les Tingley [mailto:ltingley@...]
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 8:14 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5


Our December shutdown is coming quickly, and one of the projects on
my list, deals with our Mail Server. Email is absolutely critical
for us. We have customers that won't even communicate with us in any
other manner. Therefore, it is important to be able to have a backup
plan in place, in the event that I lose the server. Has anybody done
anything similar? i.e replicated servers, Cloned Hard drive and file
replication, etc. The Mail server only handles MS Exchange 5.5 on NT
4.0. The ideal scenero would be one that would get me back up in
minutes. Just looking for opinions before I set a game plan.
Migration to 2ooo Server is planned for 1st quarter 2003, but could
possibly be done sooner on the Mail Server.

Thanks,

Les Tingley
IT Manager
Decorated Products



Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

ADVERTISEMENT

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Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have
already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.>
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages>
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links>

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
7
Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD
1050 Caribbean Way
Miami, FL 33132

I did it for a few years. Pretty cool at first, floating around with about
5 systems to keep running. After they started building new ships we were
shipped off to France (armpit) and worked 16 hour days in the shipyard. It
was time to go. I talked to a buddy of mine a few weeks ago. They now have
21 different shipboard systems to take care of. No more fun in the sun for
them!

Paul L.

Pier to Pier, eh? Are you working on a Ship? : ) Now that's the ticket.
Onboard IT Manager for a tropical cruise line... Where do I apply?

Les



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
8
Sure Paul, spoil my fantasy.... LOL.

Les

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Lipham [SMTP:pml@...]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 11:20 AM
> To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Vantage] OT: MS Exchange 5.5
>
> Royal Caribbean Cruises, LTD
> 1050 Caribbean Way
> Miami, FL 33132
>
> I did it for a few years. Pretty cool at first, floating around with
> about
> 5 systems to keep running. After they started building new ships we were
> shipped off to France (armpit) and worked 16 hour days in the shipyard.
> It
> was time to go. I talked to a buddy of mine a few weeks ago. They now
> have
> 21 different shipboard systems to take care of. No more fun in the sun
> for
> them!
>
> Paul L.
>
> Pier to Pier, eh? Are you working on a Ship? : ) Now that's the ticket.
> Onboard IT Manager for a tropical cruise line... Where do I apply?
>
> Les
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
> have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
> (1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
> Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
> (2) To search through old msg's goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
> (3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>