OTG Objectives

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

The Operations and Technology Group (OTG) at Microsoft has used clustering to achieve the following technical and business objectives for messaging within the company:

  • High availability. The server cluster discussed in this document provides a messaging solution with a high level of availability to users. OTG strives to make the Exchange servers available 99.99% of the time.

  • Scalability. In a server cluster, administrators can add additional servers as necessary in a way that is virtually transparent to the users. Because they have implemented clustering to manage the Exchange servers (and for other reasons), OTG has been able to increase the scale limitation of the mail store from 3000 mailboxes (100 MB per mailbox) to 5000 mailboxes (200 MB per mailbox).

  • Manageability. By using a server cluster, administrators can manage and maintain the Exchange servers through a process that is virtually transparent to users.

  • Consolidation. Server clusters can help administrators consolidate their resources. Server clusters are helping OTG consolidate their worldwide messaging resources from 75 locations to seven and from 115 servers to 30.

These objectives are similar to those of most businesses who use Exchange 2003. Therefore, the server cluster information presented in this document should be valuable to businesses with similar goals.