Specifying Possible Owners

You can specify which nodes can run an Exchange resource. Generally, it is a good idea to specify all nodes in the cluster as possible owners for a resource. This enables failover for that resource.

General tab in the Properties dialog box for the Exchange Information Store Instance resource

However, you can specify a single node as a possible owner. Although having a single node as a possible owner disables failover for the specified Exchange resource, you still may want to specify a single owner if:

• The other nodes cannot handle the resource.

• Maintaining performance is more important than keeping the resource available.

• You want to control Exchange Virtual Server failover scenarios effectively.

The nodes that you list as possible owners of a resource limit where the Exchange Virtual Server can run. If all the resources on an Exchange Virtual Server have the same possible owners, the server can run on any of the listed nodes. If one of the resources cannot list a node, the Exchange Virtual Server cannot run on that node, even if all the remaining resources list the node as a possible owner. For detailed instructions, see, How to Specify the Possible Owners for an Exchange Resource Using Cluster Administrator.