It took quite a bit of troubleshooting and frustration to get our 2 CAS working without a hitch a couple of months ago. It has now gotten to the point where we need to add a third CAS that will serve up Outlook Anywhere connections as well as OWA. I'd hate to add this one to the mix and have 1/3rd of our client connections experiencing issues, especially when it comes to Outlook Anywhere. Is there an easy way to essentially clone the settings of one of the other CAS and put them on this new one? The console offers some properties that can be set for OA/OWA but there are a whole host of changes that can be made through the shell that I'm not 100% of which ones will cause issues. Is there a checklist that I can follow to make sure of the changes I need to make?

Unlike the Edge Transport role, there is no easy to clone Client Access server configuration. However for the highest level of accuracy in duplicating configurations I would see this article:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998364.aspxIt explains whats stored by the Client Access Server and from that you can ensure settings are copied properly. Mike Crowley A+, Network+, Security+, MCT, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Administrator / Messaging Administrator

Thanks Mike, I'll check that article out. On a side note, I noticed you have an MCITP for Messaging, I've taken 70-236 already and planning on the 237 soon. Which one would you say was harder?

IMO the 236 was the hardest! There are much more configuration gotchyas in 236 whereas teh other two were kinda more design based. but Microsoft doesnt kill you with case studies in their tests anymore, so both tests were kinda similiar... Mike Crowley A+, Network+, Security+, MCT, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Administrator / Messaging Administrator

How many users / what kind of traffic do you have to generate the need for 3 Client Access servers? Microsoft only "recommends" a 4:1 mailbox:cas ratio. Do you think there might be another place to improve performance or do you have that many users? or is it a multi-location thing? Mike Crowley A+, Network+, Security+, MCT, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Administrator / Messaging Administrator

well that gives me some confidence then! 236 wasn't too bad (tho I didn't do as good as I thought I should have) but the way some of the questions or scenarios were worded just had me frustrated. Thanks for the input, I'll schedule 237 soon then!

While there is no great need for a third one, at least if we have 1 failed CAS we can still operate fairly ok on the other 2, whereas if we were to have 1 fail right now, leaving us with just 1, email access would probably slow to a crawl during business hours. In our line of business, this would be pretty disruptive for us.

I'm not arguing :) just curious:Do most of your users use Outlook Anywhere, OWA, POP or IMAP? Otherwise MAPI sessions dont involve the CAS box. Mike Crowley A+, Network+, Security+, MCT, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Administrator / Messaging Administrator

Everyone is on OA from their offices, 1 main office and 4 branch locations. Everyone also has OWA for remote access. Only 1-2 POP accounts. BTW, just passed the 237 yesterday, actually did better than I did on the 236! It did seem that this time around the exam did not resort to as much trickery as the previous one, it was much more straightforward. However, I still wish they had been more specific on some of the questions, as some of them were way too vague again.

Woohoo - congrats! Yep I told ya! the 238 is very similiar to 237... Mike Crowley A+, Network+, Security+, MCT, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP: Enterprise Administrator / Messaging Administrator Read my 2 on the Psychology of a TechNet Forum Thread!