I have a Windows 2008 development server running Sql Server 2008 and Exchange 2007. FWIW, I've installed all the latest patches and service packs for both apps and the OS. From time to time the server spontaneously crashes. No blue screen, no dump files, just all the way to power off. I've ruled out problems with the UPS. The server recently ran for about a month with no problems. During that time I happened to not be doing any sql work, although the sql server app was running. Is there some incompatibility or issue with running Sql Server 2008 and Exchange 2007 on the same box? I seem to recall seeing some info to that effect in the installation docs (which I ignored because this is a development server, and I was trying to save some money by not building a second box). - Mark

Hi Mark,The current issue is "During that time I happened to not be doing any sql work, although the sql server app was running." So I suggest you write the post on our SQL server forum to troubleshoot the issue:http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/category/sqlserver/Btw, installing multiple roles in one server is not a good idea, it will affect the performance of the server. As far as I know, there is no compatibility issue with Exchange and SQL. Thanks,Elvis

Hi Elvis,I already did (i.e., I posted the question in both places). I'm not worried about performance impacts since this is a development server, and a relatively lightly used one at that.BTW, I did come across some theories posted by others as to why there might be a negative interaction between SqlServer 2008 and Exchange 2007. Purportedly both apps seek to use all available RAM, and release it back to the OS on an as-requested basis (I know Exchange is built this way). Some people feel that sets up a potential for fatal out-of-memory problems. I'm testing that by trying to limit the amount of memory that Exchange uses. I found several references to setting a maximum RAM utilization for the store service. Do you know of any other settings to reduce the memory footprint of other Exchange services?- Mark

I guess you would have followed below article to restrict the store.exe cache memory usage. Restricting RAM usage in Exchange 2007 http://mostlyexchange.blogspot.com/2007/08/restricting-ram-usage-in-exchange-2007.html Well, apart of this I don't think there is any way to restrict the usage and in fact services other than store.exe takes very limited amount of RAM...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

That's correct, that's what I tweaked today.One thing that just occurred to me, though: the Edge Transport Service is running, but I could've sworn I didn't install that on the server (I'm using postfix on a linux box as the front-end/spam filtering machine). Can that service be turned off? Or am I confusing the Edge Transport >>role<< with the Edge Transport >>service<<?- Mark

That's an optional services of Hub tranpsport server role and can be turned off if you don't have edge server... List of services and requirement on various server roles are here... Services Installed by Exchange Setup http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998342.aspx Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

From time to time the server spontaneously crashes. No blue screen, no dump files, just all the way to power off.... this is a development server, and I was trying to save some money by not building a second box). Exchange and SQL Server are bit like fire and water. My experience with this combination dates back to SBS 4.5, later with SBS 2003 and SBS 2008. Both applications are huge resource hogs and do a lot of IO. IO can be ruled out since it is no production environment. Memory allocation turns often out to be a problem. Both are supposed to dynamically allocate and deallocate memory, and they do, but often not fast enough. Expected behavior is slow response time, next to freezing, services not working reliable, but no crashes. First off I would have studied the event logs. It appears as that you have built the box yourself. If that is the case, I would go over the hardware. What about heat? What about drivers specific for your system board, memory chips and so on, disks, run chkdsk /f ... And I would also run Exchange and SQL 2008 under Hyper-V in two separate virtual machines. Hyper-V is lightning fast. My two cents ... jas

Jon-Alfred, In an attempt to be brief I left out a lot of what I did along the way in my original posting. I'd run chkdsk, checked the memory, checked event logs, etc., all without learning anything interesting (or anything at all, for that matter). The lack of any notice in the event logs was particularly interesting, as it seemed to point to the system just crashing very quickly (i.e., no degradation leading up to the shutdown). Thanks for the suggestions, though. I am considering running Exchange and Sql Server in two separate virtual machines. For the longest time I'd read that doing that with Exchange was problematic, but that appears to be an issue when the mail system is heavily loaded, which doesn't apply to my situation. Do you happen to know of any articles that walk through migrating an instance of Exchange from a real machine to a virtual machine? - Mark

Exchange 2007 on Hyper-V is fully supported by Microsoft in a production (certain configurations are not). We are running our test environment on Hyper-V: CCR Mailbox cluster, two Hub/CAS servers, while ISA 2006 runs on bare metal (why, I don't know). As I said, Hyper-V is lightning fast, very different from VMware Workstation / Fusion (which I still think are the best non-hypervisor-based products). You won't notice much of a difference from running on bare metal, if at all. I'm not aware of any easy migration tools for Hyper-V. You could check out Acronis (but that won't save much money) On the other hand, is it a big deal to reinstall? As a developer, I guess you have access to MSDN (I have TechNet). I just reinstalled my Hyper-V environment from scratch (might have taken a day while working on other machines): Windows 2008 R2 Exchange 2010 RC (feature complete) SQL Server 2008 R2 (Aug CTP) ISA 2006 Windows 7 You should use Windows 2008 R2 as your hypervisor (so far I've encountered none of the bugs as with the initial RTM release). You could install Hyper-V by allocating disks and NICs, as you would do in a production environment. Or just quick and dirty as you would with VMware Desktop with virtualized disks). I chose the last option, as it gives a lot more flexibility (and requires less planning). Just a fast tip: If you need to run a client, such as Windows 7 and need sound. Enable sound on the host, and access the guest through RDP. Buy some cheap external disk to copy over all your initial machines. Good luck! And I guess a lot of us here are very eager to hear about our experiences. So please post back! Best regards from Norway, Jon-Alfred