Hi. My company's Exchange server is located in the server room. Once in a while, we experience power interruption. I have few options and would like to get some advice before making a decision. Option1:Maintain office’s Exchange as primary and to locate secondary Exchange in Data Center. Option2:Maintain office’s Exchange and to sign up for webmail hosting to temporary store email in case of power interruption. Emails will be downloaded to Exchange via Pop connector. Option3:Completely move my office’s Exchange to Data Center. Hope you guy will be able to help me. Thanks in advance.

Version of Exchange?

Exchange 2007 on Win2003 (x64). I also have a seperate AD running on Win2003. Thank you.

With Exchange 2007, you might consider SCR:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124721(EXCHG.80).aspxHigh AvailabilityI would avoid Option 2.

Have you consider running an Exchange hosted by someone else? Exchange 2010 also has many improvements by using DAGs to replicate the message stores around. This should help with the multiple locations. Mark Morowczynski|MCT| MCSE 2003:Messaging, Security|MCITP:EMA 2K7,EDA Win 7,ES,SA,EA|MCTS:Windows Mobile Admin|Security+|http://almostdailytech.com

Andy: Thanks. I have little knowledge of SCR as I have yet to fully explore Exchange 2007 (I am considered a beginner/intermediate user).Mark: Thanks. At the moment, I am not looking into upgrading to Exchange 2010 as majority of the users are still using Outlook 2003 and some on Outlook XP. In order to fully enjoy Exchange 2010's features, the user must use Outlook 2010. There are alot of issues to consider especially the budget.

powerfailure can be a pain, but doing SCR looks like an overkill depending on how long period the power failure is and how big the failure is. If client computers and netowrk equipment also suffer from power there is no need to implement a fault tolerant solution for Exchange.lasse at humandata dot se, http://anewmessagehasarrived.blogspot.com

what kind of power outage and for how long? Is it something that could be resolved by buying a few battery backups?How large is your organization? Can you deal with a short term outage? If not I would go with Option 3.SF - MCITP:EMA, MCTS: Exchange 2010, Exchange 2007, MOSS 2007, OCS 2007 -- http://www.scottfeltmann.com

CY, it looks like you have a number of good responses and things to consider. Bottom Line: Weigh the cost and management and return on investment for high-avail versus the amount of downtime you expect and can tolerate. What is your SLA? Budget, etc....

Lasse: Yes. Both computers & network suffer but at least email keeps the communication going between us & our clients.Scott: The recent power outage (July09) lasted for 23 hours. All the staffs were sent home when we were informed that the power will only be restore the next day. My company is a Law Firm (approximately 90 staffs). Unattended email or any urgent disputed case left unattended will result in us being sue by client.Andy: There is no specific budget for this project but I am looking into the pros & cons before proposing to the bosses.Basically, I am seeking advise based on User's experince instead of reading from blogs/reviews. Anyway, thank you all for your responses :)

Hello, You can get a large UPS to keep the Exchange Server and ISP router going for a long while. They are expensive, but a 10-20Kva UPS can hold up your server for a day (depending on your server's wattage requirements). You can also add batteries for additional runtime. Also, remember most servers will try to send mail for 12-24 hours before giving up (depends how they are configured), so if you server is down for let's say 4 hours, e-mails will still come into the exchange server when electricity is restored (although the sender will get a delay notification). NakiNaki K. / Falcon ITS Computer and Network Service and Support, Miami, Fl

If you ahve Power issues and email is that critcal I would look at the price. either Co-Lo your Production datacenter, get a big UPS, or go hosted.If it were up to me I would look at a Co-Lo datacenter with the UPS, redundant network etc in place.Either that or upgrade your datacenter. SF - MCITP:EMA, MCTS: Exchange 2010, Exchange 2007, MOSS 2007, OCS 2007 -- http://www.scottfeltmann.com