Multiple or single role on a server, for education - test - learning
I’m setting up a test Exchange 2010 deployment primarily for learning testing and otherwise a non-production environment, maybe a few users but very low usage. maybe 100 emails a week, and honestly primarily for getting certified. nothing beats doing it VS just reading about it in a book. Im very hands on. From a learning stand point is there an advantage to separating out the roles on multiple servers? Unfortunately the hardware doesn't support VM and hyper V so I am stuck with bare metal installs. Hardware wise I have a the following. I was originally planning on installing the mailbox role on the 4 proc machine with the separate roles on the other boxes, but after reading http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd298121.aspx I’m thinking unless there is an educational or great learning reason I might as well install multiple roles on one machine. and occasionally add another machine with a role. 1 HP DL 585 G1 4proc dual core 2.4GHz with 4GB ram AMD 64bit machine. 5 DL380 G4 2 proc Hyper threading 3.4GHz between 2-4 G ram depending on the machine. David
January 26th, 2011 9:00am

you sould be able to install microsfot virtual server that is free from microsoft on this hardware and do virtual deployments with 4GB of ram you can at least install 2 virtual exchange 2010 servers on each hardware with 4Gb ram virtual server is available here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/Dhruv
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January 26th, 2011 9:42am

Virtual Server does not support 64bit guests. You can try VMWare server, but if your CPU does not support VT you might be out of luck from a virtualization point of view. As for the multi-role servers, yes that is probably the best plan. You will however have to try to get at least two up within the same site to ensure you understand DAGs etc.Casper Pieterse, Principle Consultant - UC, Dimension Data South Africa, Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange 2007 / 2010
January 27th, 2011 9:03am

I will recommend to use Hyper-V as a virtualization platform , you can create as many VMs for each role and configure NLB ,DAG . Simply you can run and try all scenarios. I have Experience with building testing Labs if you need more support just write.MCP, MCSE 2000 , MCSA 2000 ,MCSA 2003 , MCITP , MCTS , MCT
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January 27th, 2011 1:52pm

Hyper-V is not so bad. I was able to setup my Exchange 2007 with an Edge and HUB,CAS, and MAILBOX all in the same box.
February 3rd, 2011 5:07am

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