Introduction

Arcserve RHA (RHA) is a solution based on asynchronous real-time replication and automated application switchover and switchback to provide cost-effective business continuity for Microsoft Exchange Server and other application servers on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows servers.

Arcserve RHA lets you replicate data to a local or remote server, making it possible to recover that data due to server crash or site disaster. You may switch your users to the replica server manually, or automatically, if you licensed High Availability. This Guide presents both Replication and High Availability concepts and procedures.

The procedures covered in this Guide should be followed as is. Customize the steps only if:

You are familiar with Arcserve RHA and fully understand the potential impact of any changes you make.
You have fully tested the steps in a lab environment before implementing in a production environment.

This section contains the following topics:

Support for New Microsoft Exchange Server Features

About This Guide

Support for New Microsoft Exchange Server Features

Arcserve RHA supports the following for Microsoft Exchange Server:

Auto-discovery
Replication
High Availability
Data Rewind
Assured Recovery

Microsoft introduces changes to the database hierarchy from Exchange 2010. The concept of a storage group was removed, and public folder databases and database management were moved to the organization level. With Exchange Server 2010 and 2013, database protection is provided by Database Availability Groups (DAG). Database Availability Groups are not supported in Replication or HA scenarios. When a Master or Replica is part of a DAG, the software displays a warning.

Note: CDP Repository is no longer supported.

Important! Due to this hierarchy change, you cannot create a database with the same name on the Master and Replica servers, even if the database is dismounted. To overcome this limitation, functionality has been built into the software that allows it to temporarily rename the database for switchover purposes.

With Arcserve RHA, replication and high availability protection was moved from the storage group level to the mailbox store level.

You can now connect to their mailbox through a server that fills the Client Access Server (CAS) role, while Exchange Server 2007 allowed users to connect directly to their mailbox server. In Arcserve RHA scenarios, the CAS server must be available in order to fulfill a client access request. The method you used to deploy CAS determines how the software protects the environment.

When the Master server also fulfills the CAS role, the Replica must do the same. You can decide at scenario creation time whether to confirm CAS on the Replica. If the Master server holds only the Mailbox role, CAS must be confirmed on the Replica at scenario creation time. When the master and replica are Exchange 2013 with CAS, you should configure NLB for the master and replica.