Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory Blog
Anyone who has made several Exchange servers highly available via a load balancer uses NTLM for the authentication of Outlook users by default. With a few adjustments, however, Kerberos can also be used for authentication. Compared to NTLM, Kerberos reduces the number of logins compared to the Active Directory, which can lead to better speed. Kerberos is also ... Read more
In this article I try to explain why you should avoid some special Backup MX configurations. The configuration of a Backup MX at the provider or hoster is outdated and should no longer be used. Backup MX at the provider I have often come across the configuration with a Backup MX entry for the provider. The MX entries ... Read more
Exchange 2019 has adopted the familiar principle of the Database Availability Group (DAG). There are no major changes to the DAG. However, something has changed in the databases. The index is now part of the database and no longer ghosts around separately in the file system. Exchange 2019 also offers the option of using SSDs as ... Read more
Recently, I have been confronted with problems and opinions on the subject of backup and Exchange Server. This is certainly a topic that can be argued about, so I have collected a few statements on the subject of backup: We don't need a backup, we use a DAG We don't need a backup, we have ... Read more
In the fourth part of the expansion of the small Exchange organization, it's DAG's turn. The domain controller and Sophos UTM are already running redundantly and the second Exchange server has also been prepared. To ensure that the failure of an Exchange server or the failure of the Hyper-V / ESX server can also be intercepted, an Exchange DAG (Database ... Read more
Part 3 of the expansion of the small Exchange organization deals with the installation and configuration of the second Exchange server. Installing the second Exchange server The installation of the second Exchange server can almost be copied from this article, the configuration of the VM and the installation are completely identical: Setting up a small Exchange 2016 organization (part 2) The only ... Read more
In the last 3 parts of the Exchange 2016 Loadbalancing articles I have already tested F5 and Kemp. Both solutions work great. In the fourth and final part, I would like to briefly introduce a free load balancer. Zen Loadbalancer Community Edition. First of all: In my opinion, Zen Loadbalancer is only suitable for demo or test environments, although I also use it in ... Read more
The third part of the Exchange 2016 Loadbalancing series is about Exchange 2016 in conjunction with the Kemp LoadMaster 7.1 (more precisely 7.1-30-75). The two previous parts deal with F5 BigIP LTM and can be found here: Exchange 2016: Loadbalancing with F5 BigIP LTM 11.6 (iApp) Part 1 Exchange 2016: Loadbalancing with F5 BigIP LTM 11.6 (iApp) ... Read more
As already announced, the second part of this article series "Loadbalancing Exchange 2016 with F5 Big IP" deals with a few optimizations on the part of Exchange Server and Loadbalancer. The first part can be found here. Mailboxes for the "Advanced Monitors" LTM can check two mailboxes in the iApp. The user accounts should be set so that the passwords are not ... Read more
Exchange 2016 does not make any major demands on a load balancer. Exchange 2010 still made a few demands on a load balancer (session persistence, affinity), but Exchange 2016 is far more modest in this respect. In principle, simple RoundRobin is sufficient here. I currently have an F5 BigIP LTM in version 11.6 to hand. Therefore there are ... Read more
