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How to Install Exchange 2007 SCC on VMWARE Server

This article will walk you through the installation of Exchange 2007 Single Copy Cluster using VMWARE. Exchange 2007 Single Copy Cluster is very similar to the active/passive failover cluster from Exchange 2003. In terms of hardware, SCC requires a shared storage between cluster nodes. In production environments, this is usually a Storage Area Network or direct attached shared storage. SCC can overcome server hardware failure but storage sub system is still a single point of failure. In our case, we are using a shared virtual disk provided by VMware Server to simulate the share disk. Below is a very high level overview of this project.

  1. Build two identical VMs, Server 2003 x64 on same patch level
  2. Configure Shared Storage using VMware
  3. Create Server 2003 Cluster
  4. Install Exchange 2007 on active node
  5. Install Exchange 2007 on passive node

I.
Build two identical VMs on VMware Server

  1. Create two identical VMs on VMWare Server with one hard disk and two Ethernet adapters.
  2. Make sure these two Ethernet adapters are connected to two different networks but the adapters should correspond between two nodes. For example: assign first Ethernet adapter of both VMs to Vm net 0, assign second Ethernet adapter of both VMs to Vm net 8.
  3. Install Server 2003 x64 on both VMs and install Exchange 2007 prerequisites. See screenshot

II.
Configure Shared Storage using VMware

  1. Shutdown both VMs (nodes) that were created earlier.
  2. Add two virtual hard disks to the first node on SCSI bus 1. One will be used for cluster quorum and the other is for Exchange database. See screenshot.
  3. Edit .vmx file of both VMs to enable SCSI bus sharing and disable disk locking. Add "scsi1.sharedBus = "virtual"" and "disk.locking = "false"" to the .vmx file. See screenshot.
  4. Add existing two virtual hard disks earlier to the second node on SCSI bus 1. Since we disabled disk locking on the vmx file, VMware allows sharing disk between two hosts.

III.
Create Server 2003 Cluster

  1. Turn on the first node, format, partition and assign drive letters to newly added disks. Note that same drive letters must be assigned to the second node. See screenshot.
  2. Now that the share disks are created, we can create the cluster. Create a domain account that will be used as a service account for the cluster. Add the service account as a local admin on first node and second node. On each node, configure both network adapters. One adapter will be used for public communication and second one will be used for private communication between clusters. Note: gateway and dns information is not needed on private adapters.
  3.  Turn on the first node, while second node is off. Click Start > Administrative Tools > Cluster Administrator. Choose "Create new cluster" click OK, click Next.
  4. Enter the name of the cluster, click Next.
  5. First node should be selected already, click Next
  6. Confirm cluster that configuration check is completed without errors
  7. Click "Quorum" button and choose the Quorum disk. Click Next. See screenshot
  8. We have now created a Cluster with one node.
  9. Now, we need to add the second node to the cluster.
  10. Turn on the second node, Click Start > Administrative Tools > Cluster Administrator. Choose "Add nodes to cluster", enter the name of the cluster created earlier, click OK, click Next.
  11. Enter the name of the second node and click add
  12. Click Next once configuration has been analyzed.
  13. Enter the password for cluster service account
  14. Click Next
  15. Click Next, Finish. Verify that that node has been added to the cluster.
  16. Failover can be tested using Move Cluster command on Cluster administrator.
  17. Configure Private Network to be used for Cluster communication only. See screenshot.

IV
Install Exchange 2007 on active node

  1. Run setup.exe from Exchange 2007 media.
  2. On setup screen, choose "Install Microsoft Exchange"
  3. Select "Custom Exchange Server Installation", click Next
  4. Check "Active Clustered Mailbox Role". Click Next. See screenshot
  5. Select Single Copy Cluster, then enter a name for the mailbox server (Outlook clients will use this name to connect to the Exchange Cluster).
  6. Specify the path for the Clustered Mailbox Server database files. This must be located of a shared disk between two nodes. See screenshot.
  7. Click Next to install Exchange.
  8. Once the installation is completed, new cluster resource will be created with Exchange resources. This is also known as Exchange Virtual Server--EVS. EVS can be viewed from cluster administrator. See screenshot.

V
Install Exchange 2007 on passive node

  1. Run setup.exe from Exchange 2007 media.
  2. On setup screen, choose "Install Microsoft Exchange"
  3. Select "Custom Exchange Server Installation", click Next
  4. Check "Passive Clustered Mailbox Role". Click Next. Follow on screen instructions.
  5. Once installation is completed. Test failover using Move-ClusteredMailboxServer command.


SCC VMware config


SCC VMDK config


SCC format disk


SCC Quorum


SCC Cluster Config


SCC Active MB Role


SCC EVS Config