IT Employment

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Adding another site to an Exchange Org.

0 helpful
1 reply

by beckas

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
Currently our Exchange 5.5 organization only has one site. We have several regional offices that all access e-mail on Exchange servers that are physically located in one central location. My boss has asked me to explore the idea of adding additional Exchange servers that will reside in our regional offices. Here's my question: If an Exchange sever resides at a regional office but the NT PDC and NT BDC resides at the main office, will desktop e-mail perfomance actually speed up? I know thatthe users and the Exchange servers constantly authenticate to the NT PDC and BDCs so I'm wondering if even though the new Exchange server is physically closer to the user, will it make a difference if the NT PDC and BDC are not close? My boss really doesn't want to make the Exchange servers PDCs or BDCs. Additionally, other than possible replication issues, are there any other administration issues that may arise with adding additional sites?

1 reply

by radiic

Once you log onto the domain and get validated, the exchange server will accept that validation once you open your session with it. It keeps that connection established til something breaks that connect. You can prove this to yourself by running netstat from the dos prompt and see your connection to the exchange server. The anwser to is e-mail faster when the exchange box is local, is YES. Because your not pulling it accross what might be a busy wan link. I can say that you see about a 20-30 second increase in speed upon opening outlook. I know this because i have a user that gets his mail from the server at our other office and when he brings his laptop here, it pulls his mail from there. But after that it seems to work pretty fine.Then takes longer to close outlook. But one bene is that you reduce traffic accross that wan link.

Why your boss doesnt want BDC's at the remotes is beyond me. In my opinion he's making a bad choice there. You can have the clients at each local validate against that server, not accross the wan link. Plus you gain a file server at each local. Meaning that you dont have users opening docs and stuff accross the wan link. Plus if the link goes down your users can still logon. The bene's far out weigh the bads.

I am sure i missed some bene's there and LordInfidel will point out some more.

Rad

This discussion is closed to new replies.