Neal's Admin.Notes.

Applying Service Pack 1 to your Exchange 2003 Cluster

Evan gives an insight on one possible way to apply Service Pack 1 for Exchange 2003 Cluster. I've seen it done differently as well, and will post my experiences when I do the same this week.

How to Change the Cluster Service Account Password

Changing Window 2003 Cluster passwords has been simplified and is relatively easy to do now. An there is no need to bring the nodes offline as in previous versions.

To change the Cluster service account password with Cluster.exe, type the following command from a command prompt to list all of the available parameters:
CLUSTER /changepass /?

Samples
Note: In the following samples:
EASTCLUSTER is a cluster name.
WESTCLUSTER is a cluster name.
NEWpassword is the new password.
OLDpassword is the old password.
To change the Cluster service account password for a single cluster, use the following syntax in which the password for EASTCLUSTER would be changed to NEWpassword from OLDpassword:
cluster /cluster:EASTCLUSTER /changepassword:NEWpassword,OLDpassword

Note: If you do not specify NEWpassword and OLDpassword, you are prompted to enter them after you press ENTER.

To change the Cluster service account password on multiple clusters, you need to reference the additional cluster. For example, to change the password for WESTCLUSTER in addition to EASTCLUSTER, you would use the following syntax:
cluster /cluster:EASTCLUSTER,WESTCLUSTER /changepassword:NEWpassword,OLDpassword

This KB Article goes into details on the whole process.

How to Back Up and Restore a Windows Server 2003 Cluster

The following KB article best describes how to backup and restore a Windows 2003 Cluster using NTBACKUP.

Q286422

No failover happening after you change the 2003 Cluster service account

In a test environment I came accross the following problem where the cluster node does NOT fail over after you change the Cluster service account, and I didn't recieve any errors from it.

I sooned realized this was a "I DID IT" error. I failed to update the DNS record of the cluster after changing the Cluster service account. During fail over, the Cluster service is denied access to modify the DNS record because the new account is NOT in the ACL.

To fix this problem:

01. Log on to the DNS server.

02. Start / Run / dnsmgmt.msc / OK.

03. Under the DNS server object that contains the cluster host (A) record, expand Forward Lookup Zones.

04. Select the forward lookup zone that contains the cluster host record.

05. Right-click the cluster host record in the right-hand pane and press Delete.

06. Press Yes to confirm.

07. Right-click the DNS zone and press Properties.

08. On the General tab, insure that the Secure only is selected for Dynamic updates.

09. Press OK and exit the DNS utility.

10. On the cluster node, Start / Run / services.msc / OK.

11. In the Services (Local) list, right-click Cluster Service and press Restart.

12. Log on to the DNS server and confirm that the host record for the cluster has been created

Now you're all set !

Exchange 2003 Cluster

Here is a fast and simple way to setup a clustered Exchange 2003 Server. This is a 2 node active/passive cluster -

Run Exchange Setup on node 1.
Run Exchange Setup on node 2.
Create a cluster group for the Exchange Virtual Server (EVS).
Move disk resources that the EVS will use to the Exchange cluster group.
Create the resources that the EVS requires (e.g., Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator—MSDTC—an IP Address resource, a Network Name resource).
Create a System Attendant resource for the EVS. As part of this step, you must supply the name of the EVS, the administrative group and routing group in which the EVS will reside, and a shared-storage folder in which Exchange will create and store its databases, transaction logs, and SMTP folders at installation.
Cluster Administrator automatically creates Exchange cluster resources for the EVS (e.g., the Information Store—IS; HTTP servers for the virtual server; the required dependencies for the IP Address and Network Name resources). IMAP and POP are not created automatically.
Use Exchange System Manager (ESM) to relocate the Exchange components (i.e., databases, transaction logs, and SMTP folders) to shared-storage drives or folders, according to established best practices. Exchange needs to be able to access these resources from each node as the EVS fails over

Once all this is done, simply bring the Cluster Group online. You're in business !

Later on I will go in details on how to create a geographically dispersed cluster that is not physically connected to a shared Quorum....all using NSI's Geocluster

GeoCluster

I finally have a geographically clustered Exchange 2003 Server. And I must say it works awesomely. Setting up the MSCS to recognize the "geo" cluster quorums and the"virtual" shared disks was a bit tricky, and you had to do it correctly the first time otherwise i suggest you remove the clustering service and start again. If some free help is needed in setting up a graphically dispersed exchange 2003 cluster using geocluster, I will gladly be of assistance.