We are looking at either adding another exchange server with a different domain setup, or puting multiple exchange domains on one server. Externally, the client could resolve and connect to the external IP address of either datacenter and the CAS it connected to would then do it's job of proxying to the active copy database server. We have a unity 3.1(3) server talking to an exchange 2000 server. Internally, the client would likely resolve the virtual IP of the locally load balanced namespace and connect to a CAS that would proxy the client's connection to wherever the database is active. In this configuration, every response the client gets from Autodiscover points them to the same FQDN for connectivity.Īt this point, the considerations relate to internal vs external DNS. In this configuration, Autodiscover will indeed send the user to the same server where their mailbox is active.Īll virtual directory URLs are set to a common namespace and load balanced by a quality 3rd party LB. With that understanding, then you can add these two possibilities to the discussion:Īll virtual directory URLs are still at the default setting of pointing to themselves (local server FQDN). The Active Manager process running on the CAS that the client connects to is responsible for finding the active copy database and proxying the connection to that server on the client's behalf. That's all the client knows, so whatever DNS resolves the URL to, that's where it will connect.

Outlook connects to an Exchange CAS based on the internal/external URLs of the virtual directory it is attempting to connect to, typically the MAPI vdir in later versions of Exchange or the RPC vdir (aka Outlook Anywhere) that has been around since 2003.

Unibox exchange server