Introduction to Exchange server 2016 DAG
Exchange Server DAGs is mainly made for high availability of the exchange server databases. The Exchange server DAG uses Windows Failover Cluster to replicate the data between each member. When we add a member to the Exchange server DAG setup, the Windows Failover Cluster role will be automatically enabled. The member on the Exchange server DAG can have one or more copies of the databases, using those copies database level failover will happen.
In this Blog, I will show you how to configure Exchange server 2016 DAG with Two Node Members and a file share Witness server with all servers running in same hardware configurations and Windows Server 2012 R2 OS.
Lab requirements
* One witness server along with Active Directory role.
* Two Exchange 2016 Servers.
To start with DAG configuration, we need to add the Witness Server’s local Administrators Group as an “Exchange Trusted System” member in Active Directory and we need to create Witness Directory Share in witness server.
Go to Server Manager >> Click Tools >>Click the Active Directory Users and Computers and
Add the “Exchange Trusted Subsystem” group as a local administrator on the witness server:
Create a folder in any location at witness server and make it as “Witness Directory Share”
Now, Login to Exchange Admin Center, Under Server–> Database availability groups–>Click on + Add
Now Provide the Name for the DAG, also provide the Witness Server and Directory
Now you can see the DAG is created successfully.
Let’s see how to add the Servers in the DAG. Click on Manager DAG Membership
Click on + to add the Servers
Select the Servers which you want to add in this DAG
Now you can see the Member Servers associated with this Database Availability Group.
Let’s see how to add the passive copies of the Database.
Click on a mailbox database, click “…” then click “add database copy”: ( DAGNODE2 )
Click on browse and select the mailbox server you want to add a database copy to then click OK:
Now we can add the mailbox database copy.
Repeat these steps for each mailbox database that you want to make highly available.
Conclusion:
In this blog we learnt how to configure Exchange server 2016 DAG with Two Node Members and a file share Witness server, and mailbox databases as highly available by adding mailbox database copies. Exchange 2016 server is very easy and simple to configure. Exchange server DAG is used for Windows Failover Cluster in order to replicate the data between each member.
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