Care needs to be taken when rebooting Exchange DAG Members. Rebooting an Exchange server that is in a DAG requires switching the active database to the member not being rebooted.
0) Check that all DB’s are healthy and check which servers is currently the active server. Run the following from Exchange Management Shell:
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus *
— At this point if you find there is an Exchange server with no active databases, it is considered a Passive DAG Member and you can reboot it at this point.
1) Perform “server Switchover” to change the active databases away from the server you want to reboot to a DAG member that is not being rebooted: Move-ActiveMailboxDatabase –Server ExchangeServerYouAreRebooting
Before and after each switchover make sure the DB’s are healthy and verify which server is the active server:
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus *
Note: After a reboot it can take a few minutes for the databases to return to a Healthy state.
Note: The output of “Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus” may return Index errors, this is not a mission critical error. Here are steps to troubleshoot Exchange content index errors.
2) Reboot the Exchange server that no longer has active databases on it
3) Once the first server from step 2 is rebooted and back online and you have checked the db replication health (Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus *), repeat the steps 1 and 2 for the next Exchange DAG member you’d like to reboot.
Note: Avoid having more that one Exchange DAG member offline at a time.
IBM or Apple should come up with their own OS to give Microsoft a competition. damned Windows is all pretty face, full of bugs.
Why is clustering in Exchange 2013 so basic?
If compared to IBM Domino clustering any member server can be rebooted at any time no need make databases active on another member, failover will be immediate. Also if you have 6 clustered servers all will be active at the same time so the case of a shared mailbox or application database users can be using a replica mailbox or application on any server at the same time so 100 or 1000 users accessing on servers the same shared mailbox or application. Also a busy threshold can be set on all servers to give a better experience, so if a server reaches say 50% busy it will defer new users to the least busy server in the cluster when all servers are at 50% then it will distribute evenly. Threshold also can be set differently for each server depending on how powerful that server is. So servers are not required be exactly the same or even the same version and you can cluster a 32bit version with a 64bit version of Domino how flexible it that and Domino does 10 times more logging and at the same time is ten times faster with users all online not using a silly OST file like outlook. Basically domino does everything better and quicker and I am a Exchange messaging engineer and have been for the last fifteen years currently looking after Exchange 2013 for the last two years so I think I have a good idea when comparing Domino with Exchange. Really don’t understand how Microsoft get away pushing out such an inferior product. Please note I’m not talking about the Outlook client which is good , however Notes client can do everything that Outlook can and tons more. Coming back to the backend Exchange server is absolute rubbish bit like comparing the maglev train (Domino) with a Steam engine (Exchange) where the engineer is putting coal into the engine. The seat comfy on both just a nightmare and hard work for the engineer. There you have it Exchange bad architecture design poor performance and absolutely not reliable in any way, fantastic product for support companies to make money and third party plugs because you need them because exchange is the bare bone compared to Domino.
Hi Clive, thanks for your comment. Not debating you at all, but my guess is that Exchange is #1 due to marketing and the Outlook client was wiping the floor with the Groupwise client (and maybe the Notes client too?) in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. When I was migrating from GroupWise to Exchange in the early 2000’s all over the country, one of the big reasons was companies wanted Outlook. Perhaps the client piece is where Notes lost marketshare in the late 90’s and early 2000’s era where MS gained all the market share. Today, I understand Notes client may be as good or better, but the ship sailed in the late 90’s early 2000’s, again in a big way due to Microsoft’s marketing plus the angle of Outlook being part of the Office suite so then the email client is part of Office and not a non-office additional secondary install product like Groupwise. Again, thanks for your post, made for an interesting read, what you said didn’t surprise me, I’ll say that. I hope Notes continues to thrive, because competition is the most important thing when it comes to quality IT products continuing to be made available.