Windows 2008, Exchange 2007 CCR Cluster multi-subnet

To decrease the fail-over time of a multi-subnet CCR cluster running Exchange 2007, decrease the TTL of the DNS record. When a fail-over occurs in a multi-subnet environment, the DNS record must change to the new IP. To make this happen faster, run the below command.

The default is 20 minutes, plus the 10 minutes it takes for the cluster to even change the record, plus the amount of time a client caches the record. This can lead to long fail-over times.

To change the TTL to 5 minutes run: Cluster.exe res /priv HostRecordTTL=300

Windows Server 2008, Cannot Create cluster

If you are having issues creating a cluster in Windows 2008, try this:

Change the value for the MS failover cluster virtual adapter
1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Locate the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. Under this subkey, find the subkey that holds a DriverDesc string value entry whose value is "Microsoft Failover Cluster Virtual Adapter."
4. Under the subkey that you found in step 3, add the following string value registry entry:
Name: DatalinkAddress
Value data: 02-AA-BB-CC-DD-01
5. Restart the computer.
6. Repeat step 1 through step 5 on other computers on which you experience this problem. When you do this on other computers, replace the value data of the registry with different values in order to set a unique value for each node. For example, set the value on the second node to 02-AA-BB-CC-DD-02, and set value on the third node to 02-AA-BB-CC-DD-03. If you notice this behavior on distinct clusters, make sure that you use an address for each node that is unique across all clusters.
7. Try creating the cluster again.

Exchange 2007 cannot uninstall Exchange Tools

If you cant uninstall the Exchange tools because the option is grayed out, run this command:

MsiExec.exe /X{24B2C164-DE66-44FE-B468-A46D9D5E6B31}

Windows 2008 CCR Cluster, Exchange 2007 error

Microsoft.Exchange.Cluster.ReplayService (7012) Log Verifier e0a 31573001: An attempt to open the device name "\\source\share$" containing "\\source\share$\" failed with system error 5 (0x00000005): "Access is denied. ". The operation will fail with error -1032 (0xfffffbf8).

If you get this error in your Windows 2008 CCR cluster on Exchange 2007, you can ignore it, for now. It should be fixed in future releases. Check this link:

http://blogs.technet.com/timmcmic/archive/2008/12/21/windows-2008-exchange-2007-sp1-ese-522-errors-on-ccr-passive-or-scr-target-machine.aspx

SnapDrive Windows 2008 Cluster Access Denied

After installing snapdrive on a cluster member, I got access denied when trying to add a disk. Apparently you have to install SnapDrive on both servers before proceeding even though it is a CCR cluster

Netapp Cannot Delete Snapshot Error LUN Clone

I ran into this error whilst trying to delete a snapshot created by SME. I found this page:

http://www.oneandonemakesthree.com/?q=node/50

Which states:

When you clone a LUN, you are left with snapshots that won't be deleted even after you delete the cloned LUN. These snapshots will start to consume huge amounts of space.

If you try to delete the snapshot, it will say that the snapshot is busy and can't be deleted. You have to delete any snapshots that were taken while that LUN clone existed as the LUN clone exists in those snapshots.

Issue the command:

lun snap usage volume_name snapshot_name

The will be the snapshot that is currently busy that you are trying to delete. The results of the command will be a list of snapshots that you have to delete before the busy snapshot can be deleted, and you can reclaim all that space.