Exchange Information Store not starting during bootup

[gisabella]

Hi,

Running Exchange on LUNs created with snapdrive. When I reboot the server the exchange information store does not start with the server. I have to wait until the server is started to logon and start the information store manually.

This exchange server is sbs 2003 running in a VM (ESX 3.5) with the iscsi initator inside the VM.

I have checked and rechecked the bound volumes, but I still can't get around this one.

Has anyone seen this?

[sflynn]

Hi Genito...

Are there any events logged in the application event log that gives an idea why the IS isn't starting? Is the IS dependent on the iSCSI service to start, before it starts? We've seen issues where the iSCSI service takes longer to start than the IS...and since the iSCSI service has to be running before your iSCSI connected LUNs can be presented back to the OS, the IS will be looking for data on LUNs that have not connected yet.

During the Configuration Wizard in SME, one of the questions the Wizard asks you is if you want to make the IS dependent on the iSCSI service starting before it starts. This prevents situations like this, where the IS is starting much before the iSCSI service does...and then can't find data...and fails to start.

Let me know if that fixes your issue...

Shannon

[BrendonHiggins]

Is the Exchange service dependant on Snapdrive service?

[gisabella]

Hi,

Thanks for the response, I'll check the exchange service dependencies and see if snapdrive and iscsi are there. I have a maintaince window on Wed and I hope I get the chance to try the suggestions out.

[fjohn]

1. Make the volumes persistent (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839686/en-us)

2. Make the Server service dependent on the iSCSI service as in (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870964/en-us)

3. If it's a cluster shared disk resource, then make clussvc depend on msiscsi (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883397/en-us)

4. Optionally, make the Exchange SA depend on msiscsi. If you do this, take note of the requirements for service shutdown in 1 above.