Microsoft Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) is installed on the active nodes of an SCC cluster first, then the passive nodes.

The CMS should still be running on the active nodes. You do not need to configure FPE on the passive nodes separately. All configuration and registry settings are automatically replicated to the passive nodes.

Note:
On an SCC cluster where the passive node has been removed or uninstalled, Microsoft does not support installing FPE to just the active node. Although the CMS can be recycled, adding the passive node after the installation can cause the CMS to become unstable.

Making your SCC cluster drive available during installation

When you install FPE on an active node of an SCC cluster, the installer attempts to identify all the shared disk drives in the CMS. It then creates a list of those shared drives and prompts you to choose one. This is the drive on which the FPE data will be kept.

To select a disk drive on which to store data
  1. In the list, select the drive on which you want to store the FPE data.

    Note On some rare hardware configurations, the installer may not be able to identify the shared disk drives, usually because of non-standard disk drive resource software. If the drive that you want to use is not on the list, then you must run Setup on a command line with the /c option. This tells the installer to include the indicated drive on the list, so that you can select it. The syntax for the /c option is the following:

    Setup /c driveletter

    There is no space between the /c and the driveletter, which must end in a colon. For example, to use the S: drive for the installation, enter the following:

    Setup /cS:

  2. When you are prompted, enter the data folder path that you want to create on the shared disk (see Naming the data folder path). If a volume mount point is configured on the selected shared disk drive and you want to use the volume mount point for the FPE data, then you must include the path to the volume mount point as part of the data folder path.

Instead of using the /c option, you can enter the drive letter of the shared drive into the silent installation answer file by using the <datafolder> tag. For more information about the silent information answer file, see Installing from a command prompt - specifying parameters.

Installing on an SCC active node

If you have mount points and you want to install the FPE data folder on a mount point, the data folder path must start with the mount point path. For example, to use the Dat folder on the F:\mpd mount point as the data folder, reference it with F:\mpd\Dat on the Installation folders page of the installation.

After you install FPE on an SCC active node, verify that the shared folder ForefrontCluster is on the shared drive. The database files (for example, scanjobs.fdb and incidents.fdb in Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server Version 10 and configuration.xml in FPE Version 11) are in this directory.

Installing on an SCC passive node

The CMS should still be running on the active node when you install FPE on an SCC passive node.

Note:
You do not need to configure FPE on the passive nodes separately.

Naming the data folder path

During the installation, you are prompted for both a shared drive and a cluster folder. These are some examples of shared drive and mount point names:

Disk resource Name Physical path Type

Disk E:

E:

Shared Drive

Diskf

F:

Shared Drive

Disk G:

G:

Shared Drive

Mtptdr

F:\mpd

Mount point

Gmpd

G:\mpd2

Mount point

The installer detects all shared drives and prompts you to select the drive from this list. However, you must still provide a cluster folder path for the FPE configuration data, as well as incident and quarantine data.

Therefore, using the information in the above table, the drive letters list would contain the following drives: E:, F:, and G:. The installer appends the cluster folder path to the drive letter selected.

For example, if the selected drive is E: and the provided cluster folder path is abcd\myFolder, then the full path of the cluster data folder is the following:

E:\abcd\myFolder

If the selected drive is F: and the provided cluster folder path is ForefrontCluster, then the full path of the cluster data folder is the following:

F:\ForefrontCluster

A new folder called ForefrontCluster is created on the root of the F: drive; this folder will not be on the mount point.

If your intention is to create a folder on the mpd mount point, you must indicate the cluster folder path as the following, not just ForefrontCluster:

mpd\ForefrontCluster

Now, the full path of the cluster data folder is the following, causing the folder to be created on the mount point mpd:

F:\mpd\ForefrontCluster.

Tips

  • Each node can only run one Clustered Mailbox Server (CMS) at a time.

  • Failovers must be to the passive node.

  • All configuration data is stored on the shared drive, so active and passive nodes have the same settings.