Load Balancing OWA/MAPI with KEMP Virtual Load Balancer Step by Step Guide

In this article I will demonstrate you how to load balance Exchange 2010 with Kemp Virtual Load balancer. You can download Kemp Virtual Load balancer trial from here. You can log in to the Kemp Virtual Balancer with following user credentials.

UserName: bal
Password: 1fourall

Default IP of the load balancer will be 192.168.1.101 (unless you have DHCP)

Simply download the trial for VMWare, Hyper-V and start the Virtual Machine.

Log in with above credentials. (User Name: bal, Password: 1fourall)

Quick setup wizard will start…

Input the IP Address. (for Virtual load balancer)

Input the subnet mask.

Input a another IP address if you are going to make HA.

This is hostname of the virtual machine.

In the name servers window enter DNS ip addresses separate by spaces.

Enter your domain name here.

Specify the default gateway.

Reboot the LoadMaster to activate the above changes.

Now you can log in to the Load balancer web interface by specified ip address. After log in to the web interface you have to activate the trial using Access ID. Copy the access ID and go to this web page, request a trial license. You will receive a trial license within a day.

Let’s create a new Virtual Service, Now go to Virtual Services and click “Add New”

To create a Virtual service specify a IP, Port and Protocol. Now I am creating virtual service for Outlook Web Access.

Add real servers (Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers) ip addresses for the Virtual Service. To do this click Add New…

Add all Client Access Servers.

Check the server status…

Lets configure the HA for Outlook MAPI/RPC. First create a host record pointing to the Virtual Service. (casarray will be my CAS array name in Exchange 2010)

Now create a Client Access Array using Exchange Management Shell.

To get current Client Access Arrays use below command:

Get-ClientAccessArray

To create a new Client Access Array use the below command:

New-ClientAccessArray -Fqdn “Client Access Array Name” -Site “AD Site Name“

New-ClientAccessArray -Fqdn “casarray.doitfixit.local” -Site “Default-First-Site-Name”

After complete the above steps you should change the RPC Client Access Server. To change run the below command:

Get-MailboxDatabase | Set-MailboxDatabase -RPCClientAccessServer “casarray.doitfixit.local”

We can check the RPC Client Access server by using below command:

Get-MailboxDatabase | fl name,*rpc*

Now configure the Virtual Service. Specify the IP, Port and Protocol type as shown in below figure.

Set Real Server check parameters, persistence options and add Real servers as well.

Now configure Outlook to connect with Exchange server.

Outlook connected to Exchange server using array name.

Now I disconnect one of my Exchange Client Access Server to check the High Availability.

Now you can see Outlook is establishing a new connection to other Exchange client access server.

Also you can do this configurations easily by importing Templates. You can download Kemp Templates from here.