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S5dreamer_80620's avatar
S5dreamer_80620
Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
Jun 11, 2012

OWA Proxying in Mixed Exchange 2007&2010 Environement

We're new to the F5s. We've configured F5s in front of our Exch 2010 CAS Servers.

 

Here is our setup:

 

 

1- SITE A: 2x Exch 2010 CAS Servers behind F5s and 1 Exch 2007 CAS . Exch 2010 & Exch 2007 MBX Servers.

 

2- SITE B: 1 Exch 2007 CAS Server and 1 Exch 2007 MBX Server.

 

 

When access Exch 2010 mailbox in Site A through the F5s everything works fine.

 

When accessing Exch 2007 mailbox in Site A through F5s, the redirect works fine and use is able to access their Exch2007 mailbox.

 

When accessing Exch 2007 mailbox in Site B through F5s in Site A. Exch 2010 CAS proxies the connection to the Exch2007 MBX Servers in Site B and OWA page take very long before it loads and it loads with errors. None of the links are usable or clickable. completely unusable.

 

 

The tests above have been done using IE without checking "User the light version of Outlook Web app"

 

When using the Light version of outlook web app with IE or using firefox or Chrome, OWA site for Exch 2007 mailbox in Site B comes up just fine and proxying works as intended.

 

 

Tested Proxying using Full OWA on IE bypassing the F5s on Site A to access an Exch2007 MBX in SiteB and it also works fine.

 

 

The issue is with accessing Exch 2007 Mailbox in a secondary site through Proxying from Exch2010 server that's behing an F5 load balancer.

 

 

Anybody ran to any similar issues, any suggestions ideas are much appreciated.

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

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partner

4 Replies

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  • Greg_Coward's avatar
    Greg_Coward
    Icon for Employee rankEmployee
    Jun 12, 2012

    Hello,

     

     

    A couple quick question and maybe a couple things to try.

     

     

    Just to verify, are the EXCH 2010 CAS servers are proxying the connection over to site-B, (CAS to CAS) or are they doing redirect to the external URL of site-B? If they are proxying the connection, the issue might be bandwidth limitations between sites. Additionally, you may want to try disabling 'OneConnect' if you are using it on the Exch 2010 Virtual server.

     

     

    Are you currently running Exch 2010 SP2? If not, I would recommend upgrading. They have made significant improvements with respect to proxying and redirection for OWA.

     

     

    Another thought, (depending upon you architecture) would be to create and Exch2007 pool and use the Big-IP w/ APM to direct connections to the 2007 CAS servers rather than relying upon the Exch 2010 CAS farm.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • S5dreamer_80620's avatar
    S5dreamer_80620
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jun 12, 2012
    to answer your questions:

     

    1- are the EXCH 2010 CAS servers are proxying the connection over to site-B, (CAS to CAS) or are they doing redirect to the external URL of site-B? We're doing proxying to Site B, we're only doing redirection to the 2007 CAS within the same site as the EXCH2010 CAS (Site A).

     

    2- Are you currently running Exch 2010 SP2? No we're running SP1.

     

    Can you tell me a little more about what the OneConnect stuff does anyway, i'm kind of new to the F5s ?

     

     

    I would go ahead with your last suggestion however we're not running APM we just have the LTMs.

     

     

    In another note, i got this to work actually by turning on the http compression profile, although this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, this actually solved the issue without breaking ActiveSync or Outlook Anywhere (We're using one virtual server for all CAS Services).

     

    Why would Http compression solve this, not sure at all. But if you have anymore clarification i very much appreciate it.

     

     

    Thanks for your reply and suggestion, i want to keep this open to make sure that my solution really works and i will confirm after doing some more extensive testing.
  • SteveMP's avatar
    SteveMP
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jun 13, 2012

     

    "In another note, i got this to work actually by turning on the http compression profile, although this doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, this actually solved the issue without breaking ActiveSync or Outlook Anywhere (We're using one virtual server for all CAS Services).

     

    Why would Http compression solve this, not sure at all. But if you have anymore clarification i very much appreciate it."

     

     

     

    I am guessing its not the compression itself, but other settings in that profile. My guess would be the "Redirect Rewrite" option, or OneConnect Transformations. If you go to "Local traffic" > Profiles and then click on that profile, you can take a look at all the settings. Check and see if your Redirect Rewrite is set to "All".

     

     

     

     

     

  • S5dreamer_80620's avatar
    S5dreamer_80620
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jun 14, 2012
    I am guessing its not the compression itself, but other settings in that profile. My guess would be the "Redirect Rewrite" option, or OneConnect Transformations. If you go to "Local traffic" > Profiles and then click on that profile, you can take a look at all the settings. Check and see if your Redirect Rewrite is set to "All".

     

     

    I checked that option and it's set to "All" , i also checked the OneConnect Transformations and i don't see anything that stands out, then again, i don't completely understand what the OneConnect profiles do.