I came across an interesting situation this morning where I created a CAS Array in Exchange 2010, updated the RPCClientAccessServer property on the existing database, and re-launched outlook. As it turns out there is a Bug in Outlook 2007 (and apparently 2010) where the users profile will not update to the new CAS Array. Instead the profile will remain until the profile is updated or the target is taken off line. To resolve the issue I had to update the users Outlook Profile. Thankfully I only have six users testing Exchange 2010 at this point.
I can’t stress from what was learned this morning the importance of configuring your CASArray prior to migrating to Exchange 2010. Even if you do not plan on using a CASArray I would suggest you create one and point it to the single CAS in your environment. This will this give you the ability to add a NLB CAS Array in the future AND save you a ton of work of having to repair all the existing profiles connected to Exchange 2010 at a later date.
For more info on a CASArray see my previous post Exchange 2010 Client Access Server Array (CAS Array).
I should point out that after some research I did manage to find a blog article pertaining to the issue on Elan Shudnow Blog. Thanks Elan for sharing!
Thanks for the tip, very useful. I’ve put this in place for the future!
Scott we have a 4 member WNLB CAS array and a 3 member DAG. The issue is everytime we try to connect via Outlook 2010 we still don’t get access (it fails on the log to server aspect of the Outlook profile). The CAS servers all work fine when not members of the array. We have set all the specific ports up on the WNLB for MAPI and created a DNS A record for the array. We’ve also created the array by using the New-ClientAccessArray switch and assigned the array to each database in the DAG by using the Set-MailboxDatabase -RpcClientAccessServer switch but still no connectivity. Any ideas ?
@Alex,
Did the mailboxes exist in the database before the Array was setup? Once thing to keep in mind that there are a number of ports that the CAS will use to contact the mailbox server via RPC. What ports are you allowing through? RPC Ports can range from 1065 – 65000 (or close to that). In some instances you will need to open up all the ports for the connection to occur correctly.
When you go to an outlook profile and check the mailbox configuration for the account what is it pointing to for Exchange Server?
It seems that profile redirection, while original CAS is alive, is fixed and works in OL2007 SP2. At least my test showed it. Don’t know does it works in OL 2010 RTM though…
Does anyone know if this will be fixed in SP1 or via another hotfix?
thx
What happens in the scenario where I want to set a database to a different CAS – but Outlook doesn’t change the profile automatically? So say I have all my users pointing to a CAS Array – then I decide to failover to Site B (DR Site). I update the RPCClientAccessServer for the databases to the new CAS Server (or Array) – but since the original CAS Array is not reachable the Outlook profiles never seem to switch over to the new CAS Array. If the original CAS Server/Array is available then it does redirection, but when not available it seems to break Outlook. I’m testing this for this scenerio:
Site A – active Datacenter
Site B – DR Datacenter (no active users, mailboxes, CAS Servers)
Site A fails and I want to manually switchover to Site B. I switchover the databases and update the RPCClientAccessServer for the databases. So users will be connecting to Site B, but their existing Outlook profiles never switch over to the new CAS Server/Array – they just hang trying to connect to the original. If I recreate the Outlook profile it works just great. Now, one option would be to change the DNS record of the CAS Array. I’m sure that would work fine, but what if I want to keep one database alive in Site A – in a case where only network connectivity TO Site A is down – but all my local servers/users are up? My plan is to have a separate CAS Server in Site A that I point my local users’ database to – and switchover everything else to Site B. I would have thought AutoDiscover would check to see the SCP and point my profile to the new CAS Server. What would I be missing here?
Birdman, an interesting Scenario.
When a user connects to a CAS array they are basically connecting to a CAS in the AD site where their database tells them to connect. The CAS will then perform a lookup to determine which server their database is located on. In the event that the database is on another server in another site a redirect will occur where the system will connect them to the CAS in the site where their mailbox resides.
Scott, yes this is a very interesting scenario. What you mentioned does appear to work very well. What I’m struggling with is when I want to stop using the CAS Array and point a single database towards a dedicated CAS Server – since in the case where a Datacenter is still up, but not reachable. So, what I’m seeing in my testing now is that Outlook (2010) WILL finally see that the user’s database is on a different CAS server and change the profile – but it takes 10-15 minutes – and hasn’t happened every single time. What appears to be happening is Outlook keeps trying the CAS Array – which isn’t available – so no redirect can happen. It keep retrying a certain amount of times and then decides to do an AutoDiscover to repair the profile. Now, if I were to change the RPCClientAccessServer value and either recreate the Outlook profile or do a Repair – it works immediately. The main issue here seems to be if the original CAS server is not available Outlook SHOULD AutoDiscover, look up the SCP value for the CAS Server and reconfigure – but it’s not consistently doing that – and when it does it takes awhile. This is a situation that is rare, I agree, but something that I’m trying to accommodate. I could just dedicate that database to one CAS Server, but I’d be losing the advantage of a CAS Array. Trying to have my cake and eat it too
I found one TechNet article that said Outlook should do a Re-Autodiscover upon boot up – but it doesn’t appear to. If it would timeout after 5 minutes and then do a Re-Autodiscover I’d be happy with that – but I can’t find any literature on what the retry/timeout period is 
Scott- I am having same problem connecting Outlook 2007 / 2010 to CASarray FQDN. Outlook works fine with CAS server’s FQDN but not with CASarray FQDN.
I saw you have mentioend that you had same problem and got it resolved with updating outlook 2007 SP2? Or is there any other interesting thing you have found fixing this issue? Do let me know. Thanks in advance.
Rick,
Did you do a “Set-MailboxDatabase -Identity “DatabaseName” –RPCClientAccessServer array.domain.com”?
That is what I had to do. The problem was due to the array being created after the users were moved over to 2010. Once I updated all the databases RPCClientAccessServer the issue disappeared.
you may need to update their outlook profile on the client machine by doing a check names.
Thans a lot Scott, check names resolve all.
You’re Welcome!
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