To test Exchange 2007, we made heavy use of VMware virtual machines. We started by creating a separate Windows Active Directory domain on a Windows 2003 system. Then, we installed Exchange 2007 on five virtual servers in various configurations, including one simple mailbox server that also acted as a hub transport.

Some of our early tests were of the high-availability and scalability features.

Once we had a single server acting in several Exchange roles, including mailbox server, transport between mailboxes, and client access server for Web users and mobile devices, we attempted to add more servers into the Exchange environment to test high availability.

We added a set of two systems as a cluster to test the high-availability capabilities of Exchange 2007 running in Active/Passive mode across multiple systems.

We also tested high availability by adding a fourth mailbox server running the local replication service to multiple disk drives.

To further test the high-availability functions, we used the features of VMware to stop systems abruptly and remove disk drives from under the various operating systems, and we recorded how Exchange 2007 behaved during these unusual events.