XADM: Exchange 2000 Cluster Does Not Failover with Error 2074 After You Apply Exchange 2000 SP2 (314266)

SYMPTOMS

After you apply Exchange 2000 Server Service Pack 2 (SP2) to an Exchange 2000 cluster, when the administrator tries to failover one or more of the virtual servers to the node that you upgraded to Exchange 2000 SP2, the following error messages may be logged in the Application event log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeCluster
Event Category: (4)
Event ID: 2074
Computer: NODE2
Description:
Exchange Information Store Instance - (VIRTUAL SERVER 1): Cluster Service failed the isalive checking for the resource
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Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeCluster
Event Category: (4)
Event ID: 2086
Computer: NODE2
Description:
Exchange IMAP4 Virtual Server Instance - (VIRTUAL SERVER 1): Failed to set the start bit in the metabase in order to start the protocol, check if any process in the system is dead
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Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeCluster
Event Category: (4)
Event ID: 2065
Computer: NODE2
Description:
Exchange IMAP4 Virtual Server Instance - (VIRTUAL SERVER 1): Failed to bring the resource online

NOTE: In the preceding error messages, node2 is the node that you recently upgraded to Exchange 2000 SP2, and the administrator attempted to failover virtual server 1 from node1 to node2.

CAUSE

This problem can occur if you configure too many storage groups (allotted by the particular role). If too many storage groups are configured, the Exchange 2000 cluster cannot failover properly. Exchange 2000 Server is limited to four storage groups for each server. This is a physical limitation and applies to each node of a cluster as well. The following table describes this limitation.

Cluster Type	Storage Groups
Active/Passive	Four storage groups with a maximum of five mailbox stores per storage group for each Exchange 2000 virtual server
Active/Active	Four storage groups with a maximum of five mailbox stores per storage group for the entire cluster

In this table, the maximum number of storage groups are currently limited to four for each Exchange 2000 virtual server for an active/passive cluster and four for the entire cluster for an active/active cluster configuration.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, run Exchange System Manger and remove one or more of the of the storage groups until the cluster configuration conforms to the limitations that are described in the "Cause" section of this article. When you remove storage groups and mailbox stores, you may encounter the issue that is described in the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

279202 You receive a "c1034a7f" error message when you delete a mailbox store

MORE INFORMATION

Exchange System Manger allows you to create more storage groups than are allotted for the cluster configuration. Third-party applications can also create storage groups for database recovery scenarios that exceed the current failover allotment.

For additional information, see the "Storage Group Limitations" section in the following Exchange 2000 Server white paper: