Question : SBS 2008/Exchange 2007 - offsite website hosting by 1 and 1

I have just carried out a swing migration from SBS 2003 to SBS 2008. I used to host my external website on the SBS 2003 box but now want to have it hosted by 1&1. What are the 1&1 DNS settings so that all my remote workers can still access OWA etc, external browsers look at the www.mydomain.com hosted on 1&1 and mail still forwarded to exchange mail.mydomain.com on my sbs 2008 box?

And if it is not too cheeky - during the sing migration my sbs2003 was offline for 48 hours. Backup mail servers provided by 1and1. Can I guarantee that all mail redirected to back up mail servers has been forwarded? How can I check?

Answer : SBS 2008/Exchange 2007 - offsite website hosting by 1 and 1

Either transfer your domain to your 1&1 package or set it up as an external domain in your 1&1 package then make 1&1 DNS servers that are specified during the external domain transfer process authoritative with your registrar.

Upload your website to the 1&1 package and that bit is done.

Create an A record in your 1&1 package for mail.yourdomain.com or whatever you like to use and make it resolve to the public IP address on your SBS network.

Make the primary MX record for yourdomain.com resolve to mail.yourdomain.com and leave the additional MX records configured as 'backup mail exchanger' in the 1&1 control panel.

Run the configure your network wizard in SBS to configure the external host name to mail.yourdomain.com, or whatever you chose to name it.  Forward the relevant ports from your router to your SBS.

Unless these records were in place before your servers were offline you can't be sure all your mail got cached with the backup Mail Exchangers, no way to check as far as I am aware though most servers will keep retrying at least 48 hours so most likely you didn't lose much if any.