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About Mapping Exchange Connectors to Exchange Servers

This topic provides background information about how Exchange Connector applications work with Exchange Servers. It is important to understand this information before proceeding to the next task, Configuring Exchange Connector Parameters.

There are two basic ways you can configure Exchange Connector applications to work with Exchange Servers: with and without Connector Application Map records. The following paragraphs describe each type in more detail.

Configurations That Include Connector Application Map Records

In this configuration type, you create Connector Application Map records that assign specific Exchange Connector machines to handle synchronizations with specific Exchange Servers. This configuration type is most useful if you want to optimize performance in a Siebel implementation that has Exchange Servers in widely scattered geographical locations—performance may be optimized when each Exchange Connector machine is located close to the Exchange Server that the Connector synchronizes.

This configuration type has the following characteristics:

• Each Connector Application Map record assigns an Exchange Connector machine to synchronize users on a single Exchange Server. In Connector Application Map records, each Exchange Connector machine is represented by its Engine Share. Engine Shares are UNC path configurations that indicate which machines are to run Exchange Connector applications (sspicnea.exe files).
• An Exchange Server can be listed in multiple Connector Application Map records, but Exchange Connector machines can only be designated by one record each. This means each Exchange Server can be synchronized by multiple Exchange Connector machines, but no Exchange Connector machine can be assigned to synchronize more than one Exchange Server.
• The maximum number of Connector Application Map records you can create is the same as the number of Engine Shares you have.
• If the Connector Application Map does not assign any Exchange Connector machines to a particular Exchange Server, then you must configure the machine that runs the PIMSI Engine service to run Exchange Connector applications. The PIMSI Engine machine is the one machine that can synchronize users whose mailboxes are located on Exchange Servers that are not listed in Connector Application Map records. If the PIMSI Engine machine is not configured to run the Exchange Connector, then synchronization will fail with an error message for users whose mailboxes are located on the unmapped Exchange Servers.
• When the Exchange Connector needs to run a new instance of the application, it counts the number of Exchange Connector applications that are running on each Exchange Connector machine that is assigned to the relevant Exchange Server. The Connector runs the new instance of the application on the machine that has the fewest Exchange Connector applications running when it is checked.

Configurations That Exclude Connector Application Map Records

In this configuration type, you do not create any Connector Application Map records. SSSE dynamically assigns an Exchange Connector application to synchronize each user, as needed—any Exchange Connector machine can perform synchronizations with any Exchange Server. This configuration type is most useful for load balancing in implementations where wide-area network performance is not a major factor, or where the number of Exchange Servers exceeds the number of Exchange Connector machines.

This configuration type has the following characteristics:

• There are no Connector Application Map records in the Siebel implementation.
• Each Exchange Connector machine can synchronize users on any Exchange Server.
• When the Exchange Connector needs to run a new instance of the application, it counts the number of Exchange Connector applications that are running on each Exchange Connector machine. The Connector runs the new instance of the application on the machine that has the fewest Exchange Connector applications running when it is checked.

For information about creating the Engine Shares that designate which machines run the Exchange Connector application, see Setting Up the Connector Share Directory.