Question:
Number of servers:9
Roles: multi-role for all servers
All servers will be in a single AD site. I am trying to build a single DAG with 7 servers for production, and another DAG with 2 servers for staging where only a small number of IT personnel's mailboxes will be situated. All CAS role will be behind F5 load balancer and will use layer 4 load balancing only.
The reason behind this design (2 separate DAGs) is to have a staging servers so that IT can do testing and patching ahead of time without impacting the production DAG. Obviously, CAS role are also enabled in staging DAG so production clients will connect through them to get to production DAG. I am trying to limit client connections to staging DAG by using weight value (only allow 20% of the total distribution) on F5. I have been looking for sample designs and best practices for what I am trying to do, and I don't find one that I can reference to.
My question is having 2 DAGs make sense for staging or is this even a possible configuration? What would you recommend giving my wish to have a separate staging environment?
Thank you for your answers in advance.
Henry