Reference Architecture Dell Exchange 2007

Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor and Representative Deployments
Product Group - Enterprise
Dell White Paper

By Farrukh Noman Bharath Vasudevan
April 2007
Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................. 3 Introduction.................................................................................................................. 4 Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor ............................................................................... 5 Addressing Business Needs ............................................................................................ 5 Price versus Performance................................................................................................ 6 Number of Mailboxes ..................................................................................................... 7 Mailbox Size ................................................................................................................... 8 Cached Mode .................................................................................................................. 9 Data Availability........................................................................................................... 10 High Availability .......................................................................................................... 11 Hard Drive Speeds ........................................................................................................ 12 Storage Topology.......................................................................................................... 13 Tape Backup ................................................................................................................. 15 Anti-Virus / Anti Spam................................................................................................. 16 Additional Exchange Server Roles ............................................................................... 17 Exchange 2007 Reference Architecture .................................................... 18 Small Exchange Deployment Up to 500 Users ......................................................... 18 ExchangeServerLayoutRecommendations: .............................................................19 Storagerecommendations:........................................................................................20 BackupandAvailabilityRecommendations:..............................................................21 Medium Exchange Deployment Up to 1000 Users ................................................... 22 ExchangeServerLayoutRecommendations: .............................................................23 Storagerecommendations:........................................................................................25 BackupandAvailabilityRecommendations:..............................................................26 Large Exchange Deployment - Up to 5000 Users ........................................................ 26 ExchangeServerLayoutRecommendations: .............................................................27 Storagerecommendations:........................................................................................29 BackupandAvailabilityRecommendations:..............................................................29 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 31
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Dell Product Group - Enterprise
Executive Summary
MicrosoftExchangeisoneofthemostpopularandwidelyusedemailapplicationstoday.The increased companywide reliance upon email for business operations and the individual requirementsofuserscreatetheneedforanemailsolutionforcompaniesofallsizes,notjustthe largest corporations. The designed messaging infrastructure should be flexible to meet the security,availabilityandscalabilityneedsofanorganization. Inanefforttoreducethecomplexityinchoosingmessagingsolutionsforcompaniesofallsizes, DellhasperformedextensivetestingandcharacterizationofMicrosoftExchangeServer2007on standardDellbuildingblocks.ThecollectiveknowledgeearnedthroughDelltestsandlaboratory experimentsisincorporatedintheDellExchange2007Advisortool. This paper discusses in detail the sizing features implemented in Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor Tool and deployment guidance for three Reference architectures of small, medium and large Exchange environments. The recommended reference architectures for the 3 deployment scenarios are built on industrystandard Dell components providing secure and available infrastructuresthatarescalabletoaccommodatefuturegrowthneeds.
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Introduction
Email has effectively replaced the telephone as the most essential and important productivity toolforbusinesses.Whetherintheofficeorontheroad,communicatinginternallyorexternally withcustomers,businessusersdependonemailfortheircommunicationneeds.Theincreased companywiderelianceuponemailforbusinessoperationsandtheindividualrequirementsof userscreatetheneedforanemailsolutionforcompaniesofallsizes.Suchasolutionshouldbe less complex to manage and also meet business requirements such as security, regulatory compliance and availability. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 incorporates features that enable businesses to effectively meet those challenges, without fundamentally altering the traditional methodsusedbyenduserstoaccessemail. .Thedatafromthecomprehensiveperformancetestsandtheresultingbestpracticesgainedhave been incorporated in the form of a sizing tool Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor. The following sections of this white paper explain the Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor and step through the tool outputsdesignedforsmall,mediumandlargebusinessneeds.
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Dell Exchange 2007 Advisor

TheDellExchange2007Advisorhasbeendesignedasaneasytousetoolthatcancreateadraft orgeneralarchitectureforthebackendExchangeinfrastructurewhileprovidingacompleteview of hardware, software, and services offerings that are required to meet customer requirements. Theprimarygoalofthistoolistoobtainmessagingrequirementsatacomplexitylevelthatdoes notrequireITadministratorstoprovideinputs.Throughiteration,customerscanplugdifferent requirementsintothesizingtoolthemselvesandeffectivelyunderstandthetypeofdeployment neededpriortocontactingtheiraccountteam. The following sections elaborate on the Exchange Advisor 2007 input questions that enable capturingmessagingrequirementsinlesscomplexterms.
Addressing Business Needs
Figure 1:Question1AddressingBusinessneeds TherearemanybusinessreasonsthatITmanagerswillchoosetoupgradetoordeployExchange Server2007.Thesereasonsmayarisefromaneedtoconsolidateserversandstorageortoaddress security,archiving,compliance,ordisasterrecoveryneeds.ThequestioninFigure1isdesigned tocapturethoseneedsorissuesthatbusinesseswouldliketoaddresswithExchangeServer2007. For each of these business needs, Dell provides a suite of professional services offerings that includedeployment,migration,andmaintenanceofExchangeServer2007solutions.
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Price versus Performance
Figure 2:Question2PriceversusPerformance InadditiontounderstandingthebusinessneedsfordeployingormigratingtoExchangeServer 2007, Dell understands that many different solutions can satisfy a given set of criteria requirements. Sometimes the need for the best system performance to effect best possible user experience can be the business priority, instead of choosing a balanced price/performance configuration. Some higher performance components have an added price premium associated with them, which may not be necessary for all classes of business use cases, so a choice to optimizethesolutionforperformanceorforpriceisoffered.
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Number of Mailboxes
Figure 3:Question3Numberofmailboxusersandusageprofiles There are many variables directly related to an end users mailbox that need to be considered whendevelopingamessagingsolution.Averagemailboxsizeandnumberofmailboxesaretwo significantfactors.DellsExchangeAdvisor2007sizingtoolcansizeupto15000mailboxeswith an average size up to 2GB These are not the only factors for mailbox design that need to be understood.Justasimportantasthequantityandsizeofthemailboxesisthenatureoftheusers, whichcanhavedifferentimpactsonthememory,processoranddiskresourcerequirementofthe Exchange 2007 environment. Dell has classified Exchange users into three categories: Light, MediumandHeavyusers. Lightuserssend5emailsandreceive20emailsinan8hourperiod. Mediumuserssend10emailsandreceive40emailsinan8hourperiod. Heavyuserssend20emailsandreceive80emailsinan8hourperiod TheExchange2007sizingtoolallowscustomerstospecifyatotalof15000usersdistributedover the three categories to better estimate the processor, memory and disk requirements needed to meetthetotaluserneeds.Inadditiontothediskdrivestoragerequiredforhostingmailboxdata, additionaldiskdrivesarerequiredtohostthetransactionlogs.Transactionlogsarearecordof messages sent and received, and are used primarily to maintain consistency and to ensure the recoverabilityofmailboxdata.Propercapacityplanningmustaccountfortransactionlogs. Alongwiththemailboxdataandtransactionlogs,RAIDvolumetypesandperformanceresponse timeshelpdeterminethediskdrivecountandconfiguration.Bestpracticesdeterminedthrough Dells characterization studies have determined that a RAID 10 or a RAID 1 volume is always appropriate for hosting the transaction logs. For hosting the mailboxes, the appropriate RAID typeismoredependentonthenatureoftheusersandtheloadbeingexertedonthemailboxes.If deploymentsareweightedtowardsheavierloads,RAID10volumesbecomenecessaryduetothe
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demands placed on the physical hard drives. For lighter loads, a RAID 5 implementation can providethenecessaryperformancewhilerequiringasmallerdiskdrivecountfootprint.
Mailbox Size
Figure 4Question4:Usermailboxsize Themailboxsizeisoneoftheimportantfactorsinestimatingtheinitialcapacityofthestorage system that will host the mailboxes. The mailbox size should be carefully chosen to satisfy the growing needs of the organization. Besides the growing needs of users, the actual mailbox requires some additional space such as freepages required for database activities, space for deleted items stored until retention period, space for defragmentation and other NTFS overheads.Inaddition,ifthemailboxisalsoenabledforunifiedmessaging,thenextraspaceis requiredtosavevoicemessagesandfaxattachments. User email mailboxes have evolved to become information repositories for the organization, besides facilitating communications. This raises the need for securing and archiving mailbox information to meet regulatory compliance and retention requirements. Exchange Server 2007 includes a Messaging Retention Management feature enabling central management of user personal folders. Also the enhanced and sound journaling features in Exchange Server 2007 enable suitable archiving solutions within the Exchange infrastructure, or integrating with WindowsSharepointservicesorwiththirdpartyarchivingsolutions. This question in Figure 4 enables capturing the organizations mailbox size requirements. The 2048 MB limit in the tool is based on the current best practice trends for mailbox sizes in the Industry. Exchange Server 2007 can scale beyond this 2048MB limit specified in the tool for mailboxsize.Mailboxsizeandusageprofiledeterminethedisksubsystemsizing.Mailboxsize determinesthediskspacerequirementsandtheusageprofiledeterminesdiskI/Operformance
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requirement. Table 1 describes how mailbox characteristics drive storage subsystem disk requirements. MailboxCharacteristics LightUsage HeavyUsage Small Size Mailbox Requirement: Recommendation: Requirement: Large Size Mailbox Recommendation: LowI/OandLessspace Heavy I/O and less Space Low capacity drives Low capacity drives withRAID5 withRAID1/0 Low I/O and large Heavy I/O and large space space Large capacity drives Large capacity drives withRAID5 with RAID 1/0 or RAID5
*Choosing between 10K or 15K RPM disk drives affect the required number of drives and total cost. Generally10KdrivesarerecommendedforLowI/Oscenariosand15KdrivesforHeavyI/Oscenarios
Table 1Disksubsystemplanningbasedonmailboxcharacteristics
Cached Mode
Figure 5:Question5Percentageusersincachedmode
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Thecachedmodeclientsversustheonlinemodeclientsareacrucialfactorfordeterminingthe averageI/Ooperations(IOPS)exertedbythemailboxserveronthedisksubsystem.Thecached modeOutlookclientsusealocalcopyoftheirmailboxforoperationsandreducetheI/Oloadon the mailbox server due to local cache access. The online mode clients access the server for all operationsandincursignificantI/Osonthemailboxserverduetotheirdirectaccesstodisk.The cachedmodeclientsperiodicallysynchronizewiththemailboxserverinthebackgroundtokeep themailboxupdated.MoreclientsworkinginonlinemodecauseanincreaseinI/Ooperationson the mailbox server which in turn requires more diskdrives to satisfy that IOPS requirement. Therefore,itisnecessarytofindthepercentageofclientsthatcanbeplacedincachemodeversus onlinemodetodeterminethenumberofdiskdrivesrequiredtosupporttheload.Question5in Figure 5 helps identify the cached mode versus online mode split to accurately size the disk subsystem. Cached mode helps reduce mailbox database I/O operations to disk. Most of this reduction is realized due to the substantial decrease in database read operations from disk. Due to this reduction in disk read operations the read/write ratio of Exchange database operations to disk changeswithcachedmode.Thischangeinread/writeratiotodiskalsohasasignificantimpact ondisksizingfortheExchangeserver.
Data Availability
Figure 6:Question6DataAvailability BusinessContinuityVolumes(BCV)ordiskbaseddatacopiesareanimportantfactortoconsider while planning for data availability and backups. When the database backup/restore time duration exceeds the backup/restore window defined within organizations service agreement, diskcopiescanbeusedforbackup/restoreinsteadoftapedevices,whicharetraditionallyslow. Diskcopiesalsoenablequickrecoveryfromdataleveldisasterssuchasusererrors.Datacopies can be implemented using Local Continuous Replication (LCR) or third party hardware
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mechanisms implemented via Volume Shadow copy Service (VSS). Deployments usually implement a hybrid solution, utilizing BCV technologies for quick recovery capabilities, and implementing tape backup solutions that back up the BCV data copies to tape for long term recoveryandarchiving. Local Continuous Replication is a builtin replication technology available in Exchange 2007 to createandmaintainacopyoftheproductiondatabaseonadifferentsetofvolumeswithinthe samemailboxserver.VolumeShadowcopyService(VSS)isaWindowsServer2003servicethat enablesthirdpartymechanismssuchasEMCSnapViewtoprovidehardwarebaseddatacopies of application volumes such as Exchange database volumes. These data copies are hosted on a separate set of disks on the storage system. The question in Figure 6 enables capturing BCV requirementsforthedeployment. IfBCVisrequiredforthedeployment,anadditionalsetofdiskdrivesneedstobeplannedinthe disksubsystemthatwillhostthedatacopiesofExchangevolumes.Theseadditionaldriveswill be based both on space and IOPS requirement of the BCV solution. Also the BCV technologies mayneedadditionalserverresourcessuchasprocessorandmemoryforexecution.
High Availability
Figure 7:Question7HighAvailability High availability refers to improving the uptime of an application service or system for client access. Application or system downtime periods may be due to failures or maintenance. High availability for mailbox server can be achieved by deploying a cluster using Microsoft Cluster Services(MSCS). Exchange Server2007 supports two types of clusteringSingle copy Clusters (SCC)basedonMSCSsharedstorageclusteringandClusterContinuousReplication(CCR)based on MSCS Majority Node Set (MNS) replicated storage clustering. The question in Figure 7 capturesthehighavailabilityneedsforthemailboxservers.
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Single copy clusters (SCC) is based on the MSCS (Microsoft Cluster Service) shared storage cluster model and manages a single copy of the storage groups and mailbox databases on a sharedstorage.Itusesclusteredmailboxserversinactive/passivenodeconfigurationconnected to the shared storage. In the event of a failure on the active server that is serving clients, the passive server continues hosting the mailbox databases from the shared storage. This type of clusteringwasalsoavailableinthepreviousversionsofExchangeServer.Localdatacopiesbased ontheExchangeServer2007LCRfeaturecannotbeenabledonthemailboxserversthatarepart of the SCC cluster. Cluster continuous replication (CCR) is a new feature based on the MSCS MajorityNodeSet(MNS)clustering.ItcombinesthereplicationfeaturesinExchange2007with failover features in MSCS. A primary server hosts the databases and serves the clients. A secondary server maintains a copy of the databases and takes over if the primary fails. The secondary copies are kept consistent and synchronized by copying and replaying log records fromtheprimaryserver.Thesecondarycopiesofthedatabasecanbeusedforbackuppurposes withoutimpactingtheperformanceontheprimaryproductiondatabases.Suchahybridstrategy canalsoimprovethedurationandfrequencyoftapebackupstrategiesforthesolution. BothSCCandCCRrequireadditionalserversforthepassiverolesinthecluster.CCRinaddition requires separate storage disk drives for the secondary copies of the database. Also, if the secondary database copies are provided on a separate storage system, then CCR can improve resiliencybyhostingthesecondaryserverandstorageonaseparatedatacenter.
Hard Drive Speeds
Figure 8:Question8Harddrivespeed Theselectionofaparticularharddrivespeediscrucialfordeterminingthenumberofdiskdrives requiredinthestoragesystem.Asdiscussedintheearliersections,bothspacerequirementsand performance requirements in terms of IOPS determine the number of disk drives. The mailbox
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server IOPS requirement is determined by the user profile and number of users. The space requirementisdeterminedbythemailboxsize,overheadsandnumberofusers.15KRPMdrives providebetterthroughputthanthe10KRPMdrivesintermsofIOPS.Asageneralruleofthumb, 15KRPMdrivesprovideupto180IOPSand10KRPMdrivesprovideupto120IOPS.Thus,to supportagivenIOPSworkloadbasedonuserprofiles,fewer15Kdrivesarerequiredthan10K RPMdrives.The15KRPMdrivesprovidethisimprovedperformanceatahighercostperdrive. Thedifferencebetweenchoosingthesetwodrivestypesinsmalldeploymentsusingfewdrives would not be that significant. However, for large database deployments with heavy IOPS requirements, the 10K RPM drives required will be extremely costly compared to 15K RPM drives.Thepricedifferencebecomesasignificantfactorinsuchdeployments.Besidesdrivecosts, IT shops also standardize on drive types as a best practice for management. Generally in such scenariospreferenceisgivenforonedrivetypeoveranother. The question in Figure 8 enables capturing the drive type requirements for the deployment. Generallythenumberof15KRPMdrivesrequiredwillbelesserthan10KRPMdrivestosupport the workload profiles. The exception to this would be when space requirements warrant deploying a higher number of disk drives than the IOPS performance requirements and when 10K RPM drives have a higher capacity drive supported than the 15K RPM drives. Such deploymentsusuallyincludelargemailboxsizeswithlightusagebyusers.
Storage Topology
Figure 9:Question9StorageTopology The question in Figure 9 enables capturing the storageattach technology requirements for the deployment. Usually IT departments standardize or prefer particular attach technology for externalstorage.DellExchangeAdvisor2007supportsdirectattachedexternalstoragebasedon SASandFibreChanneltechnologies.ItalsosupportsSANbasedexternalstoragebasedonFibre Channelforexternalstorage.Choosingonetypeoveranotherisusuallybasedonfactorssuchas
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cost, ease of management, performance and scalability. Dell PowerVault MD1000 is a SAS based direct attached storage that provides expandability and performance at a low cost. The Dell|EMC CX320, CX340 and CX380 storage offer flexibility, scalability and performance coupled with manageability in both SAN attached and direct attached Fibre Channel configurations.TheTable2showsthesupportedstoragesystemsandtheirfeatures. Max. Primary Max. Drive Direct SAN Attach Drives StorageSystems Drive Speed Attach Attach Technology per Technology (RPM) Attach Dell|EMCCX320 Dell|EMCCX340 Dell|EMCCX380 DellPowerVaultMD1000 FC FC FC SAS FC FC FC SAS 15K 15K 15K 15K 120 240 480 45
*AbovestoragesystemssupportedwithExchange2007AdvisoratthetimeofinitialreleaseinApril2007. Supportedsystemsmaychangeinfuturerevisionsofthetool.
Table 2:ExchangeAdvisor2007supportedstoragesystems ThestorageperformancerequirementsofadatabaseapplicationlikeExchangeprimarilydepend on the throughput provided in terms of IOPS. The IOPS throughout is directly related to the drive speed and number of drives provided. Since Dell PowerVault and Dell |EMC storage systemssupportboth15Kand10Kdrives,thethroughputperformanceisusuallynotafactorin choosing the storage. Other factors such as cost, scalability and manageability determine the choiceofstorage.
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Tape Backup
Figure 10:Question10TapeBackup Replication technologies discussed in earlier sections provide fast backup/restore options for mailbox data and provide continuously updated neartime copy of the running database. However, they do not provide pointintime data copies that span a longer period of time.The regular backup options provide pointintime copies for recovering a database to any oldclean stateandalsooptionsforstoringonresilientstoragemediasuchastapes.Selectingaregulartape backup, in addition to the replication and availability methods, is considered a best practice solution. Tape solutions with large backup space can retain multiple past pointintime copies thatspanacrossverylongperiodsoftime.ExchangeServer2007supportsbackingupLCRand CCRdatacopiesinadditiontoproductiondatabases.Ahybridbackupschemecanbebuiltwith these options using LCR for daily incremental backups and tape based regular backup for weeklyorlongertermdatabackups.
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Anti-Virus / Anti Spam
Figure 11: Question 11 Anti-virus/Anti-spam solution ThethreatfromvirusesandspamhasbecomeoneofthebiggestconcernsinanyITdeployment and Exchange is no exception. In Exchange 2007, the Edge Transport server role provides anti virus/antispamprotectionandfilteringcapabilitiesattheperimeternetwork.Dellalsosupports SymantecMailSecurityappliancesforantivirus/antispamandcontentfilteringattheperimeter network. Dell strongly recommends implementing the antivirus/spam solutions to reduce the amountofunsolicitedemailsandvirusesintheExchangeenvironment.ThequestioninFigure 11 enables capturing antivirus/antispam requirements for a deployment. The tool then appropriatelyrecommendsanantivirus/antispamsolution.
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Additional Exchange Server Roles
Figure 12: Question 12 Additional Exchange Server 2007 Roles Besides the Mailbox server role, Exchange 2007 includes other server roles to perform various functions. The Hub Transport server role is required in any exchange 2007 deployment and is responsibleforhandlingallinternalmailflowacrossExchangerolesandappropriatedeliveryof usermessages.TheClientAccessserverrolehostsservicesandfunctionsrequiredforsupporting avarietyofmailclientsincludingOutlookWebAccess(OWA)andmobilemessaging.TheEdge Transport server role sits in the perimeter network and provides functionality for routing external SMTP mail flow to and from the Internet. The Unified Messaging (UM) server role providesthenewExchangeServer2007functionalityforintegrationofvoicemailandfaxalong with email into user mailboxes. It also provides for Outlook Voice Accessfunctionality,which allowsuserstoaccessemail,voicemail,andcalendarentitiesfromatelephone. The server roles or a subset of roles can be consolidated and deployed on the same server hardware system with a few exceptions. If the Mailbox server is clustered using SCC or CCR, then no other role can be consolidated with it. The Edge Transport server role sits outside the Active Directory framework in the perimeter network and hence cannot be consolidated with otherroles.TheHubTransportandClientAccessrolesarerequiredperActiveDirectorysitein the organization. Hence when the Mailbox server role is clustered, a separate server system is required to host these roles. The question in Figure 12 enables capturing the additional role requirementforadeployment.Thetoolthenrecommendsanappropriateserversystemforeach oftheadditionalrolefunctionalityselected. RefertotheDellwhitepapertitledExchangeServer2007DesignConsiderationstolearnmore aboutExchangeServerrolesandtheirdeploymentconsiderations.
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Exchange 2007 Reference Architecture
The following sections enumerate three different classes of deployments: small, medium and large.Thethreeclassesofuserswillbecharacterizedbasedonthenumberandsizeofmailboxes, the nature of their use, the size of their deployment, and availability needs. An appropriate solution will be presented for each type of deployment with the rationale for the inputs and explanationoftherecommendedsolution.
Small Exchange Deployment Up to 500 Users

ThefirstreferencearchitecturerepresentsarelativelysmallExchangeorganizationwithupto500 heavyusershavinganaveragemailboxsizeof150MB.Table3summarizestherequirementsfor thisorganization: NumberofMailboxes 500 AverageMailboxsize UserProfile Storage DataReplication HighAvailability BackupRequired? Table 3:SmallExchangeRequirements Several critical factors must be considered before arriving at a suitable platform for your Exchangedeployment.Someoftheconsiderationsinclude: Appropriate server platform with required number of processors, memory and I/O expandability. Suitablestoragetechnologywithfuturegrowthandscalabilityinmind. Highavailabilityrequirements. Backupmethodology. 150MB Heavy DirectAttachedSAS UsingLCR None Yes
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ExchangeServerLayoutRecommendations:
Exchange Mailbox/Hub ClientAccessServer Processors Memory NumberofExchangeStorageGroups NumberofExchangeInformationStores SizeofeachExchangeInformationStore TapeBackupDrive Transport/ DellPowerEdge1950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 8GB 4 4 19GB PowerVault100TLTO3TapeDrive
Table 4:ExchangeServerRecommendationsforSmallExchangeDeployment
As shown in Table 4 above, a Dell PowerEdge 1950 with two dualcore processors is the recommended server platform for this environment. The Mailbox, Hub Transport and Client Access server roles can be consolidated on the same physical server. The Dell PowerEdge 1950 has sufficient processing capability to handle the Mailbox services and all the message transportationservicesrequiredbyotherserverroles. IftheUnifiedMessagingserverroleorEdgeTransportserverroleisrequired,additionalphysical serversmayberequired.IftheEdgeTransportserverisnotapartoftheorganization,thenthe Hub Transport server can be configured to relay Internet messages. This deployment assumes thattheMailboxserverisnotdeployedinahighlyavailable(HA)clusteredenvironment.IfHA isrequiredfortheMailboxserverroleusingSingleCopyClusters(SCC)orClusterContinuous Replication(CCR),nootherrolecanbeconsolidatedwiththeMailboxroleonthesameserver.
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Figure 13:SmallExchangeArchitecturewithLCRDeployment
Based on the user load, the minimum memory required for the Exchange server is 8 GB. This amountofmemorywillbesuitableforservingfourstoragegroupsandadditionalRAMmaybe requiredforsupportingmorestoragegroups.
Storagerecommendations:
ThefollowingarethestoragerecommendationsusingRAID10forExchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem DellPowerVaultMD1000 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs DrivesforLCR Numberofdrivesforhotspare 10 1 4x73GB15KSASusingRAID10 2x36GB15KSASusingRAID1 3x300GB15KSASusingRAID5 1x300GB15KSAS
Table 5:StorageRecommendationsforSmallExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID10
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ThefollowingarethestoragerecommendationsusingRAID5forExchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem DellPowerVaultMD1000 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs DrivesforLCR Numberofdrivesforhotspare 12 1 6x36GB15KSASusingRAID5 2x36GB15KSASusingRAID1 3x300GB15KSASusingRAID5 1x300GB15KSAS
Table 6:StorageRecommendationsforSmallExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID5 Several factors are considered while determining the type and capacity of the storage system. DatabaseLUNcapacitydependsonthemailboxquotaaswellassomeotherfactorssuchasthe whitespaceorfreepagesrequiredbythedatabase,spacefordeleteditemsstoreduntilretention period, space for defragmentation and other NTFS overheads. Log LUN capacity depends on how far in the past the logs should be backed up or replayed to restore database design of an organization.Additionally,ExchangeisanI/Ointensiveapplicationandallclientactivitycauses updates to the Exchange database, which produces I/O operations to disk. The disk subsystem should be capable of meeting these demands. It is therefore important to size the disks for performanceandnotjustforcapacityofthemailboxes. Basedonthesefactorstwostoragerecommendationsarepresented:usingRAID10andRAID5 for Exchange information store. RAID 10 offers the best performance with high protection, but only50%oftheRAIDgroupcapacityisusable.RAID5offersahigherusablecapacityperRAID groupthanRAID10.Itcanbeeffectiveforenvironmentswithverylargemailboxesand/orlower IOPSrequirements. Considering the capacity and IOPS requirements for this environment, the Dell PowerVault MD1000isasuitablestorageplatform.Thisarrayutilizesenterpriseclasstechnologywithhigh performancedrivesthataresuitableforExchangeworkloads.Itprovidesbalancedcapacityand excellentI/Operformancewith10Kand15KRPMSASdrives. Table5andTable6explainthedriveconfigurationsfortheRAID10andRAID5solutions.
BackupandAvailabilityRecommendations:
To achieve mailbox resiliency, at a minimum Dell recommends using Local Continuous replication(LCR)toreducetherecoverytimefordataleveldisasters.LCRmaintainsalocalcopy ofthemailboxdatabaseontheMailboxserverandkeepsthecopyconsistentwiththeproduction database by replaying log records on them. The database copies can be manually switched to function as production databases during failures or during maintenance. For a Mailbox server enabled for LCR operation, additional hardware resources are required to store the production data and handle LCR related IOPS load. The majority of the additional resource consumption comes from log updates through reads and writes on the passive copy. For this reference architecture,theabovementionedprocessorsandmemoryrecommendationsforthePowerEdge
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server should be sufficient to implement LCR. However, the storage system would require additionaldrivestostorethepassivecopyofproductionLUNs.AsshowninTable5andTable6, three300GB,15KRPMSASdrivesconfiguredusingRAID5isrequiredforthepassivecopy. Even though Local Continuous Replication provides a level of protection for mailbox data, it cannotreplacetheregulardatabasebackupbecauseitonlyprovidescontinuouslyupdatednear time copy of the active database. Regular backup options provide past pointintime copies for recoveringadatabasetoanyoldcleanstate.ThepassiveLCRcopycanbeusedasthesourcefor backup. This can reduce the impact of the backup operation on the active database. Dell recommends using PowerVault 100T LTO3 tape drive, which has a maximum capacity of 400GBandmaximumbackupspeedof243GB/hour.
Medium Exchange Deployment Up to 1000 Users
ThemediumsizeExchangereferencearchitecturerepresentsanExchangeorganizationwithup to1000heavyusershavinganaveragemailboxsizeof250MB.Asthenumberofusersincreases, themessaginginfrastructureneedstogrowtosupporttheadditionalworkloadsandfeatures. Table7summarizestherequirementsforthisorganization: NumberofMailboxes 1000 AverageMailboxsize UserProfile Storage HighAvailability BackupRequired? Table 7:MediumExchangeRequirements 250MB Heavy DirectAttachedSAS UsingCCR Yes
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ExchangeMailboxPrimarysite Processors Memory ExchangeMailboxSecondarysite Processors Memory ExchangeHub/CASServer Processors Memory NumberofExchangeStorageGroups NumberofExchangeInformationStores SizeofeachExchangeInformationStore DellPowerEdge1950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 8GB DellPowerEdge1950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 8GB DellPowerEdge2950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 8GB 8 8 31GB
Table 8:ExchangeServerRecommendationsforMediumExchangeDeployment As shown in Table 8 above, the following are the recommended server platforms for this referencearchitecture: ExchangeMailboxServer: DellPowerEdge1950withtwodualcoreprocessors 8GBRAM
ExchangeHubTransport/ClientAccessServer: DellPowerEdge2950withtwodualcoreprocessors 8GBRAM
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Figure 14:MediumExchangeArchitecturewithCCRDeployment

If Unified Messaging or Edge Transport server roles are required, additional physical servers may be required. If the Edge Transport Server is not a part of the organization, then the Hub TransportservercanbeconfiguredtorelayInternetmessages. This reference architecture includes Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR). CCR is based on MSCSMajorityNodeSet(MNS)clustering,whereinacopyofthemailboxdatabasesishostedon another server with its own storage space. Mail clients access theprimary server,and database changes to it are shipped to the secondary server in the form of log records. The shipped log recordsareplayedonthesecondaryservertokeepthesecondarydatabasecopiesconsistentwith the primary. If the primary Mailbox server fails, the MNS clustering mechanism automatically promotes the secondary server to start serving the clients. CCR provides both mailbox high availabilityandalsositerecoverythroughhostingthesecondaryserveronaseparatedatacenter. SinceCCRisusedforhighavailability,nootherExchangeserverrolecanbeconsolidatedwith theMailboxroleonthesameserver.ThereforetheHubandCASserverroleshavebeensplittoa separateserver.TheDellPowerEdge2950withtwodualcoreIntelXeonprocessorsand8GBof RAMisasuitableplatformfortheseroles.
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The following is the storage recommendations for the primary CCR site using RAID 10 for Exchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem DellPowerVaultMD1000 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs Numberofdrivesforhotspare 13 1 8x146GB15KSASusingRAID10 4x36GB15KSASusingRAID10 1x146GB15KSAS
Table9:StorageRecommendationsforMediumExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID10 Anidenticalstorageconfigurationwith13drivesisrequiredforthesecondaryCCRsite. The following is the storage recommendations for the primary CCR site using RAID 5 for Exchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem DellPowerVaultMD1000 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs Numberofdrivesforhotspare 15 1 10x73GB15KSASusingRAID5 4x36GB15KSASusingRAID10 1x146GB15KSAS
Table10:StorageRecommendationsforMediumExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID10 Anidenticalstorageconfigurationwith15drivesisrequiredforthesecondaryCCRsite. Two storage recommendations are presented: using RAID 10 and RAID 5 for Exchange informationstore.RAID10offersthebestperformancewithhighprotection,butonly50%ofthe RAID group capacity is usable. RAID 5 offers a higher useable capacity per RAID group than RAID 10. It can be effective for environments with very large mailboxes and/or lower IOPS requirements. Considering the capacity and IOPS requirements for this environment the Dell PowerVault MD1000isasuitablestorageplatform.Thisarrayutilizesenterpriseclasstechnologywithhigh performancedrivesthataresuitableforExchangeworkloads.Itprovidesbalancedcapacityand excellentI/Operformancewith10Kand15KRPMSASdrives. Table9andTable10explainthedriveconfigurationsfortheRAID10andRAID5solutions.
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Deploying a high availability solution for database related applications is always considered a bestpracticetoavoidfailurescenarios.DellrecommendsusingCCRtoensureapplicationaswell as data availability. To implement CCR, asecondary site with storage and server configuration identical to the primary Exchange Mailbox server is required. Figure 14 shows a passive ExchangeMailboxserverandstoragesystemallocatedforCCR. TapeBackup PowerVaultTL4000TapeLibrary TapeBackupserver Processors Servermemory PowerEdge1950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 4GB
Table5:TapeBackupRecommendationsforMediumExchangeDeployment Additionally,PowerVaultTL4000tapebackuplibraryisrecommendedtocreatepointintime backups of the Exchange server data. The tape library attaches to a separate PowerEdge 1950 serverknownasthebackupserver.ThebackupserverconnectstotheExchangeserversoverthe LANtoconductthebackup.Thiscentralizedapproachhelpssimplifybackupadministration.
Large Exchange Deployment - Up to 5000 Users

As a messaging infrastructure grows in size, it typically brings more complexity. The message routing services and policies overhead increases and requires more hardware resources to satisfy the growing bandwidth requirements. The large Exchange reference architecture represents an Exchange organization with up to 5000 heavy users having an averagemailboxsizeof1GB.Table12summarizestherequirementsforthisorganization: NumberofMailboxes 5000 AverageMailboxsize UserProfile Storage HighAvailability BackupRequired? Table 12:LargeExchangeRequirements 1GB Heavy SANAttachedFiberChannel UsingSCC Yes
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ExchangeMailboxActive Processors Memory ExchangeMailboxActive Processors Memory ExchangeHubTransportServer Processors Memory ExchangeCASServer Processors Memory NumberofExchangeStorageGroups NumberofExchangeInformationStores SizeofeachExchangeInformationStore PowerEdge6950or PowerEdge6850 4xDualCoreAMDOpteronor 4xDualCoreIntelXeon 32GB PowerEdge6950or PowerEdge6850 4xDualCoreAMDOpteronor 4xDualCoreIntelXeon 32GB DellPowerEdge2950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 6GB DellPowerEdge2950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 4GB 40 40 125GB
Table 13:ExchangeServerRecommendationsforLargeExchangeDeployment As shown in Table 13 above, the following are the recommended server platforms for this referencearchitectureare: ExchangeMailboxServer: DellPowerEdge6950orDellPowerEdge6850withfourdualcoreprocessors 32GBRAM
ExchangeHubTransportServer: DellPowerEdge2950withtwodualcoreprocessors 6GBRAM
ExchangeCASServer: DellPowerEdge2950withtwodualcoreprocessors 4GBRAM
For a large number of mailboxes, the best practices involve scaling out all the Exchange server roles on separate servers. The physical separation of the server roles will provide better utilization of resources and good performance. Another reason for separating the Mailbox server is to allow implementing highavailability clustering option using Single
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Copy clusters (SCC). SCC is based on Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) shared storage clustering, wherein a single copy of the databases resides on a shared external storage connectedtotwoMailboxservernodes.Oneoftheservernodes,calledtheactivenode, hoststhemailboxdatabasesandservestheclients.Iftheactivenodeincursafailure,the other node, called the passive node, takes over hosting mailbox databases from the sharedstorageandcontinuesservingtheclients.
Figure 15:LargeExchangeArchitecturewithSCCDeployment
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ThefollowingarethestoragerecommendationsusingRAID10forExchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem Dell|EMCCX320 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofdiskarrayenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs Numberofdrivesforhotspare StorageOSdrives 86 6 60x300GB10KFCusingRAID10 18x73GB10KFCusingRAID10 3x300GB10KFC 5x73GB10KFC
Table 14:StorageRecommendationsforLargeExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID10 ThefollowingarethestoragerecommendationsusingRAID5forExchangeinformationstores: StorageSystem Dell|EMCCX320 Totalnumberofdrives Totalnumberofdiskarrayenclosures DrivesforExchangeInformationStores DrivesforTransactionLogs Numberofdrivesforhotspare StorageOSdrives 96 7 70x300GB10KFCusingRAID5 18x73GB10KFCusingRAID10 3x300GB10KFC 5x73GB10KFC
Table 15:StorageRecommendationsforLargeExchangeDeploymentUsingRAID5 Two storage recommendations are presented: using RAID 10 and RAID 5 for Exchange informationstore.RAID10offersthebestperformancewithhighprotection,butonly50%ofthe RAID group capacity is usable. RAID 5 offers a higher usable capacity per RAID group than RAID 10. It can be effective for environments with very large mailboxes and/or lower IOPS requirements. ConsideringthecapacityandIOPSrequirementsforthisenvironmenttheDell|EMCCX320isa suitable storage platform which can support for up to 120 FC drives. Table 14 and Table 15 explainthedriveconfigurationsfortheRAID10andRAID5solutions.
Implementing Single Copy Cluster (SCC) will require an additional PowerEdge 6850 or 6950 server with same hardware configuration as the active Mailbox server. The additional installed server acts as the passive Mailbox server and shares the same storage system with the active Mailbox server. In the event of a failure on the active mailbox server, the Exchange Mailbox serverrolefailsovertothepassivenodeandresumesactivity.
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TapeBackup TapeBackupserver Processors Servermemory
PowerVaultML6030CMLibrary PowerEdge2950 2xDualCoreIntelXeon 4GB
Table 16:TapeBackupRecommendationsforLargeExchangeDeployment For this environment, the PowerVault ML6030 CM Library isthe recommended tape backup device. Additionally, the Dell PowerEdge 2950 may be used as the tape backup server. The backup server connects to the Exchange servers over the LAN or SAN to conduct the backup. Thiscentralizedapproachhelpssimplifybackupadministration.ThenetworktopologyforSAN basedbackupsisdesignedtoimproveapplicationperformancebecauseitisroutedoverahigh speedFibreChannelnetwork.
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Conclusion
InmessagingdeploymentswithExchangeServer2007,therearemanydifferentcriteriathatcan affect how servers and storage need to be sized. These factors impact memory, processor and diskutilizationandcanvarygreatlyfromoneimplementationtothenext.Becauseofthework performed at Dell Labs to actively characterize the Mailbox role of Exchange Server 2007 on Dells enterprise server and storage portfolio, Dell is able to provide deployment recommendations. In order to make those recommendations accessible to customers, Dell developedtheonlineExchange2007AdvisorTool.Thediscussionaboutthetooloutputforthe three defined reference architectures was intended to provide an insight into how the recommendationsarecalculated.Tocalculatetherequirementsforanyconfiguration,thetoolcan beaccessedathttp://www.dell.com/exchange.
THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. Dell Inc. 2007. All rights reserved. Dell, PowerEdge, PowerVault, and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Inc. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Other trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners and Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.
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