EMC Celerra NS20. EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange Reference Architecture

Transcription

1 EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 EMC NAS Product Validation Corporate Headquarters Hopkinton, MA

2 Copyright 2008 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published February, 2008 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED AS IS. EMC CORPORATION MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 P/N H Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

3 Contents About this Document... 5 Chapter 1 Solution Overview... 7 Business challenge... 8 Technology solution... 9 Solution advantages...9 Chapter 2 Store Architecture Store architecture General characteristics...13 Network architecture Switches...13 Virtual local area networks...13 EMC Celerra NS Storage architecture RAID type and RAID group configuration...15 Application server architecture Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 cluster architecture...16 Application architecture Chapter 3 Backup Architecture Backup architecture Chapter 4 Hardware and Software Resources Hardware resources Software resources Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 3

4 Contents 4 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

5 About this Document This document provides an overview of the architecture of an EMC Exchange 2007 Solution developed by the EMC NAS Product Validation group. Purpose Information in this document can be used as the basis for a solution build, white paper, best practices document, or training. Information in this document can also be used by other EMC organizations (for example, the technical services or sales organization) as the basis for producing documentation for a technical services or sales kit. Audience This document is intended for internal EMC personnel, partners, and customers. Scope This document describes the architecture of an EMC Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 over iscsi built and tested at the EMC NAS Product Validation lab in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Implementation instructions and sizing guidelines are beyond the scope of this document. Related documents The following documents provide additional, relevant information. Access to these documents is based on your login credentials. If you do not have access to the content listed below, contact your EMC representative: EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Validation Test Report EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Best Practices Planning EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 on ESX Server EMC Celerra NS20 EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Configuration Build Document Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 5

6 About this Document EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Configuring Celerra as a Destination for an Xtender Archive Build Document Microsoft Exchange 2007 presentations and white papers on EMC Powerlink ( 6 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

7 Chapter 1 Solution Overview This chapter presents these topics: Business challenge... 8 Technology solution... 9 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 7

8 Solution Overview Business challenge Midsize enterprises and small-to-medium-size businesses (SMBs) need best-in-class solutions for storing, protecting, managing, and archiving their growing volumes of . As a critical business application, Microsoft Exchange must be available at all times. However, managing Exchange and the data it generates can be a challenge in distributed environments with inefficient storage and limited resources. Meeting the needs of internal corporate governance and external regulation adds even more urgency to the challenges of managing , which now must be readily available and easily retrieved. The EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi provide a better way to store, protect, manage, and archive . They simplify lifecycle management, speed up backup and restore, extend the mailbox size, and reduce costs. They provide the ability to manage an Exchange environment efficiently without requiring valuable time from end users or overburdened IT resources. As an organization grows, availability becomes increasingly critical to success. Microsoft Exchange environments are projected to expand by 50 percent by IT responsibilities for managing this growth include maintaining uptime and rapidly restoring databases, as well as responding to legal discovery, internal corporate governance, and regulatory compliance requirements for . Managing can be difficult, particularly in distributed environments where skills vary from site to site. For many businesses, incomplete backup and recovery, lost user productivity, and patchwork archiving are the norm. These organizations may face the additional challenge of having insufficient resources to research, test, and validate the best possible storage solution for their Microsoft Exchange environment. In distributed environments, backup and recovery are often incomplete, too frequent, and too time-consuming. Organizational productivity suffers when knowledge workers waste time managing.pst files and mailbox limits rather than attending to more strategic work. During this self-management and self-archiving process, many users copy.pst files to shared network drives, increasing IT workload and company/user risk, and adding hidden storage costs. The effects of inefficient management reach beyond IT all the way to the executive office. Meeting legal obligations can hinge on the rapid and accurate production of past traffic, and on ensuring that the necessary process and controls are in place to guarantee authenticity and retention. Legal discovery costs mount quickly when archives must be searched. Without consolidation and centralized storage policies, retrieval is difficult and time-consuming. 8 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

9 Solution Overview Technology solution Solution advantages A consolidated Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is the first step toward meeting the challenges of managing . The Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution is an integrated, low-cost, lifecycle solution that maximizes the financial and operational benefits of Exchange while enabling rapid database recovery and restoration. The solution offers an enhanced level of archiving. Storing years of in a single storage array, the solution eliminates the need for.pst files and automates the movement of older s by archiving them to lower-cost devices. The solution offers guaranteed and verifiable authenticity of with optimized search, retrieval, and management of archives. The solution offers the following advantages as shown in Table 1. Table 1 Solution advantages Benefit Maintain service levels Reduce costs Reduce risk Accelerate implementations Details This solution keeps critical and revenuegenerating Microsoft applications available and running at peak performance. This solution minimizes the cost of database and information management. This solution details a proven reference architecture with tested and proven configurations, including performance and scalability. EMC Professional Services and ASN certified EMC partners provide a rapid assessment and efficient implementation. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 9

10 Solution Overview 10 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

11 Chapter 2 Store Architecture This chapter presents these topics: Store architecture Network architecture Storage architecture Application server architecture Application architecture Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 11

12 Store Architecture Store architecture Figure 1 shows the store architecture of the Microsoft Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution. The solution is made up of the store, backup, protect, and archive modules. These modules include the following common components: A Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 connected to the management, client, and storage networks Clients connected to the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and to the storage network Figure 1 Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution architecture 12 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

13 Store Architecture General characteristics The solution architecture has the following general characteristics: Multiple connections per session (MC/S) provide load-balancing and failover capabilities. Exchange database files and Exchange log files reside on separate redundant array of independent disks (RAID) 1 physical disks. iscsi LUNs are designed to satisfy the input/output (I/O) demands of heavy Exchange users. IP [Gigabit Ethernet and virtual local area network (VLAN) iscsi] connections are designed to balance or distribute disk I/O. All Exchange database files are stored on the NS20 storage system, making server replacement relatively simple. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) runs on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition 64-bit R2 SP2. Microsoft iscsi Software Initiator (64-bit) provides the storage network communication. The NS20 provides network file services for other applications, which enables Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 to be consolidated using iscsi and CIFS on the same platform while maintaining physical isolation at the spindle level. Network architecture Switches Virtual local area networks This section describes the network architecture of the Microsoft Exchange 2007 NS20 over iscsi solution. EMC recommends that switches support Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) connections and that the ports on the switches support copper-based media. The validated solution uses VLANs to segregate network traffic of different types. This improves throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security. Figure 1 on page 12 shows three VLANs: A client VLAN network supports connectivity between the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 servers and the client workstations. The client VLAN also supports connectivity between the EMC Celerra NS20 and the client workstations to provide network file services to the clients. Two storage VLANs use the iscsi protocol to provide connectivity between servers and storage. Each server is connected to both storage VLANs and has one network interface card (NIC) dedicated to each storage VLAN. MC/S is configured on the servers to perform a port failover operation if a network card fails and to perform Round Robin load balancing. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 13

14 Store Architecture In addition, a management VLAN is required to support connectivity to the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 servers for server administration, and to the EMC Celerra NS20 storage system for storage management. The management VLAN is not shown in Figure 1. EMC Celerra NS20 The EMC Celerra NS20 contains two Data Movers. The Data Movers can operate independently, or they can operate in active/passive mode, with the passive Data Mover serving as a failover device for the active Data Mover. In this solution, the Data Movers operate in active/passive mode. The NS20 Data Mover has four network ports. Figure 2 illustrates the ports on the rear of an EMC Celerra NS20 Data Mover. Figure 2 EMC Celerra NS20 Data Mover ports Ports cge0 and cge1 handle the cluster quorum disk traffic, Exchange database files, and Exchange log files. Ports cge2 and cge3 were left open for future growth. No Link aggregations or Ethernet channels were configured. MC/S was used on the host for load balancing. Note: As a best practice, the Data Mover network ports connected to the iscsi storage network should be dedicated to iscsi traffic. However, if the ports are not heavily used, they can be shared with non-iscsi traffic. EMC recommends monitoring the network to avoid bottlenecks. Storage architecture Setting up storage involves: Establishing the RAID levels Allocating hot spares Creating disk volumes Combining disk volumes into disk pools that can span disks Creating file systems, which can be used to create iscsi LUNs 14 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

15 Store Architecture RAID type and RAID group configuration Disk layout Creating iscsi LUNs, which can be exported to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Users can perform storage setup using the Celerra Manager software. The software provides the ability to see every disk, create striped metavolumes, and design file systems to support specific database I/O demands. This section describes the RAID 1, 12-disk, two-shelf configuration. Refer to the EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Validation Test Report for detailed test results. Figure 3 indicates which volumes are used for database files, log files, and B2D files. The Celerra DART OS and miscellaneous files such as cluster quorum disk files reside on volumes using the first five disks of the system shelf. Note: The 12-disk number refers to the disks occupied by database and log files. Figure 3 RAID 1, 12-disk, two-shelf configuration disk layout This particular configuration can support up to 1,500 Exchange 2007 heavy users (0.5 IOPS per user) at 250 MB each. Refer to the EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Validation Test Report for detailed test results. Figure 3 indicates which volumes are used for database files and log files. The Celerra DART OS resides on volumes using the first five disks of the system shelf. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 15

16 Store Architecture File systems File systems are created using AVM user-defined storage pools. AVM user-defined storage pools allow for precise placement of file systems on particular disks. A separate AVM user-defined storage pool is created for the Exchange databases and the Exchange logs. Refer to the EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Best Practices Planning white paper for specific recommendations. iscsi LUNs iscsi LUNs are created within the file systems and are made available to the servers. An iscsi LUN is created for every Exchange database. A separate iscsi LUN is created for each database s log file. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 perceives the LUNs as local disks on which databases and logs reside. Application server architecture This section describes the application server architecture. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 cluster architecture Each of the two servers in the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 cluster has four network interfaces. Two interfaces connect to the storage subnetwork; one interface connects to the other server in the cluster (to enable the heartbeat), and one interface connects to the client subnetwork. Refer to Table 2 for a list of each interface and its description. Table 2 Application server network interface configuration Interface port ID IF0 IF1 IF2 IF3 Description Storage connectivity Storage connectivity Cluster heartbeat Client connectivity Microsoft Cluster Services Microsoft iscsi Software Initiator Microsoft Cluster Services (MSCS) is enabled on each of the two clustered application servers. The servers operate in active/passive mode to provide local protection against the potential hardware failure of the active server. MSCS shared storage, which includes quorum disk files, database files, and all system database files, resides on iscsi LUNs. All targets with storage associated with the cluster are configured as persistent targets. All volumes and devices are persistently bound using the iscsi initiator. Refer to the EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series - Best Practices Planning white paper for specific recommendations. Each application server uses the iscsi protocol to connect to external storage. Microsoft iscsi Software Initiator manages the iscsi connections. 16 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

17 Store Architecture The iscsi initiator provides the ability to establish redundant paths for sending I/O from a source disk to a target disk. Redundant paths facilitate high availability of the target disk. EMC recommends using separate NICs and/or iscsi HBAs on the source for each I/O path, separate network infrastructure (cables, switches, routers, and so on), and separate target ports. High availability and failover The validated solution provides protection at the storage layer, the iscsi layer, and the host layer. Storage layer The Celerra can have multiple Data Movers to provide high availability and load balancing. In the Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution, primary and standby Data Movers provide seamless failover capabilities for the Celerra storage. This minimizes end-user disruption during routine Celerra maintenance such as upgrading the DART operating system (OS). The RAID 1 disk configuration on the Celerra back end provides protection against hard disk failures. iscsi layer The iscsi protocol supports multiple connections per session (MC/S) for high availability, failover, and load balancing. MC/S supports multiple TCP/IP connections from the initiator to the target within the same iscsi session. I/O can be sent over any TCP/IP connection to the target. If a connection fails, another connection can continue processing I/O without interrupting the application. In the validated solution, MC/S provides server port failover capabilities and Round Robin load-balancing capabilities. The solution configuration also includes separate NICs at the source of each I/O path, separate network infrastructure (cables, switches, routers, and so on), and separate target ports. Host layer The application hosts have redundant power supplies and network connections to reduce the impact of a host hardware failure. In the validated solution, the application host is clustered, providing a further level of redundancy. Application architecture The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 binary files are installed on the application servers. Cluster quorum disk files, database files, and log files reside on EMC Celerra NS20 file systems. Each type of file resides on a separate file system. The file system and LUNs for the backup-to-disk (B2D) files reside in two RAID 5 five-disk storage pools. The Exchange server contains four databases and four storage groups (based on the guideline of one database file per storage group). Each database file resides in its own iscsi LUN. The file system is striped across two RAID 1 sets (four disks). The database log files reside on their own iscsi LUN. The file system resides on a single RAID 1 set (two disks). Table 3 lists each file or activity type and indicates where it resides or is recorded. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 17

18 Store Architecture Table 3 Application file or activity types and locations File or activity type Location Number of iscsi LUNs RAID level Celerra Storage Pool Database log NS20 4 RAID 1 Logs 4 files Database files NS20 4 RAID 1 Database 8 B2D database NS20 2 RAID 5 clar_r5_performance 10 files Cluster quorum disk NS20 1 RAID 5 clar_r5_performance 5 Total number of physical disks 18 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

19 Backup Architecture Chapter 3 Backup Architecture This chapter presents this topic: Backup architecture Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 19

20 Backup Architecture Backup architecture The backup module of this solution allows users to back up their Exchange environment. This can be accomplished using multiple methods. The tested methodologies include using EMC NetWorker (using the NetWorker module for Exchange 2007) or Microsoft s NT Backup in conjunction with Microsoft s Volume Shadow Copy Services (VSS) to perform an online backup of the Exchange databases to ATA drives in the same Celerra system. Another method to back up your Exchange environment is to use OnTrack PowerControls in conjunction with EMC Replication Manager. This combination allows administrators quickly to recover lost, deleted, and archived messages, mailboxes or entire EDB files. The validated backup configuration with OnTrack PowerControls and EMC Replication Manager is shown in Figure 4: Figure 4 Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi backup architecture OnTrack PowerControls 20 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

21 Backup Architecture Note: For more details on the backup architecture validated for this solution, refer to the EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS Series Validation Test Report. Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 21

22 Backup Architecture 22 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

23 Hardware and Software Resources Chapter 4 Hardware and Software Resources This chapter presents these topics: Hardware resources Software resources Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 23

24 Hardware and Software Resources Hardware resources The Microsoft Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution uses the hardware resources listed in Table 4. Table 4 Hardware specifications Hardware Quantity Configuration Notes Store 2U server 2 Two 2.33-GHz Xeon dualcore processors 16 GB of DDR2 memory One 67.7 GB 15k internal SCSI disk Two on-board 10/100/1000 MB Ethernet NICs Two additional 10/100/1000 MB Ethernet NICs 1U server 2 Two 3.0-GHz Intel Xeon processors 4 GB of memory Two on-board 10/100/1000 MB Ethernet NICs Dell 5324 switch 3 Copper GbE ports N/A Two Exchange 2007 Mailbox Servers One active/passive cluster Quorum disk on the first NS20 shelf One Active Directory/ Global Catalog Server One Exchange 2007 HUB/CAS Server EMC Celerra NS20 1 Two Data Movers Four GbE network connections Two FC shelves GB (15k) FC disks Backup (in addition to hardware listed under Store) 1U server 1 Two 3.0-GHz Intel Xeon processors 4 GB of memory Two on-board 10/100/1000 MB Ethernet NICs DART OS Rev EMC Replication Manager/OnTrack PowerControls server 24 Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20

25 Hardware and Software Resources Software resources The Microsoft Exchange 2007 NS Series iscsi solution uses the software resources listed in Table 5. Table 5 Software specifications Software Number Configuration of licenses Store Windows 2003 Server 2 One license per node in the cluster Enterprise Edition, 64-bit R2 SP2 Hotfixes KB891957, KB898790, KB Microsoft Exchange Server 1 One license per cluster 2007, 64-bit Microsoft iscsi Initiator Backup (in addition to software listed under Store) EMC Replication Manager OnTrack PowerControls Microsoft Exchange 2007 EMC Celerra NS20 25