Building a Dynamic and Flexible Exchange Architecture. B S Nagarajan Senior Technology Consultant 6 th November, 2008

Transcription

1 Building a Dynamic and Flexible Exchange Architecture B S Nagarajan Senior Technology Consultant 6 th November, 2008

2 Agenda What is new in Exchange 2007? Why Virtualize Exchange? Sizing guidelines Eat your own Dog Food Customer references

3 State of the Art Exchange Architectural Changes Exchange bit Windows 900MB database cache 4Kb block size Requires high-end storage Storage is common pain point Primitive roles Small, fast, expensive drives to provide required IOPS. Front-End, Back-End Exchange bit Windows Multi-GB database cache 8Kb block size 50% reduction in disk I/O Affordable storage iscsi, DAS Eliminates storage pain point More granular roles More flexible deployment topology

4 Server role is a logical concept used to organize Exchange 2007 services and features across one or more servers. While Exchange 2003 provided primitive server roles called Back End server and Front End server, Exchange 2007 has more granular divisions. Dividing Exchange features among several server roles has advantages: More flexible deployment topology Better hardware utilization and scalability Easy to maintain

5 Mailbox (MB): Host mailbox and public folder data. Provides MAPI access for Outlook clients. If Clustered Mailbox role is selected, other server roles cannot be combined on the same physical server. Client Access (CA): Provides other mailbox server protocol access apart from MAPI. Similar to Exchange 2003 FrontEnd server, it enables user to use an Internet browser (OWA), 3rd party mail client (POP3/IMAP4) and mobile device (ActiveSync) to access their mailbox. Unified Message (UM): This role enables end users to access their mailbox, address book, and calendar using telephone and voice. IP-PBX or VoIP gateway needs to be installed and configured to facilitate much of the functionality of this server role. Hub Transport (HT): The Hub Transport role handles mails by routing them to next hop: another Hub Transport server, Edge server or mailbox server. Edge Transport (ET): The last hop of outgoing mail and first hop of incoming mail, acting as a "smart host" and usually deployed in a perimeter network, Uses ADAM with one-way sync from AD, does not require Active Directory to function once synced, can function with limited access to the corporate network for increased security. Cannot mix with other roles in same box.

6 Exchange 2007 Server Roles Other SMTP Servers I N T E R N E T Enterprise Network Edge Transport Routing Hygiene Applications OWA Protocols ActiveSync, POP, IMAP, RPC / HTTP Programmability Web services, Web parts Hub Transport Routing Policy Mailbox Mailbox PBX or VoIP Unified Messaging Voice Messaging Fax Public Folders Client Access

7 State of the Art Server Hardware Changes Exchange 2007 requires 64-bit hardware 256GB+ physical RAM Multi-core (2/4/6 cores) Hardware-assisted virtualization Exchange 2007 workload more efficient Virtualization to unlock full power of this hardware

8 State of the Art ESX Server Changes Increased guest OS memory (64GB) Increased physical RAM on ESX (256GB) Network improvements lower CPU utilization NUMA optimizations improve multiple VM performance Improved storage efficiency And many more improvements ESX Server 3.5 is ready for Exchange

9 Exchange 2007 Performance on VI3 Performance Myth: Exchange performs poorly in a VM especially in terms of disk I/O. Reality: Numerous performance studies have been conducted with our server and storage partners: HP Performance Testing - Dell EMC Performance Testing - IBM Performance Testing - Summary of findings Negligible I/O differences running in a VM some tests were slightly better than physical. Slightly higher processor utilization (5 10%) in a virtual machine.

10 Record Capacity for Exchange 2007 Native VMware Infrastructure 8 VM 16 core 128 GB 16 core 128 GB 8K mailboxes 16K mailboxes

11 How many mailboxes can ESX Server support on a single server? Is storage the limit? No. Exchange 2007 on Windows Server makes excellent use of correctly configured storage. Is CPU the limit? Possibly. The Mailbox Server s recommended maximum is eight cores. Is memory the limit? Possibly. The maximum recommended memory allocation is 32G per server Maximum mailboxes: 8,000 Eight cores at recommended 1,000 mailboxes per core This results in providing 3.75MB/user at the server; this is in the middle of the 2-5MB/user recommendation

12 Exchange 2007 server role Minimum Recommended Maximum Edge Transport 1 x processor core 2 x processor cores 4 x processor cores Hub Transport 1 x processor 4 x processor 8 x processor core cores cores Client Access 1 x processor 4 x processor 4 x processor core cores cores Unified Messaging 1 x processor core 4 x processor cores 4 x processor cores Mailbox 1 x processor 4 x processor 8 x processor core cores cores All-in-one server roles (except 1 x processor 4 x processor 4 x processor ET) core cores cores

13 Exchange 2007 server role Minimum per Recommended Maximum per server server Edge Transport 2 GB 1 GB per core (2 GB minimum) Hub Transport 2 GB 1 GB per core (2 GB minimum) Client Access 2 GB 1 GB per core (2 GB minimum) Unified Messaging 2 GB 1 GB per core 16 GB 16 GB 8 GB 4 GB (2 GB minimum) Mailbox 2 + n GB 2 + n GB 32 GB All-in-one server roles (except ET) 2 + n GB 4 + n GB 8 GB

14 Record-setting Server Performance Building Block Performance Mailboxes Mailboxes SendMail Latency Latency (ms) VM 2 VMs 3 VMs 4 VMs 5 VMs 6 VMs 7 VMs 8 VMs Virtual Machines 0

15 Quick Sizing Discussion Processor: Light/Average: 1,000 users/core Heavy/Very heavy: 500 users/core Memory: 2GB base 2MB per light mailbox 3.5MB per average mailbox 5MB per heavy/very heavy mailbox

16 Sizing Examples 500 heavy users: 1vCPU 2GB base + (500 x 5MB) = 5GB RAM 1,000 heavy users: 2 vcpu 2GB base + (1,000 x 5MB) = 7GB 2,000 heavy users: 4 vcpu 2GB base + (2,000 x 5MB) = 12GB

17 Single Copy Clusters (SCC) uses at least two servers and a shared disk storage to house the database, logfiles, and quorum. Local Continuous Replication (LCR) keeps an additional copy of the database and log files on the same server. Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR) keeps an additional copy of the database and log files on a different server. Both node must be in same subnet. Auto failover possible. Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) replicate Storage Group to a number of remote servers. Need SP1. Source can be an CCR,SCC, or Stand alone mailbox server. Manual failover only.

18 Simpler, Cost-Efficient Availability for Exchange 2007 Edge Native Hub Client VMware Infrastructure Edge Hub Client Mailbox MS LCR VMware HA & VMotion Mailbox Network Load Balancing MS CCR Mailbox Simple Eliminate complexity of MS clustering One HA solution for all Exchange roles Cost-effective Windows and Exchange Standard Edition No dedicated standby servers Reliable VMware HA for unplanned downtime VMotion for planned downtime LCR for data replication

19 Improve Testing Efficiency with Snapshots and Clones Test 4 Move changes into production Exchange Exchange Production BlackBerry Server BlackBerry DB 3 Run more tests faster 2 Exact copy of production 1 Archive for Fast Roll-back > Faster testing > More accurate testing on exact production copy > Lower cost testing infrastructure

20 VMware Exchange Deployment

21 Business and User Characteristics Business Type: Software Company Typically 1 million internal / 100k external / 40k spam messages per day Primary datacenter in Palo Alto No Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery capabilities Single Active Directory site Production Mailboxes: ~9000 Mailbox profiles Unlimited mailbox sizes for users (largest ~54GB) Total mailbox data: 10TB Average mailbox size: ~1GB Average IOP rating per user: 2.25

22 Exchange 2007 Architecture 3 physical locations (Multi-Site configuration) Primary datacenters in Palo Alto and Santa Clara Fail-over between primary datacenters Second Palo Alto site for file share witness 1 Gig connection between facilities Mailboxes (9,000 and rapidly growing) Extra-large or non-quota d mailboxes (>2 GB): ~2000 Standard mailboxes (1-2 GB): ~7000 Mailbox profiles 1 and 2 GB mailbox quotas for regular mailboxes 3, 4 and 5 GB mailbox quotas for extra-large mailboxes Average 1,200 mailboxes per VM No mailbox sizes greater than 5GB

23 Exchange 2007 Architecture System-Wide Active Directory Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 Enterprise Edition (Multi-Site configuration) Exchange 2007 Enterprise Edition Clustered Continuous Replication (CCR) over stretched VLAN used for database replication 1 GB connection between sites (Bandwidth is tunable depending on requirements) 11 application-aware (2 node) High Availability VMs using CCR 9000 mailboxes transitioned to the Exchange Server 2007 environment Project completion date: 30-June-2008 Entire Exchange infrastructure is virtualized using VMware Infrastructure 3 Palo Alto Datacenter Santa Clara Datacenter 17 Exchange Server VMs 14 Exchange Server VMs 6 Hub/CAS 3 Hub/CAS (proxy and transport only) 11 Mailbox VMs 11 Mailbox VMs Fiber Channel SAN Fiber Channel SAN 2 EMC Networker storage node VMs 2 EMC Networker storage node VMs 2 Windows 2003 Std 32 bit DC/GC VMs

24 Other Virtualized Exchange Customers University of Plymouth, 50K mailboxes University of Texas, Brownsville, 20K mailboxes VIA Health / Rochester General, 5K mailboxes Branch of US govt, 750K mailboxes Atrenta, Delhi Chitale diary, Pune Macawber Beekay, Delhi Helix Financials, Delhi

25 University of Plymouth The university has virtualized 50,000 Exchange 2007 mailboxes on VMware Infrastructure. We not only have a more manageable and flexible Exchange environment, but we have replaced Microsoft clustering with VMware s built-in high availability solutions such as HA and VMotion. We couldn t be happier with the uptime and performance of our Exchange implementation on VMware. VMware technology works for small companies all the way up to massive financial institutions. And clearly, it has worked for us. Adrian Jane Head of Faculty Support and Strategy University of Plymouth

26 Summary - Why Run Exchange on VMware Support Microsoft SVVP Support and Licensing Performance Cost Management Exchange Performs Well on VMware IO is not an issue Scales out better on shared hardware Reduce infrastructure costs Consolidate Exchange server roles Eliminate need for dedicated standby servers Dynamic Management Streamline testing & troubleshooting with snapshots and clones Provision in minutes Scale dynamically and right-size infrastructure Achieve high availability without complexity of clustering

27 Questions and, possibly, answers