EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Applications

EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Applications Enabled by EMC Celerra, EMC MirrorView/A, EMC Celerra Replicator, VMware Site Recovery Manager, and VMware vsphere 4

Copyright 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published November, 2009 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. Benchmark results are highly dependent upon workload, specific application requirements, and system design and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these and other factors. Therefore, this workload should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmark when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated. All performance data contained in this report was obtained in a rigorously controlled environment. Results obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. EMC Corporation does not warrant or represent that a user can or will achieve similar performance expressed in transactions per minute. No warranty of system performance or price/performance is expressed or implied in this document. 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. Part number: h6690 EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Applications - Enabled by EMC Celerra, EMC MirrorView/A, EMC Celerra 2

Table of Contents Reference architecture overview...4 Solution architecture...6 Key components...12 Validated environment profile...14 Hardware and software resources...16 Conclusion...18 3

Reference architecture overview Document purpose EMC's commitment to consistently maintain and improve quality is led by the Total Customer Experience (TCE) program, which is driven by Six Sigma methodologies. As a result, EMC has built Customer Integration Labs in its Global Solutions Centers to reflect real-world deployments in which TCE use cases are developed and executed. These use cases provide EMC with an insight into the challenges currently facing its customers. This document describes the reference architecture of the EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Applications enabled by EMC Celerra, EMC MirrorView /A, EMC Celerra Replicator, VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), and VMware vsphere 4 solution. Solution purpose The purpose of this reference architecture is to build a unified storage solution by using EMC Celerra unified storage to demonstrate the functional, performance, and scalability aspects of Microsoft Applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 with remote data protection from the secondary site. This reference architecture validates the performance of all aspects of the solution and provides guidelines for building similar solutions. This reference architecture is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Applications solution. The business challenge To support the dynamic requirements of running multiple business applications, it is critical that data centers use resources more efficiently. Business-centric applications must now be accessible round-the-clock to meet the growing global access needs of organizations. At the same time, there are significant pressures to drive down IT costs and simplify management of the data center. A growing number of organizations are turning to server and storage virtualization technologies to cut costs yet the average IT organization has virtualized only 10 percent of their server workloads. Tremendous opportunity exists to reduce operational and capital expenses that result from information growth and unused resources. Organizations want to accelerate virtualization to include critical Microsoft applications, but not at the expense of service level agreements (SLAs), performance, or availability. In addition to maintaining data center operations, IT must reduce complexity by deploying a solution that simplifies management. The technology solution EMC has partnered with VMware, Microsoft, and its certified partners to validate how virtualizing an application and backup infrastructure using EMC Celerra and VMware vsphere 4 leads to a highly available, protected environment with simplified management. This solution is designed and developed to support a reference architecture that optimally stores and securely protects Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, MOSS 2007, and file sharing on Celerra unified storage. This is a virtualized reference architecture that uses VMware vsphere 4 to optimally loadbalance with VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), provides high 4

availability by using VMware High Availability (HA), and provides data protection by using CLARiiON MirrorView/A and Celerra Replicator with VMware SRM. The solution benefits The benefits of this solution are: Feature Support for multiple Microsoft applications Multi-protocol, multi-tier storage (Fibre Channel, CIFS) Virtual environment using vsphere 4 Benefits Demonstrates how to leverage EMC Celerra unified storage to support several Microsoft applications at a time. Demonstrates data protection for the Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint applications based on common methods and tools, and thus simplifying the often complex subject of business continuity. Leverages EMC Celerra unified storage platforms to provide a multi-protocol storage solution that allows storage consolidation through the existing IP infrastructure along with the power of high-speed FC networks. Enables storage allocation to applications based on requirements rather than platform constraints. Includes Exchange and OLTP databases on high-performance FC disks with 5 TB of SharePoint data on inexpensive SATA drives. Reduces the physical hardware cost while improving manageability and flexibility Saves power and reduces the physical footprint Minimizes downtime in the event of server failures using VMware HA Ensures intelligent load balancing with zero downtime with VMware DRS Ensures rapid failover to remote replicas with VMware SRM automation 5

Solution architecture Architecture diagram The following illustration depicts the overall physical architecture of the solution. Reference architecture overview The validated solution consists of three mission-critical virtualized Microsoft applications: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 The solution is built on VMware vsphere 4 and EMC Celerra unified storage with native file sharing on Celerra. The environment consists of two sites: Primary site, which is the production environment Secondary site, which is for disaster recovery The primary site has a VMware HA and DRS cluster connected to an EMC Celerra NS-480. For high availability and resource utilization, there are three ESX servers in 6

the cluster. The virtual machines on the ESX servers run the following: A virtual Microsoft Exchange 2007 mailbox server and a virtual Microsoft Exchange 2007 Hub Transport (HUB) and Client Access Server (CAS). A virtual MOSS 2007 server. Two virtual SQL Server 2008 servers. The SharePoint server uses a dedicated SQL server to store the content databases. The other SQL server is used for the online transaction processing (OLTP) workload. The Exchange and SharePoint applications require an Active Directory/Global Catalog server, which resides on a separate ESX server and is not a part of the primary site VMware cluster. The disaster recovery site has a two-node VMware HA and DRS cluster connected to an EMC Celerra NS-120. The key points of this site are: In a disaster, the two-node VMware HA and DRS cluster will host the application servers. Celerra NS-120 is used as the destination for Celerra Replicator, and the CLARiiON back end is used as the destination for the MirrorView/A replication jobs from the primary site. Because the Active Directory/Global Catalog server is assumed to be part of the available corporate infrastructure, it is not protected as part of this solution. It must be protected separately and must be available at the disaster recovery site in the event of a failover. Storage layout The following illustrations depict the overall storage layout of the solution. Primary site storage layout 7

Disaster recovery site storage layout 8

Storage layout overview The validated solution uses two shelves of Fibre Channel (FC) disks with 30 disk spindles and one shelf of Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) disks with 10 spindles to host the primary site storage. The primary site storage includes a SQL database for the OLTP load, an Exchange database, SharePoint content databases, SharePoint logs, content index files, and application server boot files. All virtual machines boot from FC spindles configured as RAID 5 (2+1). These boot disks are available to the ESX host over FC as a VMware vstorage Virtual Machine File System (VMFS). The SQL database for the OLTP load resides on FC spindles configured as RAID 10 (3+3), and the SQL database log resides on FC spindles configured as RAID 10 (1+1). The database and logs do not share spindles. The Exchange database resides on FC spindles configured as RAID 10 (3+3), and the Exchange log files reside on FC spindles configured as RAID 10 (1+1). The SharePoint content databases reside on SATA spindles configured as RAID 5 (6+1), and the SharePoint logs reside on SATA spindles configured as RAID 10 (1+1). The content index files share the same spindles used for the virtual machine boot disks. The storage is leveraged for various applications by using FC connections. The storage layout at the disaster recovery site is identical to the storage layout at the primary site and stores the secondary images of the production CLARiiON logical units (LUNs) for MirrorView/A replication. Network layout The following illustration shows the ports on the rear of an EMC Celerra NS-480. Network layout overview The NS-480 Data Mover has four network ports. The Celerra ports cge0 and cge1 maintain the storage traffic. Port cge2 handles the replication traffic and port cge3 is left open for future requirements. The Celerra backend ports BE 0 and BE 1 are connected to Port0 and Port1 of the storage processors SPA and SPB. These ports also share the storage traffic of the host machines. 9

Network architecture System-wide network design and architecture are outside the scope of this solution. Switches In any highly available solution, there should be multiple network paths between each component in the system so that no single failure can disrupt communication. Virtual local area network This solution was validated by using virtual local area networks (VLANs) in a highly available network. The VLANs segregate network traffic of different types and improve throughput, manageability, application separation, high availability, and security. Server architecture overview Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 architecture The following table details the components of the Exchange deployment. Server Exchange mailbox server Exchange HUB/CAS server Function The mailbox server hosts the database that contains the user s mailboxes. It is the primary consumer of storage in the environment. The Exchange HUB and CAS server roles are installed on the same virtual machine. This is acceptable because of the size of the architecture, and it also reduces the number of servers required for the solution. The HUB server manages the mail flow in the environment and applies transport rules and journaling policies. The CAS server manages user connections and their communication with the other members of the Exchange environment. The Exchange environment uses three storage groups. The mailboxes of 1,500 users are divided equally among them. MOSS 2007 architecture The following table details the components of small and medium-sized MOSS 2007 farm deployments. Feature Web Front-End server (WFE server) Web application and site collections Benefits The WFE virtual machine is deployed on a VMware ESX server. The web server role runs on the WFE virtual machine. In a farm scenario, there may be multiple WFE servers required based on the load. However, this solution uses a single WFE server. The SharePoint farm consists of a web application (Enterprise Portal Collaboration site) and 15 site collections (Enterprise 10

Application and Index server role Document Centers). Each site collection is created on an individual SharePoint content database. The Application and Index server roles run on the WFE virtual machine. The indexing service uses the WFE for crawling. The WFE server is also configured as a Search Query server to provide farm search capabilities. A separate disk was dedicated at the WFE server to place the content index files. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 architecture The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 binary files are installed on the application servers boot volumes. Database files, database log files, tempdb files, and other system database files reside on the EMC Celerra unified storage platform. The solution uses two database server virtual machines. Feature SQL server virtual machine for the OLTP load SQL server virtual machine for SharePoint Benefits This SQL database server has a single database running an OLTP load. The OLTP database is divided into four database files (based on the best practice guideline of one database file per processor). Each database file resides on a separate LUN. The database log file resides on a single LUN and is physically isolated from the spindles used for the database files. A separate SQL server is used by the SharePoint database server role. The SharePoint database is divided into 15 content databases. Each content database file resides on a single LUN. The database log files reside on a single LUN and are physically isolated from the spindles used for the database files. 11

Key components Introduction The key components of this solution are: EMC Celerra unified storage VMware vsphere 4 EMC Celerra Replicator EMC MirrorView/A For details on all the components that make up the reference architecture, see Hardware and software resources. EMC Celerra unified storage EMC Celerra unified storage provides access to block and file data by using iscsi, Common Internet File System (CIFS), Network File System (NFS), and FC protocols. Using these network services, EMC Celerra platforms deliver a complete multiprotocol storage solution. Celerra unified storage enables storage consolidation through the existing IP infrastructure combined with the power of high-speed FC networks. VMware vsphere 4 VMware vsphere 4 is the market-leading virtualization solution that enables you to turn your infrastructure into an efficient and flexible internal cloud. Thus, you can: Decrease your capital and operating costs by over 50 percent Run a greener data center and reduce your energy costs Control your application services levels with advanced availability and security features Streamline IT operations and improve flexibility It includes the ESX 4.0 and the vcenter management interface. VMware ESX 4.0 can transform or virtualize the hardware resources of an x64-based computer, including the CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network controller, to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a physical computer. In this solution, VMware vsphere features like HA and DRS cluster, thin provisioning, and SRM are used. VMware HA provides easy-to-use, cost-effective, high availability for applications running in virtual machines. In a server failure, the affected virtual machines are automatically restarted on other production servers with spare capacity. In this solution, VMware HA provides high availability with minimal capital and operational costs for the application environment. It reduces the need for passive standby hardware and dedicated administrators. VMware DRS works with VMotion to provide automated resource optimization and virtual machine placement and migration, to help align available resources with predefined business priorities while maximizing hardware utilization. Virtual thin provisioning provides efficient storage utilization by using the actual storage space required by the virtual disk and then extending the used space based on disk usage. VMware SRM facilitates disaster recovery of virtual machines and virtual disks 12

hosted on a Celerra unified storage platform. A plug-in to vcenter, VMware SRM can execute disaster recovery tasks in the same management tool as other virtual machine administration tasks. EMC Celerra Replicator Celerra Replicator (V2) enables you to create and manage replication sessions, each producing a read-only, point-in-time copy of a source object at a designated destination. Celerra Replicator (V2) sessions, which can be created by using the command line interface or Celerra Manager, are characterized by an architecture based on snapshot/checkpoint technology, asynchronous transfer to the destination, and support for file system, Virtual Data Mover, and iscsi LUN source object types. EMC MirrorView/A EMC MirrorView/A offers storage system-based remote mirroring. It is designed as a disaster recovery solution for mirroring local production data to a remote/disaster recovery site. MirrorView/A is an asynchronous product that offers extendeddistance replication based on periodic incremental-update model. It periodically updates the remote copy of the data with the changes that occurred on the primary copy since the last update. Features such as consistency groups allow applications that are write-order dependent across volumes to manage several volumes as one volume. Data replication is supported over storage area networks (SANs) and IP-extended SAN environments. 13

Validated environment profile Profile characteristics The solution was validated with the following environment profile. Exchange Profile characteristic Value Number of Exchange 2007 SP1 users 1,500 Exchange 2007 IOPS per user 0.48 IOPS (very heavy profile) Read/write ratio 1:1 Number of Exchange mail databases per storage 1 group Exchange 2007 mailbox server 1 Number of Exchange 2007 users per server 1,500 Exchange 2007 user mailbox size 500 MB Number of Exchange 2007 users per storage 500 group VMFS volume for the virtual servers: RAID type, RAID 5, 450 GB, 15k rpm physical drive size, and speed Production and disaster recovery Exchange 2007 RAID 10, 450 GB, 15k rpm databases: RAID type, physical drive size, and speed SQL Profile characteristic SQL 2008 database size Instances and databases Number of database files Workload Storage for SQL database Production and disaster recovery SQL 2008 databases: RAID type, physical drive size, and speed Value 216 GB Single instance and single database 4 files each on a different LUN OLTP FC storage RAID 1/0, 300 GB, 15k rpm FC disks SharePoint Profile characteristic SharePoint farm user data Value 1,200 GB Concurrency 10% 14

Enterprise portal collaboration site collections 1 Document library sites 15 Number of documents in the SharePoint farm 5,842,058 Size of content index files on index and WFE- Query server Web front-end servers (virtual machines) 9.76 GB 1 (also runs, application, index, and query roles) SQL servers (virtual machines) 1 Production and disaster recovery SharePoint content databases: RAID type, physical drive size, and speed RAID 5, 1 TB, 7.2k rpm SATA disks 15

Hardware and software resources Hardware The following table lists the hardware used to validate the solution. Equipment Quantity Configuration Purpose Primary site storage 1 EMC Celerra NS-480 unified storage CLARiiON CX4-480 Thirty 300 GB 15k rpm drives Ten 1,000 GB 7.2k rpm drives Secondary site storage 1 EMC Celerra NS-120 unified storage CLARiiON CX4-120 Thirty 300 GB 15k rpm drives Thirty 1,000 GB 7.2k rpm drives Enterprise-class FC switches 2 4 GB FC switch One each at primary and secondary sites Enterprise network switches 2 Gigabit Ethernet network switch Servers 7 Dell 2950 Server Class Four 3.0 GHz dual-core processors 16 GB RAM 4 Gigabit Ethernet NICs Servers 2 Dell 2850 Server Class 2.8 GHz dual-core processors 4 GB RAM 2 Gigabit Ethernet NICs One each at primary and secondary sites These are used as ESX servers at both the primary and disaster recovery sites These are used as vcenter servers at the primary and disaster recovery sites Software The following table lists the software used to validate the solution. Software Version Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition 2008 SP2 Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 MOSS 2007 SP2 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP1 Microsoft LoadGen 2007 Solutions Enabler 7010 16

VMware SRM 4.0.0 EMC MirrorView Site Recovery Adapter 1.4.0.10 17

Conclusion Summary The solution leverages the EMC Celerra storage array combined with VMware vsphere 4 to consolidate and virtualize Microsoft applications and to validate scalability, performance, and optimization of storage and server resources. EMC delivers the power of EMC Celerra unified storage and VMware vsphere 4 advanced virtualization to maintain efficient use of resources, high availability, and database protection across multi-application environments. VMware SRM integrates very closely with CLARiiON arrays, VMware infrastructure, and Microsoft applications for an easy implementation of a disaster recovery solution. This solution demonstrates these capabilities through the testing of real-world Microsoft application workloads. By consolidating application servers with a virtualized infrastructure, organizations can achieve significant cost reductions by improving the utilization of existing hardware. Next steps EMC can help accelerate assessment, design, implementation, and management while lowering the implementation risks and costs of a business continuity solution for a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and MOSS 2007 environment. To learn more about this and other solutions, contact an EMC representative. 18