Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2010 with HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 and VMware vsphere 5.0

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1 Technical white paper Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange 2010 with HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 and VMware vsphere 5.0 Table of contents Executive summary... 2 Introduction... 2 Benefits of virtualization... 2 Reasons to virtualize Microsoft Exchange... 2 Virtualized Exchange configuration... 3 HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 overview... 3 HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 overview... 4 HP LeftHand OS 10.0 overview... 4 HP StoreVirtual Centralized Management Console... 5 Exchange VM layout... 5 HP StoreVirtual Multi-Site configuration... 7 Reference configuration sizing... 9 Sizing the mailbox role in a virtualized environment... 9 Sizing the CAS/HT role in a virtualized environment Sizing the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G VMware server network Solution components Bill of materials Terminology For more information Click here to verify the latest version of this document

2 Executive summary Many organizations today rely on some degree of virtualization to reduce costs, improve agility, and enhance business continuity. Whether it is a few virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical computer or an entire data center with hundreds of physical servers, and thousands of VMs. Virtualization brings tremendous benefits to data centers through server consolidation, ease of provisioning and deployment, and the standardization of hardware. The resulting reduction in data center equipment and associated operational costs yields significant savings-including less management, smaller space requirements, and lower energy consumption for both power and cooling. For this reason, data centers are witnessing rapid adoption and proliferation of VMs in their IT infrastructure. Historically, messaging has not been among applications that are commonly virtualized. Yet, virtualizing Exchange can be a cost-effective way to implement a flexible messaging architecture that delivers higher service levels and enables mailboxes to be scaled simply and dynamically. Virtualization decouples virtual and physical resources, thereby enabling the sharing of server resources previously dedicated to individual applications. Microsoft officially supports Windows Server and Microsoft Exchange Server running on VMware s vsphere. 1 VMware vsphere was the first hypervisor validated under Microsoft s Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP), providing customers with cooperative support from Microsoft and VMware. This reference configuration is a guideline for the planning and budgeting of your Exchange server hardware deployments. This solution details the server and storage requirements for supporting 4,000 mailbox users, each with a 2 GB mailbox capacity and a workload profile of 200 messages sent and received per user, per day. The servers and storage are sized to support Exchange 2010 in a virtualized environment using VMware s vsphere 5.0. The solution combines the native data protection features of Exchange 2010 along with the HA benefits of the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2. The intended audience includes: IT Professionals responsible for designing and implementing Exchange Server deployments in virtualized environments Introduction The reference configuration outlined in this paper describes server and storage sizing details to assist you in planning and budgeting for your Exchange 2010 hardware deployment in a virtualized environment. A virtualized exchange environment has several key benefits to consider. Benefits of virtualization Increasing the utilization of underused hardware get more out of your existing resources Improving server availability easily relocate virtual machines from one physical machine to another Reduce IT costs replace many small physical severs with one larger physical server Simplify management and licensing reduce the server to admin ratio and licensing overhead Quickly adapt to new business needs virtual machines can be created as needed without requiring up-front hardware purchases Save on space, power, and cooling Reasons to virtualize Microsoft Exchange Virtualizing Exchange enables implementation of a messaging architecture that is: Agile: Supporting increasing loads by right sizing your Exchange infrastructure and scaling your mailboxes dynamically. Always on: Delivering business continuity through superior disaster recovery and Exchange availability options. One of the foremost benefits of virtualization technology is server consolidation, which enables one server to take on the workloads of multiple servers. This breaks away from the previous model of one application or role to one server. Organizations can now replace many small servers with one larger physical server. In the case of Exchange, we can combine multiple Exchange roles or mailboxes onto one physical server. Virtualization makes this possible by isolating each VM from any others running on a single physical server. If one VM crashes or becomes unavailable, it will not affect the other VMs. This consolidation will reduce the costs of hardware, maintenance, and IT support. Along with reduced costs associated with managing server heat, electricity usage, physical space, and maintenance. 1 vmware.com/support/policies/ms_support_statement.html 2

3 Virtualizing Exchange also introduces the opportunity to leverage the benefits of shared storage arrays as compared to non-virtualized solutions that utilize direct attached storage. HP StoreVirtual 4000 Storage offers many features that can add value to virtualized Exchange deployments. In this case, we are utilizing the Multi-Site feature to provide an extra level of availability than what can be achieved in traditional Exchange environments. Virtualized Exchange configuration The reference configuration uses HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers configured as ESXi hosts and the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 for the storage. HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 overview 2 The HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server series sets the standard for next generation 2U 2-socket rack servers. With improvements in serviceability, unmatched performance, enhanced configuration flexibility, and customer-inspired design, the DL380p Gen8 offers the perfect solution for the dynamic compute requirements of today s demanding data centers. What s new: Up to two (2) Intel Xeon E product family processors offering even more powerful performance and flexible features that meet a variety of compute needs. Double the memory capacity over the prior generation and faster 1600 MHz DDR3 memory speeds. More I/O throughput with up to six (6) available PCI-Express expansion slots (up to 8 Giga Transfers per second) standard with optional two (2) x16 riser, and 150W single width graphics support. New HP Smart Array P420i Flash Back Write Cache (FBWC) controllers combined with new HP SmartDrives deliver improved manageability and reduced downtime. New 12 LFF and 25 SFF drive cages give you more storage options and local, larger storage footprints. New FlexibleLOM technology provides a choice in networking with 1 Gb or 10 Gb NICs, CNA, SFP+, FCoE or InfiniBand options. Features: HP FlexibleLOM provides the ability to customize server networking today and the ability to meet future needs without overhauling server hardware. Provides choice of bandwidth (1 Gb or 10 Gb) and fabric (Ethernet, FCoE, iscsi), supports Wake-on-LAN (WOL), and provides a shared ilo port for ease of use. HP SmartMemory with unmatched performance, quality and manageability advantages above industry standard memory. Support for RDIMMs, UDIMMs, and LRDIMMs up to 768 GB max capacity and 128 GB capacity at 1600 MHz. Intel Xeon E product family offers higher performance, power efficiency, and more adaptability with Intel QuickPath, Integrated Memory Controller, Turbo Boost, Intelligent Power Technologies, and Trusted Execution Technology. HP ilo 4 Simplify server setup, engage health monitoring, power and thermal control and promote remote administration without sacrificing performance. Figure 1. HP ProLiant DL380p Gen

4 HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 overview 3 From data growth to disaster recovery to centralized backup to future proofing your infrastructure these can all be daunting tasks for any company regardless of the size. When it comes to the storage part of the design, the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 is a perfect fit for environments with a variety of virtual servers, client virtualization, database, , and business applications. HP StoreVirtual is a scale-out, distributed storage solution that is designed for virtual environments. StoreVirtual provides seamless scalability to meet the unpredictable demands that are often associated with virtual environments and offers best in class high availability by virtue of its unique Network RAID technology. Features: Scale-out storage clustering allows the consolidation of multiple storage systems into pools of shared storage. All available capacity and performance is aggregated and available to every volume in the cluster. As storage needs increase, HP StoreVirtual 4000 can scale-out performance and capacity online. Network RAID stripes and protects multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage systems, eliminating any single point of failure in HP StoreVirtual 4000 clusters. Multi-Site SAN availability gives HP StoreVirtual 4000 the ability to assign storage systems in the cluster to different physical or logical sites (such as racks, rooms, building or cities) and provide seamless application high availability with failover/failback across sites all automatically. Easy installation. Be up and running in less than 20 minutes. From out-of-box, to rack-n-stack, to software setup wizard, to connecting hosts, HP StoreVirtual 4000 is super simple to get up and running quickly. Centralized management eases you through the installation and configuration process. Figure 2. HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 with 2 TB Drives HP LeftHand OS 10.0 overview 4 HP LeftHand OS (formerly SAN/iQ) software version 10.0 includes the latest set of features and performance enhancements for HP StoreVirtual storage products. Features: Storage Clustering for disruption free growth Network RAID 0, 5, 6, 10, 10+1 and 10+2 (Synchronous Replication) Thin Provisioning Application Integrated Snapshots with no space reservations required Fiber Channel Support Use HP StoreVirtual 4000 SANs in Fiber Channel and/or iscsi environment Remote Copy (Asynchronous Replication with Bandwidth Throttling) Multi-Site HA/DR Solution (Synchronous Replication across several locations) Online Volume Migration and automated Software Upgrades Integration with Windows Active Directory

5 HP StoreVirtual Centralized Management Console The HP StoreVirtual Centralized Management Console (CMC) provides SAN administrators with a single pane of glass dashboard to control and monitor all SAN activities. Features: Manage hundreds of storage systems with the same simplicity as your first two. All HP StoreVirtual 4000 storage systems in your environment, onsite or across multiple sites are managed from the CMC for simple, easy-to-manage storage. Built-in best practices analyzer to ensure your SAN is running optimally. Application integration streamlines storage management for applications. Snapshot and Remote Copy integration for Windows apps and virtualization platforms make application backup/recovery a snap. Management plug-ins, MPIO integration further simplifies managing application storage. Updates and upgrades made simple from firmware to new software releases to next generation hardware update software with a single click and migrate data to a cluster of new storage hardware online, non-disruptively all from the CMC. Figure 3. HP StoreVirtual Centralized Management Console Exchange VM layout Two HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers running VMware ESXi 5.0 host the Exchange VMs. Properly sizing the servers in the configuration is critical to successful deployment of a virtualized Exchange environment. 5 In this Reference Architecture, the servers are capable of supporting four VMs and provide sufficient VM headroom to support VMotion between servers. Each VM has Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise SP1 and Exchange 2010 installed. During normal operations, each ESXi server will host two active Exchange VMs, one VM for the Client Access Server (CAS) and Hub Transport (HT) combined server roles and one VM for the mailbox server role. The Exchange infrastructure has four active Exchange VMs during normal operations. Following Exchange best practices for virtualizing the CAS and HT combined server roles, it is recommended to deploy these virtual machines in a 1:1 ratio (for example, deploy one CAS and HT combined server roles virtual machine for every mailbox server role virtual machine). 6 This will ensure a well-balanced virtual machine placement regardless of host server size. It is also recommended to deploy a CAS Array. The CAS Array is an active directory object and is associated with a logical name and IP. This allows all VMs running the CAS role to be assigned to a single group (CAS Array) and gives Exchange the ability to implement high availability of the CAS servers and balance traffic going into the mailbox servers using an add-on software or hardware load balancer The mailbox VMs were configured into a two-copy database availability group (DAG) providing database-level recovery from a database, server or network failure. If one mailbox VM should become unavailable (planned or unplanned), the remaining mailbox VM would service all mailboxes. 5 blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2009/11/09/ aspx 6 technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx 5

6 The VMs, Hub Transport queues, restore volumes and mailbox databases are stored on a HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 and setup as a Multi- Site configuration. This feature of HP LeftHand OS uses Network RAID technology to stripe two copies of the data across a storage cluster. When deployed in a Multi-Site configuration, HP LeftHand OS ensures that a full copy of the data resides on each side of the cluster. The data will remain available if either side of the cluster fails. As mentioned previously, each host server is capable of supporting four VMs. This extra VM headroom enables the use of VMware s vmotion feature. The vmotion feature allows for the live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime and continuous service availability. VMware vmotion allows users to: Perform hardware maintenance without scheduled downtime Proactively migrate virtual machines from failing or underperforming servers Automatically optimize and allocate entire pools of resources for optimal hardware utilization and alignment with business priorities High Availability features used in this reference configuration: Microsoft Exchange Database Availability Group (DAG) HP StoreVirtual Network RAID VMware vmotion HP Store Virtual Multi-Site Figure 4 shows the Exchange VM layout during normal operation. Each ESXi server will host two active Exchange VMs; one VM for the CAS and HT combined server roles and one VM for the mailbox server role. The 4,000 mailboxes are equally distributed between both mailbox servers. Figure 4. Exchange VM Layout Normal Operation 6

7 HP StoreVirtual Multi-Site configuration This solution provides additional high availability by implementing the VM layout into an HP StoreVirtual Multi-Site configuration. This configuration uses Network RAID technology to stripe two copies of data across a storage cluster. When deployed as a Multi-Site configuration, HP LeftHand OS ensures that a full copy of the data resides on each site, or each side of the cluster. This ensures the data remains available in the event of a site failure or loss of link between sites. This achieves a higher level of availability than what is typically achievable in a single site deployment. Each storage system is configured with (12) 2TB 7.2k MDL SAS Drives configured as RAID 10 Replication between sites is supported with 1 Gb/s networks, however for optimal performance we have chosen to replicate with a 10 Gb/s network. For the requirements and additional information on deploying a HP Left Multi-Site configuration, please see: Figure 5 shows two HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 storage systems at sites A and B, with site C being outside the storage cluster and hosting the Failover Manager. Each site may represent different data centers or simply multiple racks located in the same data center. In a cluster that spans multiple sites, run the same number of storage systems in each site. In a cluster that spans two sites, run a Failover Manager in a third site (physical or logical) that is not included in the cluster. Figure 5. Three physical sites: cluster spans two sites, Failover Manager in third site 7

8 Figure 6 below shows the Exchange VM layout during a site failure scenario. The remaining ESXi server continues to host two active Exchange VMs; one VM for the CAS and HT combined server roles and one VM for the mailbox server role. The remaining mailbox VM is servicing all 4,000 mailbox users. The VMs, HT queues, restore volumes and mailbox databases remain available to Site A due to HP s StoreVirtual Network RAID feature. Figure 6. Exchange VM Layout Site B Failure due to planned or unplanned event 8

9 Reference configuration sizing The reference configuration was sized to support 4,000 mailbox users using a two-copy DAG. Each mailbox supports a 2 GB capacity sized to support a workload profile of 200 messages sent and received, per user, per day. The two-mailbox VMs each contain four active and four passive databases. During normal operations, each ESXi server will host two active Exchange VMs, one VM for the CAS and HT combined server roles and one VM for the mailbox server role supporting 2,000 mailbox users. For unplanned events where an Exchange VM becomes unavailable, the configuration was sized to support all of the mailboxes on the remaining ESXi server. In this scenario, the remaining ESXi host server would service all 4,000 mailbox users. The environment is configured to survive multiple failure scenarios, including an Exchange VM, ESXi server or storage system failing. Sizing the mailbox role in a virtualized environment Sizing an Exchange mailbox server in a virtualized environment is more difficult than on a physical server. Additional considerations such as hypervisor overhead and determining the number of virtual processors allocated per VM. Physical servers utilize all available processor cores unlike virtualized servers, which require additional sizing steps to match the expected application workload. To assist in sizing Exchange 2010 mailbox servers, Microsoft provides in-depth sizing details for the different user workload profiles. The workload profile, number of messages sent and received per user, per day determines processor sizing. The workload profiles determine processor sizing details to account for significant spikes in mailbox activity during peak times. Sizing the virtual processors correctly ensures that the Exchange VM is capable of handling these peak periods when CPU resource demands may be at their highest. Processor sizing for Exchange 2010 is based on the number of processor cycles needed per workload profile, instead of the number of users supported by a given processor core. Processor sizing The processor cycles requirements, referred to in megacycles, are expressed using two values: megacycles for active mailbox and megacycles for passive mailbox. Considering that a mailbox server in Exchange 2010 can host both active and passive mailbox databases, sizing needs to account for both resource types. The megacycle values for the active mailbox databases accounts for users interacting directly with their mailboxes and using various client types including Microsoft Office Outlook and ActiveSync devices. Megacycles for passive mailbox databases relate to replication of mailbox data to the passive database copies hosted on this mailbox server. Table 1 provides a partial list of estimated values based on user profile. For additional details, please visit technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx. Table 1. Per mailbox CPU estimates on user profile and message activity Messages sent/received per mailbox per day Megacycles for active mailbox Megacycles for passive mailbox This configuration was sized with a workload profile of 200 messages sent and received, per user, per day. This type of workload requires 4 megacycles for each active mailbox and.6 for each passive mailbox. 7 For this solution, there was one active database copy and one passive database copy in the Exchange DAG. When sizing Exchange solutions, it is important to size the solution based on possible failure scenarios. For this configuration, the solution needs to continue to operate with the loss of one Exchange mailbox VM and/or one CAS and HT combined VM. In this failure scenario, the remaining mailbox and CAS and HT combined VM must be capable of servicing all 4,000 mailbox users. 7 Additional copies of the mailbox database will require the value for Megacycles for active mailbox to be increased by 10% for each additional copy. technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx 9

10 The mailbox megacycle requirements for a workload of 200 messages sent and received, per user, per day, results in the following megacycles for this solution: Active mailboxes 4,000 * 4.0 = 16,000 Passive mailbox 4,000 * 0.6 = 2,400 Total megacycles needed = 18,400 per Exchange mailbox VM After determining the required megacycles, the next step is calculating the optimal processor configuration to support 20,000 megacycles per Exchange mailbox VM. For Exchange 2010, the megacycles requirements listed in table 1, are based on testing conducted by Microsoft using the HP ProLiant DL380 G5 X GHz with two quad-core processors (8 cores). However, for this solution, the BL460c Gen8 uses a newer processor micro-architecture. To account for differences between the DL380 G5 processors performance and the newer processor platform used in the BL460c Gen8, there are a series of steps to calculate the increased performance of the newer platform. These calculations were used to determine the available adjusted megacycles for the newer processor. Differences in micro-architectures, number of cores, clock speeds and number of processor sockets used can result in significant variations in available adjusted megacycles. To determine the available adjusted megacycles, Microsoft uses the SPECint rate to calculate the new processor available adjusted megacycles. The SPECint2006 is an independent performance benchmark maintained by the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. This solution was sized using a BL460c Gen8 configured with two Intel Xeon E GHz eight-core processors. For this type of hardware configuration, the E processor has a SPECint2006 rate of 693 (16 cores) or approximately per core. The baseline DL380 G5 was configured with two Intel Xeon X GHz four-core processors (8 cores) and had a SPECint2006 rate of 150 or approximately per core. The following calculations used these values to determine the adjusted megacycles available for the current generation of blade servers from HP, the BL460c Gen8 server: Adjusted megacycles per core = ([new platform per core value] x [Hertz per core of the baseline platform])/(baseline per core value) (43.31 x 3333)/18.75 = 7, The available adjusted megacycles are 7, per physical core. Now we must also take into account the additional CPU overhead that is required by VMware to host the VMs. When virtualizing Exchange, Microsoft recommends adding an additional 10% CPU overhead when deploying Exchange with a hypervisor. Accounting for the 10% reduction of resources, there was approximately 6, megacycles available for each of the 16 cores. 7, * 7, = 6, This solution, allocates four virtual cores per VM providing 27, megacycles to the VM. Microsoft recommends servers or in this case, VMs hosting the role consume no more than 80% of the available CPU resources. Sizing the VM to 80% CPU provides approximately 22, megacycles to each Exchange VM, which provides sufficient CPU headroom for this configuration. 27, *.80 = 22, Memory sizing 9 Exchange 2010 memory guidance is based on workload profiles similar to how processor megacycle requirements are determined. However, sizing memory for a virtualized environment is not significantly different than on a physical server, table 2 provides a partial list the memory requirements for each of the workload profiles. For additional details, please visit technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx. 8 spec.org/ 9 technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx 10

11 Table 2. Database cache per user (memory to be allocated to mailbox VM) Messages sent/received per mailbox per day (~75 KB average message size) Database cache per user (MB) This configuration s message profile is 200 messages sent and received, per user, per day. This workload requires 12 MB of memory per mailbox VM to be allocated to database cache. For planned or unplanned mailbox VM failures, the remaining mailbox VM must service all 4,000 mailbox users. The total database cache requirement is 4000 x 12 MB or 48 GB of memory per mailbox VM. Table 3 provides a partial list of the server memory requirements to support different database cache sizes for servers configured with only the mailbox role. Since this solution requires 48 GB for database cache, the recommended VM memory configuration would be 64 GB for the mailbox VM to support the database cache requirements and memory needed for system resources. Table 3. Database cache size and memory requirements (mailbox role only) Database cache size Server VM memory 10.4 GB 16 GB 17.6 GB 24 GB 24.4 GB 32 GB 39.2 GB 48 GB 53.6 GB 64 GB Storage sizing Disk storage sizing in Exchange 2010 is based on workload profiles. For this configuration, our workload profile is 200 messages sent and received per user, per day. Unlike processor and memory sizing, disk I/O requirements are typically lower than previous versions of Exchange due to improved database cache effectiveness. 10 Sizing storage is a complex task requiring analysis of multiple variables. To simplify the storage sizing, HP recommends utilizing the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server or the Microsoft Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator. 12 While neither tool, sizes Exchange solutions specifically for virtualized environments, they are helpful in providing storage sizing details and guidelines since the storage requirements are similar between physical and virtual configurations. 10 technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx 11 h71019.www7.hp.com/activeanswers/us/en/sizers/microsoft-exchange-server-2010.html 12 blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2009/11/09/ aspx 11

12 Tables 4 and 5 list the values used in the Microsoft Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements calculator to size the storage configuration. Table 6 provides the calculated database and storage requirements. Table 7 provides the VM configuration for the VMs hosting the mailbox servers. Table 4. Exchange configuration input values Exchange Environment Configuration Global Catalog Server Architecture Server Multi-Role Configuration (MBX+CAS+HT) Server Role Virtualization High Availability Deployment Value 64-bit No Yes Yes Number of Mailbox Servers Hosting Active Mailboxes/DAG 2 Number of Database Availability Groups 1 Mailbox Database Copy Configuration Value Total Number of HA Database Copy Instances (Includes Active Copy) within DAG 4 Total Number of Lagged Database Copy Instances within DAG 0 Number of HA Database Copy Instances Deployed in Secondary Datacenter 2 Number of Lagged Database Copy Instances in Secondary Datacenter 0 Exchange Data Configuration Value Data Overhead Factor 20% Mailbox Move/Week Percentage 1% Dedicated Maintenance/Restore LUN Yes LUN Free Space Percentage 20% Log Shipping Network Compression Enabled Log Shipping Compression Percentage 30% Exchange I/O Configuration Value I/O Overhead Factor 20% Additional I/O Requirement/Server 0.00 Database Configuration Maximum Database Size Configuration Automatically Calculate Number of Unique Database/DAG Value Default No Custom Number of Databases/DAG 8 12

13 Table 5. User mailbox configuration input values Tier-1 User Mailbox Configuration Value Total Number of Tier-1 User Mailboxes/Environment 4000 Projected Mailbox Number Growth Percentage 0% Total Send/Receive Capability/Mailbox/Day 200 messages Average Message Size (KB) 75 Mailbox Size Limit (MB) 2048 Personal Archive Mailbox Size Limit (MB) 0 Deleted Item Retention Window (Days) 14 Single Item Recovery Calendar Version Storage Enabled Enabled IOPS Multiplication Factor 1.00 Megacycles Multiplication Factor 1.00 Desktop Search Engines Enabled (for Online Mode Clients) Predict IOPS Value No Yes Tier-1 User IOPS/mailbox 0.00 Tier-1 Database Read: Write Ratio 3:2 Table 6. Calculated databases and storage requirements Exchange server configuration Value Total Number of Databases per mailbox VM 4 Total Number of Users per Database 500 Active Databases per Server 4 Per Database and Log Storage Requirement Total Database and Log Storage Requirement per Server 2,002 GB 8,007 GB Total Disk IOPS for Databases and Logs Requirement per Server

14 Table 7. Mailbox VM configuration details (Each mailbox VM) VM configuration Values Number of virtual processors 4 Memory SAN capacity requirements for Database and Logs Number of mailbox VMs 64 GB 8,008 GB 2 (1 per site) The solution has been sized so that during normal operation each of the two mailbox VMs will host 4 active and 4 passive databases. For the site failure scenario, the remaining mailbox VM will host all 8 active databases. Figures 7 and 8 depict the reference configuration s Exchange database layout for the two mailbox VMs during both normal operation and site failure scenarios. Figure 7. Exchange database layout during normal operation Active MBX1 DAG1 MBX2 Passive DB1 DB2 DB1 DB2 DB3 DB3 DB4 DB5 DB4 DB5 DB6 DB7 DB8 DB6 DB7 DB8 14

15 Figure 8. Exchange database layout during a site failure scenario Active MBX1 DAG1 MBX2 Passive DB1 DB2 DB1 DB2 DB3 DB3 DB4 DB5 DB4 DB5 DB6 DB7 DB8 DB6 DB7 DB8 Sizing the CAS/HT role in a virtualized environment One of Microsoft s best practices when deploying Exchange in virtualized environments is to combine the CAS and HT roles onto one VM and pair it to each mailbox VM. This simplifies the sizing process allowing both mailbox VM and CAS and HT VMs to be configured with an identical numbers of virtual processors. This will ensure the CAS and HT combined server roles VM is properly sized to handle the mailbox messaging workload. Memory requirements are identical to sizing a physical server, which recommends 2 GB per processor core, so for this configuration the CAS and HT combined server roles VM will need 8 GB of memory assigned to it. To isolate the HT queues, each queue will have a separate 50 GB volume. Table 8 lists the combined CAS/HT VM configuration details. Table 8. Combined CAS/HT VM configuration details (Each CAS/HT VM) VM configuration Values Number of virtual processors 4 Memory SAN capacity for Transport Queue volume Number of HT/CAS VMs 8 GB 50 GB 2 (1 per site) 15

16 Sizing the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 For this solution, we are combining the HA features of Microsoft s DAG and the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2. The mailbox databases are being protected by DAG with two copies of the databases. The HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 provides additional safeguards to the mailbox databases, HT Queues, Restore Volumes and VMs by implementing Network RAID and Multi-Site. Network RAID protects volumes by replicating between storage systems. Each storage system was configured with 12 2TB MDL SAS 7.2K RPM Drives for a total of 48 drives across all storage systems. This solution was sized for capacity and the ability to grow mailbox user count. The 2TB MDL SAS drives offer excellent capacity and satisfactory I/O performance for an Exchange deployment. Following Microsoft Best Practices, RAID 10 is the recommended RAID level for this type of drive technology. 13 Table 9 lists the HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 volume configuration and RAID levels. Table 9. Storage volume configuration Volume type Capacity per VM Number of volumes Total capacity of VMs Hardware RAID level Network RAID level Total required RAW capacity to deploy (includes VMs, Hardware RAID, Network RAID) VM 160 GB GB ,560 GB HT Queue 50 GB GB GB Mailbox database and log 2,002 GB 8 16,016 GB ,064 GB Restore 1,829 GB 2 3,658 GB ,632 GB VMware server network Each host server will provide six physical network interfaces to isolate the different network protocols. Table 10. Network descriptions Network Network speed Description 1 1 Gb Exchange MAPI Traffic 2 1 Gb Exchange DAG replication Traffic 3 10 Gb Primary iscsi path 4 10 Gb Secondary iscsi path 5 1 Gb Management network for managing vsphere 6 1 Gb Management network for vmotion between hosts 13 technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee aspx 16

17 Solution components The reference configuration uses two HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers each has VMware ESXi 5.0 installed. Table 11. Server hardware configuration (per server) HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server Description Notes Processor Type 2 Intel Xeon E Processors 8 Physical Cores per 2.9 GHz Memory 256 GB 16 16GB PC R (DD3-1600) Registered CAS-11 Memory Internal Storage Four (4) 146GB 6G SAS 15K 2.5in Boot disks Internal Storage Controller P420i 6Gb SAS Controller Network (FlexibleLOM) FlexFabric 554FLR-SFP+ Adapter 2-Port 10Gb iscsi Network HP NC365T Adapter 4-Port 1Gb Ethernet The reference configuration uses four HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 storage systems setup as a Multi-Site configuration with two storage systems at each site. Table 12. Storage hardware configuration (per storage system) HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 Storage Memory Description 12-2TB MDL SAS 7.2K RPM Drives 8 GB Power Supplies 2 Storage Controller Cache iscsi Network Remove Media 512 MB 2-Port 10Gb iscsi Integrated DVD/CD-ROM Bill of materials Table 13 lists the bill of materials for the major server and storage components used in this reference configuration, however this is not a list of all the necessary components needed to build a complete solution. For a complete solution, please contact your HP Reseller or HP Sales Representative. Table 13. Bill of materials Server Description Part Number 2 HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 8-SFF CTO Chassis B21 2 HP DL380p Gen8 E FIO Kit L21 2 HP DL380p Gen8 E Kit B21 32 HP 16GB 2Rx4 PC R-11 Kit B21 8 HP 146GB 6G SAS 15K 2.5in SC ENT HDD B21 17

18 2 HP 12.7mm SATA DVD RW Jb Kit B21 2 HP DL380p Gen8 PCIe 2Slot 2x16 Riser Kit B21 2 HP FlexFabric 10GB 554FLR-SFP+ FIO Adptr B21 2 HP TPM Module Kit B21 2 HP 2U SFF BB Rail Gen8 Kit B21 4 HP 1200W CS Plat PL HtPlg Pwr Supply Kit B21 2 HP Online Spare FIO Memory B21 2 HP NC365T 4-Port Ethernet Server Adptr B21 Storage Description Part Number 4 HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 10G BASE SFP+ Upgrade Kit BQ891A 4 HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 24TB MDL SAS Storage System AX704A SAN Switches Description Part Number 2 HP XG Switch J9265A 12 HP BLc SFP+ 3m 10GbE Copper Cable B21 Note The HP StoreVirtual 4500 G2 is available in scalable capacity SAN solutions, in addition to the individual enclosures as listed in table 13. For more information, please see the QuickSpecs. h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13552_na/13552_na.pdf 18

19 Terminology The table below provides definitions for the technical terms used throughout this paper. Table 14. Terminology and definitions Microsoft Exchange terms Database Availability Group (DAG) Mailbox Server Role (MB) Hub Transport Server Role (HT) Client Access Server Role (CAS) CAS Array Active Mailbox Database Passive Mailbox Database VMware terms Virtual Machine (VM) vmotion HP terms FlexibleLOM (FlexLOM) Multi-Site SAN (Stretched Cluster) Network RAID Definition A database availability group (DAG) is the base component of the high availability and site resilience framework built into Microsoft Exchange Server A DAG is a group of mailbox servers that hosts a set of databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases. This role is the most common server role and is at the core of an Exchange organization. Servers on which the mailbox server role is installed are called mailbox servers. The mailbox role hosts mailbox and public databases. This role handles all mail flow inside the organization, applies transport rules, applies journaling policies and delivers messages to a recipient s mailbox. This role accepts connections to your Exchange 2010 server from different clients. i.e., Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Web App The CAS Array is an active directory object and acts as a frontend to multiple CAS servers. Each CAS server is assigned to the CAS Array object. This allows all CAS servers to act as one using network load balancing, either by Windows or by a hardware load balancer. The active mailbox database is the one that is currently being used by the users that have mailboxes in that database. All of the transactions for that database are being generated by the mailbox server and applied to the active mailbox database. The passive mailbox database is not being used by users. It is simply applying a copy of transaction logs from the active mailbox database to its copy of the database to keep it up to date. Definition Also known as a hypervisor is a tightly isolated software container that can run its own operating systems and applications as if it were a physical computer. vmotion enables live migration of running virtual machines from one physical server to another with zero downtime and continuous service availability. Definition The FlexibleLOM option allows customers to choose which FlexFabric adapter they want. Options include high performance 10GbE connectivity with the capability to support Ethernet, FCoE or iscsi with full protocol offload for HP Gen8 rack servers. I think we need to delete the reference to rack servers. I checked the support site and the new Gen8 blades support FlexLOMs. HP StoreVirtual 4000 SANs stripe and protect multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage systems, eliminating any single point of failure in the SAN. Applications have continuous data availability in the event of a disk, controller, storage system, power, network, or site failure. Network RAID stripes and protects multiple copies of data across a cluster of storage systems, eliminating any single point of failure in the HP StoreVirtual Applications have continuous data availability in the event of a disk, controller, storage system, power, network, or site failure. 19

20 For more information QuickSpecs for HP DL380p Gen8 servers QuickSpecs for HP StoreVirtual HP Solutions for Exchange, including best practices and additional testing of HP Server and Storage products with Exchange hp.com/solutions/exchange Exchange sizing and best practices, there are several white papers and planning tools that are free to download from hp.com/solutions/activeanswers/exchange JetStress and the process requirements for validating an Exchange Storage Solution HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server Exchange Load Generator microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20322 To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at hp.com/solutions/feedback. Sign up for updates hp.com/go/getupdated Rate this document Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel and Intel Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. 4AA4-4741ENW, January 2013