www.vce.com VBLOCK SOLUTION FOR MICROSOFT EXCHANGE AND SHAREPOINT SERVERS FOR MID-SIZE AND REMOTE DATA CENTERS Version 1.0 April 2013 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. VCE 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." VCE MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2
Contents Introduction... 5 Solution overview... 5 Objectives... 6 Audience... 6 Feedback... 6 Technology overview... 7 Vblock Systems... 7 Vblock System 200... 7 VCE Vision Intelligent Operations... 7 Applications... 8 Microsoft Active Directory... 8 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010... 8 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010... 9 Microsoft SQL Server 2008... 9 Architecture overview... 10 Microsoft Exchange... 10 Microsoft SharePoint... 10 Hardware and software... 12 Design considerations... 13 Storage... 13 Disk and pool layout... 13 Application resources... 13 Server deployments... 15 High availability... 16 Microsoft Exchange server roles, subsystems, and sizing... 16 Microsoft SharePoint... 18 Search... 18 Databases... 19 Intel Hyper-Threading technology... 20 Deployments... 20 Scalability... 20 Solution validation... 21 Applications... 21 EMC Unisphere... 21 HP LoadRunner 11.0... 21 Microsoft Exchange Server JetStress 2010... 21 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 3
Microsoft Exchange Load Generator 2010... 21 Test environment design... 22 Microsoft Exchange... 22 Microsoft SharePoint... 23 Mixed workload... 24 Test results... 25 Analysis... 26 Conclusion... 27 Next Steps... 27 References... 28 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 4
Introduction Since 2008, Microsoft has consistently registered the highest Enterprise Content Management market annual growth rates. 1 Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 provide e-mail and collaboration solutions vital in today s business climate; and regardless of size or distribution of locations, IT organizations are being tasked with ensuring the interoperability, performance, and high availability of these critical deployments. VCE can help you simplify and optimize provisioning, deployment, and management of these Microsoft Business Solutions by using virtualization and best-of-breed components from Cisco, EMC, and VMware. Reset your baseline service delivery cost structure by using the innovation of VCE pre-packaged configurations and management tools to quickly and easily implement a set of Microsoft Business Solutions. Optimized for virtualization and engineered for ease of growth and expansion, VCE lowers IT costs per datacenter tile by ensuring that you ll have an intelligently managed, dynamic pool of resources that s ideal for supporting virtualized and cloud computing environments. Vblock Systems represent the next generation in appliance-like IT deployments. Vblock Systems offer a complete line of models and configurations to meet a variety of environments, and the Vblock System 200 is the perfect size for deploying this critical mixed application workload in medium-sized situations. Solution overview The Vblock Solution for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint Servers for Midsize and Remote Data Centers demonstrates a virtualized mixed application workload comprising critical business applications, Exchange and SharePoint, for mid-size and distributed data centers. Vblock System 200 provides a nimble solution for organizations providing enterprise-grade applications and performance, while maintaining vigilance over IT acquisition and operating costs. Vblock Systems provide organization IT solutions with low capital outlay and reduced operating costs from simpler implementations, deployments, and maintenance. Vblock solutions provide dramatically quicker time to market and allow organization to eliminate overlap spending in their organizations while maintaining staff size and composition with pre-packaged modular architectures. Organizations need IT solutions that provide scalability, performance, and high availability comparable to larger solutions. Vblock Systems are built on a consistent platform with compatible components across the product line from the Vblock System 100 to the Vblock System 700 family: Enterprise-class performance in a mid-size package with significant headroom for growth Rapid deployments to quickly scale your infrastructure to meet changing needs Simplified configuration and management with existing staff size and skill sets 1 Gartner Report, Market Analysis: Enterprise Content Management System Worldwide, June 19, 2012 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 5
Objectives This paper provides a solution architecture and design considerations for deploying a mixed Microsoft workload of Exchange and SharePoint on a Vblock System 200. It demonstrates a rapid deployment and sustainable operation of the virtualized infrastructure for these applications. In this paper, we will: Describe the components, architecture, and configuration for deploying Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint for 5,000 users on Vblock System 200 Share design considerations for optimizing the compute, storage, and virtualized application components of this solution Validate this solution according to Microsoft Exchange s Heavy User and SharePoint s Acceptable User Response Times in single and mixed application environments, with analysis and comparison Audience This solution architecture is intended for application and service architects, IT managers, and engineers considering an integrated, virtualized infrastructure for deploying Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint in mid-sized and remote data centers. Feedback To suggest documentation changes and provide feedback on this paper, send an email to docfeedback@vce.com. Include the title of this paper, the name of the topic to which your comment applies, and your feedback. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 6
Technology overview This section describes the technologies used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Vblock Systems The Vblock System from VCE is the world s most advanced converged infrastructure one that optimizes infrastructure, lowers costs, secures the environment, simplifies management, speeds deployment, and promotes innovation. The Vblock System is designed as one architecture that spans the entire portfolio, includes best-in-class components, offers a single point of contact from initiation through support, and provides the industry s most robust range of configurations. Vblock System 200 The Vblock System 200 is right-sized to meet the capacity, workload, and space requirements of midsized data centers and distributed enterprise remote offices. By leveraging the Vblock System 200, companies experience the repeatability, architecture standardization, implementation flexibility, and business results synonymous with Vblock Systems. With pre-defined, variable configurations, the Vblock System 200 balances real workload requirements with fastest time to value, reducing risk and complexity. The Vblock System 200 is designed to: Bring the power and benefits of the Vblock System family into a value-focused solution Deliver core IT services (file/print and domain) for mid-sized data centers and distributed enterprise remote locations Provide development/test and co-location data center support Efficiently handle mixed application workload requirements for mid-sized data centers Offer business applications with data segregation requirements (such as ediscovery and earchive) with predictable performance and operational characteristics VCE Vision Intelligent Operations VCE Vision Intelligent Operations enables and simplifies converged operations. The software acts as a mediation layer between Vblock Systems and existing data center management tools, dynamically informing those tools about Vblock Systems. It delivers intelligent discovery to provide a single-object perspective on Vblock Systems. Comprehensive awareness of the industry-leading components that comprise Vblock Systems promotes infrastructure standardization through automated validation and system assurance. And integration capabilities make it possible to provide this level of intelligence to any toolset. The software has native integration with key management products from VMware and supports API-enabled integration into other standard industry tools. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 7
The software is delivered pre-installed on all new Vblock Systems, and includes: The VCE Vision System Library that runs on all Vblock Systems to implement core functionality, including the discovery, compliance, and object models A plug-in for vcenter and an adapter for vcenter Operations Manager that enable native integration with these two key components of the VMware management toolset A software development kit, which includes the API documentation, sample code, Java bindings, and a simulator, as well as an online developer community to help foster innovation For more information, go to http://www.vce.com. Applications Microsoft Active Directory Active Directory with Global Catalog (AD/GC) is a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows Network Domain. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems and provides a central location for network administration and security. In today s information economy, users need to access and appropriately share data to keep business moving. Active Directory provides easy data access for users across devices and locations and enterprise-caliber security for sensitive business information even when it is outside of your data center. The Global Catalog enables searching for Active Directory objects in any domain without subordinate referrals so that users can find objects quickly. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Exchange is built to deliver the enterprise-grade security and reliability that businesses require. Exchange provides email, calendar and contacts on your PC, phone, and web browsers. Exchange gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment to your unique needs and provides a simplified way to help keep email continuously available for your users. Exchange offers your organization: Support for a variety of browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome allows you to work and collaborate no matter where you are. Mobile sync for hundreds of devices including Windows Phone, iphone, and Android means you can access and update your information while on the go. Increased user productivity with organizational safety gives you the control you need. Managed availability helps your business achieve increased levels of reliability. A new, unified approach to high availability and disaster recovery helps achieve new levels of reliability as it reduces the complexity and cost of delivering business continuity up to 80%. With new features, such as Database Availability Groups and online mailbox moves, you can more easily and confidently implement mailbox resiliency with database-level replication and failover, all with familiar Exchange management tools. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 8
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SharePoint is an industry-leading solution when it comes to promoting collaboration, managing documents, setting up Web sites to share information with others, and publishing reports to help everyone make better decisions running on the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. A SharePoint deployment in your organization: Provides a single infrastructure for all of your business websites, enabling you to share documents with colleagues, manage projects with partners, and publish information to customers. Brings great collaboration tools and a single platform to manage them making it easier for people to share ideas and work together in the ways they want. Makes content management easy, by setting up compliance measures behind the scenes with features like document types, retentions policies, and automatic content sorting. Offers tools and components for creating do-it-yourself business solutions. Provides access to information in databases, reports, and business applications. Helps people find the information and contacts they need to do their jobs. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Many organizations use SQL Server as an underlying database for SharePoint. SQL Server is an industry-leading database solution with the performance and scalability to meet today s IT challenges with a low total cost of ownership. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 9
Architecture overview This section summarizes the architecture and configurations we used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Microsoft Exchange Exchange consisted of Client Access server (CAS), Hub Transport server (HUB), Mailbox server (MBX), and Active Directory. The Vblock System 200 was optimal for the storage, compute, hypervisor, and network requirements of this solution. This enabled us to attain a more consolidated deployment of Exchange and SharePoint components across all five physical ESXi hosts on a Vblock System 200, by deploying six virtual machines (VM) on ESXi hosts 1 and 2 and six VMs on ESXi host 3 and 4, for a total of 12 VMs on four physical servers. Each ESXi host runs on a Cisco C220 M3 server and is connected through 2 Nexus 5548 SAN Fabric Switches to the VNX 5300 storage array. Microsoft SharePoint We deployed SharePoint in a three-tier architecture: Web front ends (WFE) Application servers (APP) Crawl (CRAWL), Query (QUERY), and SQL servers Table 1. Architecture for Exchange and SharePoint on Vblock System 200 Component Server Qty. ESXi #1 ESXi #2 ESXi #3 ESXi #4 ESXi host CPU and memory UCS-C220-M3 4 2.89 GHz 256 GB 2.89 GHz 256 GB 2.89 GHz 256 GB 2.89 GHz 256 GB Exchange Client Access / Hub Transport servers 2 CAS/HUB1 CAS/HUB2 Mailbox servers 2 MBX1 MBX2 SharePoint Web Front End/Query servers Application/Crawl servers 2 WFE/QUERY1 WFE/QUERY2 2 APP/CRAWL1 APP/CRAWL2 SQL servers 2 SQL1 SQL2 Shared Active Directory/Global Catalog servers 2 AD/GC1 AD/GC2 We optimized server resources by creating an environment consisting of 12 VMs on the 4 ESXi hosts. Four ESXi hosts contained the entire infrastructure required to operate an Exchange and SharePoint deployment, including domain controllers, Application servers, WFEs, Application, Client Access, Hub Transport, and Mailbox servers. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 10
Figure 1. Exchange and SharePoint on Vblock System 200 Table 2 lists the Exchange, SharePoint, and LoadGen servers used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. We used a 1:1 ratio of physical-to-virtual servers when sizing Exchange. Table 2. Application servers Component Server Qty. Virtual CPU RAM (GB) Exchange CAS/HUB 2 4 32 MBX 2 4 32 SharePoint WFE 2 4 8 APP 2 4 8 SQL 2 8 64 Shared AD/GC 2 2 8 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 11
Hardware and software Table 3 lists the hardware used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Table 3. Hardware used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint Layer Equipment Qty. Notes Compute Cisco Unified Computing System C220 M3 4 Storage EMC VNX 5300 1 SharePoint and SQL databases on RAID 5 (4 + 1) VM disks Network Cisco Nexus 5548 2 Mailbox databases on RAID 10 (2 + 2) Raw Device Mapping disks Thin Provisioning Cisco Catalyst 3750 1 Configured for management The following table lists the software used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Table 4. Software used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint Software Version Qty. Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 SP2 Enterprise Edition 4 Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 SP2 Enterprise Edition 4 Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 2 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 12 VMware vcenter Server 5.0 1 VMware vsphere 5.0 Enterprise Plus 5 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 12
Design considerations This section describes the design considerations we used in the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Storage The disk layout was based on Microsoft and EMC best practice recommendations. Disk and pool layout The VNX storage platform used in this solution provides consolidated access to stored data from multiple hosts, users, and applications by using existing IP network and connectivity, and industrystandard protocols, including CIFS, NFS, and iscsi. Using RAID, the array can automatically rebuild a faulted drive to a spare drive. After the RAID group member is rebuilt, the group is resilient to a single disk failure. This solution, based on the VNX platform, allows organizations to store and protect files, folders, and application data at a low cost of ownership while meeting enterprise requirements for scalability, protection, and availability. Application resources Microsoft Exchange We used two Mailbox servers with the following thin devices in each: Four 1.6 TB database LUNs Four 100 GB log LUNs We used two HUB/CAS servers with one 300 GB thin device in each. We configured RAID 10 group for databases and logs, hosting 16 Raw Device Mapping (RDM) disks for Exchange resources. Microsoft SharePoint We used 200 GB for each content database. We divided 1.2 TB of user data comprising 4,800,000 documents into 6 x 200 GB content databases on 300 GB volumes, which we spread across 16 x 600 GB disks using RAID 5 for redundancy. All VMs used the VNX5300 for operating systems and content databases. We used RAID 1/0 LUNs for the search and TempDB databases. We deployed the VNX 5300 as a performance pool using 44 x 600 GB SAS 10 K RPM disks hosting 6 VM disks (VMDK) for SharePoint resources. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 13
We limited VMDK sizes to the following guidelines to improve SharePoint management and performance: Microsoft strongly recommends limiting content databases to 200 GB. A site collection should not exceed 100 GB unless it is the only site collection in the database. Content database sizes up to 1 TB are supported only for large, single-site repositories and archives in which data remains reasonably static. Table 5. VMDKs for SharePoint resources VMDK SharePoint internal database Property store database Crawl store database Property and crawl store log files Temp database Temp database log SharePoint database log Content database Size 100 GB 100 GB 100 GB 30 GB 100 GB 20 GB 20 GB 200 GB Table 6. Raid group characteristics Group number Qty. disks Type Size (GB) RPM RAID type Purpose 0 1 NL SAS 2,000 7,200 Hot spare Hot spare 1 5 SAS 600 10,000 RAID 5 (4+1) ESXi Boot LUN, Management OS, and LoadGen VMs 2 1 NL SAS 2,000 7,200 Hot spare Hot spare 3 1 SAS 600 10,000 Hot spare Hot spare 4 1 SAS 600 10,000 Hot spare Hot spare 5 1 SAS 600 10,000 Hot spare Hot spare 6 1 SAS 600 10,000 Hot spare Hot spare 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 14
Table 7. Storage pool characteristics Name Qty. Type Size (GB) RPM RAID Type Purpose VB201 E2010 DB Pool A 12 NL SAS VB201 E2010 DB Pool B 12 NL SAS VB201 E2010 Logs Pool A 2 NL SAS VB201 E2010 Logs Pool B 2 NL SAS 2,000 7,200 RAID 1/0 Exchange Mailbox 1 2,000 7,200 RAID 1/0 Exchange Mailbox 2 2,000 7,200 RAID 1/0 Exchange Logs 1 2,000 7,200 RAID 1/0 Exchange Logs 2 VB201 E2010 OS Pool 5 SAS 600 10,000 RAID 5 Exchange OS VB201 SP2010 Content DB 16 SAS 600 10,000 RAID 5 SharePoint Content DB VB201 SP2010 OS Pool 5 SAS 600 10,000 RAID 5 SharePoint OS VB201 SP2010 Search- Crawl-Temp DB and Logs 8 SAS 600 10,000 RAID 1/0 SharePoint Search, Crawl and Temp DB and Logs Server deployments We designed the SharePoint server farm and Exchange server as a typical Vblock System 200 deployment, with the following application-specific characteristics: Table 8. SharePoint server farm characteristics Profile Characteristic SharePoint farm user data Value 1.2 TB Enterprise portal collaboration site collections 6 Document library sites 10 Number of documents in the SharePoint farm 4,800,000 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 15
Table 9. Exchange server characteristics Item Value Exchange mailboxes 5,000 ESXi hosts 2 Virtual machines per ESXi host 3 Active mailboxes per server 2,500 Databases per host 4 Mailboxes per database 625 Mailbox size (GB) 2 Heavy User profile messages sent and received per day per mailbox 150 Database read/write ratio 3:2 Database maintenance configuration 24 x 7 BDM Database LUN (TB) 1.6 Log LUN (GB) 100 High availability Protecting Exchange and SharePoint from disruptive interruptions presents challenges on three levels: Complex implementation architectures Unplanned data center failures and operator errors Planned outages for reconfigurations, upgrades, hot fixes, and service packs This solution ensures Exchange and SharePoint performance and high availability by deploying redundant clustered resources for each of the solution s three tiers (including WFE servers, Application servers, and SQL database servers) in the following configurations. Although not used in this solution validation, you can also create database availability groups to improve availability. Microsoft Exchange server roles, subsystems, and sizing The Exchange server roles we used in this solution are Mailbox, Hub Transport, and Client Access. We virtualized all Exchange server roles using ESXi 5.0. Table 10 shows the different Exchange server roles, their respective subsystems, how we sized them. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 16
Table 10. Exchange server roles, subsystems, and sizing Roles Subsystems Sizing (per the Microsoft Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator) MBX Processor The megacycles required per mailbox are 3. The megacycles required for a four-core Mailbox server are 8,250. The specint2006 ratio for the C220 M3 blades is estimated at 697, based on the Intel Xeon ES-2690 processor architecture. We factored 10% processor overhead into the overall requirements to compensate for the hypervisor overhead, per VMware guidance. With this configuration, the server would run at 24 percent utilization. Storage The role calculator recommends 44 x 2 GB 7.2K SATA drives to meet the I/O requirements of 5,000 users with 150 messages sent/received per mailbox per day, with a 2 GB mailbox quota. Single-item retention and calendar version storage are included in this calculation. The IOPS per mailbox is 0.18. No IOPS or disk capacity buffer are included. RAID 1/0 was the best fit for capacity and I/O with this configuration. Memory The amount of database cache required per mailbox is 9 MB. The amount of memory required per server is 32 GB. Summary 4 vcpus 32 GB RAM 4 x 1.6 TB database LUNs 4 x 100 GB LOG LUNs 1 virtual network interface card Notes The backup and restore of Exchange, outside of a JetStress test, is not covered in this solution architecture. EMC has a proven and documented backup and restore solution using the Replication Manager. HUB/CAS Processor We used a 1:1 ratio for Mailbox cores to combine Hub Transport and Client Access cores. We used 8 Mailbox cores with 8 Hub Transport and Client Access server cores. Storage Memory The Client Access role does not consume much storage space, and does not require a precise amount of IOPS or capacity. The Hub Transport role does have this requirement, based on the message volume per day to determine the IOPS and capacity required. We used 8 GB of memory for every processor in the system. Summary 4 vcpus 32 GB RAM 2 virtual network interface cards Notes Hardware or software load balancing was not used at the CAS tier in the solution testing. Although a real Exchange solution would include this, it is outside the scope of this solution testing. AD/GC Summary 2 domain controllers for 5,000 mailboxes per Microsoft Role Calculator, each utilizing 4 vcpus 100 GB LUNs 8 GB RAM 2 vcpus 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 17
Microsoft SharePoint Search SharePoint search architecture is made up of the crawler, index server, query server, and user interface and query object model. We used central administration to create a new SharePoint search service application. We set up content crawl rules, indexes, and content databases. We used WSS_UsageApplication Service Application to manage web analytics, such as usage, search query usage, and rating usage. In our solution, we deployed the query server on the WFE layer and the crawl server on the application layer to optimize search performance. When a user sends a search request to the SharePoint search site, the search request is sent by the load balancer to the WFE layer, where the query server is located. The query server thus processes the search query on the same layer, which reduces latency. The crawl server retrieves information from the content databases and indexes it. The crawl server then sends the index to the WFE server, where the query is processed. Figure 2. Optimized SharePoint search performance 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 18
Databases Disk throughput requirements for content databases can vary significantly between implementations. Microsoft recommends matching your expected workload to one of their tested solutions. For more information, refer to Performance and Capacity Test Results and Recommendations (SharePoint Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2010) at technet.microsoft.com. Table 11. Content database configurations Database Configuration Content We designed the solution according to industry standards, as a publishing portal with 1.2 TB of user content comprising six SharePoint site collections or document centers. This configuration was based on the Microsoft recommendation to use smaller LUN sizes to reduce latency: We populated each SharePoint site with 200 GB data on 300 GB LUNs, which addressed the anticipated content database, file growth caused by SQL rebuilds and SharePoint sprawl. We used 50 GB log files on 100 GB LUNs, which addressed the anticipated rapid growth in database log files caused by modifications and binary large object uploads. We placed the content databases on RAID 5 LUNs to handle anticipated lower I/O operations. We reduced the content index files by partitioning the query server index across 2 RAID 5 LUNs, which allowed for better redundancy. TempDB We placed the TempDB databases on RAID 10 LUNs, per Microsoft SQL Server 2008 best practices in order to achieve higher IOPS. Search We placed the search databases (property store and crawl store) on RAID 1/0 LUNs to handle anticipated higher I/O operations. We allocated each of the search databases a 200 GB LUN, constituting 10% of the total content, in order to allow for growth. Crawl We placed the crawl server index on RAID 5 LUNs, because they only hold incremental data and are therefore much smaller than in SharePoint 2007 implementations typically only a few gigabytes for a 1 TB content database. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 19
Intel Hyper-Threading technology Hyper-Threading Technology (HT) is Intel s proprietary simultaneous multithreading implementation, which improves the performance of computers performing multiple tasks in parallel. According to Microsoft s recommendations for Exchange, HT can challenge capacity planning and monitoring for what is a small gain in CPU overhead. We recommend disabling HT on the Exchange ESXi host and only enabling it as a temporary measure to increase CPU capacity until you obtain additional capacity. For more information, refer to HyperThreading Considerations for Exchange 2010 at technet.microsoft.com/. We used HT for the SharePoint portion of this solution. Deployments This solution allows you to accelerate deployment by making clones for web, application, SQL, Client Access, Hub Transport and Mailbox servers for Exchange and SharePoint across multiple locations, which eliminates the need to manually redeploy your environment. Scalability Managing Exchange and SharePoint growth is an inevitable challenge. For Exchange and SharePoint deployments for more than 5,000 users, you can easily add compute and storage resources to the Vblock System 200 used in this solution validation. Vblock Systems support upgrading Cisco UCS blades within a rack to help manage CPU and memory performance during growth cycles. VNX storage platform supports high-performing Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives and cost-effective nearline (NL) SAS drives that combine the convenience of an SAS interface with the economy of serial ATA (SATA) drives. Many customers combine SAS and NL SAS drives for optimum cost and performance, providing a dynamic storage strategy that suits many business and technology requirements. We overprovisioned the memory for this solution to demonstrate that the Vblock System 200 provides ample room for future growth. Your business requirements, including growth plans, will determine your implementation requirements. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 20
Solution validation This section describes how we validated the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. Applications We used the industry standards, EMC Unisphere, Microsoft Exchange Server JetStress 2010, Microsoft Exchange Load Generator 2010, and HP LoadRunner 11.0, to validate the physical and logical configurations of the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint. We validated this solution per Microsoft s guidelines for Exchange and SharePoint Heavy Users, Microsoft SharePoint guidelines for Acceptable User Response Times, and relevant industry standards. EMC Unisphere Unisphere provides a simple integrated tool for the VNX for provisioning and managing VNX storage arrays. HP LoadRunner 11.0 LoadRunner is an automated performance and test automation product from Hewlett-Packard for examining system behavior and performance under load by emulating thousands of concurrent users to apply production workloads to your environment. Microsoft Exchange Server JetStress 2010 JetStress works with the Exchange database engine to simulate the Exchange database and log disk I/O load. JetStress uses the Exchange Storage Engine to validate that your storage array meets the IOPS requirement for Exchange. To ensure you have the correct Exchange Storage Engine, verify that it is compatible with the version of JetStress you have, and only use it to validate the actual server you intend to use for your Exchange deployment. Note: Run JetStress to validate your IOPS requirements before installing Exchange. Microsoft Exchange Load Generator 2010 LoadGen is a simulation tool used to measure the impact of MAPI, OWA, IMAP, POP, and SMTP clients on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 servers. LoadGen tests the client-facing components of the Exchange solution and tests the compute, storage, and network components of the Exchange infrastructure. LoadGen creates users, groups, Organizational Units, Exchange databases, and mailboxes, and executes workload testing against the Exchange Hub Transport server, Client Access server, and Mailbox server roles. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 21
Perform all LoadGen validation testing using an Exchange infrastructure in a non-production environment. Test environment design We configured and validated Exchange and SharePoint separately before validating them in a mixed application environment. We validated both components and the integrated solution by using industrystandard Microsoft Exchange Server JetStress 2010, Microsoft Exchange Load Generator 2010, and HP LoadRunner 11.0. Microsoft Exchange JetStress We used JetStress to simulate normal workloads and measure the I/O load from these workloads to ensure we had properly sized our Exchange storage to meet performance and capacity requirements per Microsoft requirements for Heavy Users. We performed primary storage performance testing using a maximum Exchange I/O load to measure storage response times under load. LoadGen We used LoadGen to individually validate each component of the solution under simulated Microsoft Heavy User workload, using the current compatible Outlook 2007 cached mode. LoadGen created Exchange users, groups, organizational units, databases, and mailboxes, and runs workload testing against the Exchange Hub Transport, Client Access, and Mailbox servers, as well as the network and storage components. We validated the Exchange deployment per Microsoft recommendations for 5,000-users: Table 12. Exchange test configuration Item Configuration Exchange simulated mailboxes 5,000 Mailbox size (GB) 2 Mailboxes per server 2,500 Mailboxes per database 625 Databases per host 4 ESXi hosts 2 VMs per ESXi host 3 Database LUN size (TB) 1.6 Log LUN size (GB) 100 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 22
Item Configuration Message sent/mailbox/test (MAPI profile) 50 Messages received/mailbox/test (MAPI profile) 100 Concurrency (%) 100 Duration (hours) 24 To simulate heavy operations at peak load, we ran the test with a 100% concurrency test with an Outlook 2007 cached mode Heavy User profile. The objective was to validate the Exchange environment under heavy operating conditions at peak load. ESXi host and VM performance were measured against Microsoft s recommended performance targets. All Exchange VMs operated under normal conditions. We used the following system monitors on the mailbox role to measure solution response times. We discarded the results from the first and last hours and averaged the remaining results. Message delivery rate IOPS/mailbox Megacycles/mailbox Processor(total)/percent processor time at peak load Logical read and write disk latency Microsoft SharePoint We used LoadRunner with three load generators to validate the SharePoint portion of this solution, using standard Microsoft user profiles comprising a mix of three user operations: browse, search, and modify. We used Network Load Balancer to balance the incoming user load across the WFEs. During validation, we recorded application response times and used onboard systems management tools to monitor the entire infrastructure. Data population We used one load agent host on each WFE to optimize efficiency and loaded data in parallel until reaching our target of 1 TB = 4.3 million documents. We collected this data across six unique content databases. Each document had a unique name and metadata. User profiles We used standard Microsoft user profiles comprising a mix of three user operations: browse, search, and modify. Browse The LR script simulates a user browsing a site until reaching an end document listing that contains no subpages. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 23
Search The LR script simulates a user running a stored procedure in the SQL database to find a unique social security number, and then it performs a Web request to search for it. Modify The LR script simulates a user retrieving a document by extracting the document ID from the database before each test run. It then modifies the metadata for that document before saving it back in modified form. We used an 80/10/10 ratio of browse/search/modify operations to simulate a typical organization with browsing and light collaboration. Maximum User Capacity All simulated test users adhered to a Microsoft Heavy User Profile, which specifies 60 requests per hour (RPH). We applied a think time of 0% to all tests, which eliminated typical user decision-making time when browsing, searching, or modifying content in the SharePoint server. We configured each user request to complete from start to finish without a pause, generating a continuous system workload. We calculated the maximum user capacity by using the following formula: 3600 seconds per hour / RPH / Concurrency % x Requests per Second (RPS) RPH = 60 (Microsoft Heavy User Profile) Concurrency = 1% (generally accepted standard) Request per second is based on the test results for each of the three profiles. Mixed workload We tested Exchange and SharePoint concurrently, based on the design we used to test the applications separately, to ensure there was no significant performance degradation or resource constraint while running these workloads on the same Vblock System 200. The Active Directory server is the only shared resource in this solution. All other VMs are optimized exclusively to meet the needs of their respective applications. We tested Exchange for 24 hours using LoadGen. We tested SharePoint for 8 hours and collected performance results for 2 hours while the applications were operating simultaneously, using: - EMC Unisphere to monitor the VNX storage - vcenter to monitor the ESXi clusters 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 24
Test results We obtained the following results from validating this solution: Item Target Single workload Mixed workload Message delivery rate > 0.34 0.34 0.34 IOPs/mailbox < 0.18 0.172 0.17 Megacycles/mailbox < 3 0.09 0.10 MSExchangeIS mailbox(total)/messages sent/sec/mailbox > 0.002083 0.06 0.06 Exchange MSExchangeIS mailbox(total)/messages received/sec/mailbox MSExchangeIS Client (*)/RPC average latency (milliseconds) > 0.008333 0.25 0.25 < 10 2.25 8.56 Average memory utilization (%) < 60 12 15 Processor(total)/% processor time at peak load < 75 19.96 20.87 Logical disk read latency (milliseconds) < 20 2.44 3.14 Logical disk write latency (milliseconds) < 20 18.12 18.99 Tests passed per second > 40 43 43 Transaction response time per operation (seconds) Browse: < 3 0.373 0.365 Search: < 3 0.537 0.52 Modify: < 5 0.145 0.145 Average CPU utilization (%) WFE: < 60 25 23 APP: < 60 10 10 SharePoint DB: < 60 15 15 Average memory utilization (%) WFE: < 60 14 12 APP: < 60 8 8 DB: < 60 12 12 Average and maximum IOPS Content DB: > 200 212 209 WFE: > 120 124 126 Property Store: > 40 49 46 Crawl Store: > 46 52 52 Temp DB: > 98 112 108 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 25
Analysis Our validation of the Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint demonstrated that the solution: Exceeded all performance targets for 5,000 concurrent Exchange and SharePoint users, with 100% successful results Validated standalone and mixed application workloads with little performance change Demonstrated that compute, storage, and network components provide ample room for deployments for additional users In testing, all VMs met or exceeded established performance targets. WFEs are the most resourceintensive virtual compute resource in this solution, and we used two WFEs with Network Load Balancer to optimize performance. Test findings indicate WFEs and SQL have the appropriate processor and memory resources allocated to them. Application, Mailbox, Client Access, and Hub Transport servers are underutilized. For this scale solution, you can reduce the number of vcpus allocated to them, which will leave more cores unused and allow a higher consolidation ratio. With preconfigured templates, you can quickly scale up by adding additional VMs. Average IOPS for the content database, WFE, Property Store, Crawl Store and Temp database were all within the expected ranges. Exchange and SharePoint use isolated LUNs by solution design. As a result, little change was seen between standalone and mixed application workload validation. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 26
Conclusion This solution architecture describes, validates, and provides guidelines for providing Exchange and SharePoint resources to 5,000 users each, with excellent performance and room to spare. By isolating application resources for each application, it was possible to run both in a mixed application environment with virtually no degradation in performance or scalability. High-performing Microsoft Business Solutions deployments like Exchange and SharePoint are no longer Enterprise luxuries that mid-sized organizations can do without, and Vblock System 200 provides a mid-level entry point for your IT transformation that easily supports these applications with room to spare. Optimized for virtualization and engineered for ease of growth and expansion, VCE simplifies IT operations by eliminating the need for your team to perform logical build, configuration, cabling, and integration tasks usually associated with single tenant architectures. Vblock Systems present a converged architecture and management paradigm heretofore unseen in virtualized IT infrastructures. Our unique approach to intelligent automation provides dynamic awareness of all system resources, correlates events, and eliminates the need for traditional, manually intensive system resource integration. By combining these capabilities with this validated solution and VCE engineered, pre-configured, and pre-validated Vblock Systems, you can provide Exchange and SharePoint in an affordable IT infrastructure with simple and affordable management strategies that transcend traditional operational silos. The Vblock Solution for Exchange and SharePoint provides faster return on investment and the performance and availability you need at lower cost and lower business risk. Next Steps To learn more about this and other solutions, contact a VCE representative or visit www.vce.com. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 27
References For more information, refer to the following Microsoft resources at technet.microsoft.com. Best Practices for SharePoint Server 2010 Hardware and Software Requirements for SQL 2008 R2 Performance and Scalability Counters and Thresholds SharePoint 2010 Database Mirroring SharePoint Server 2010 Adoption Best Practices White Paper SharePoint Server 2010 Planning and Architecture SQL Database Mirroring SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online Troubleshooting SharePoint Server 2010 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 28
ABOUT VCE VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock Systems, delivers the industry's only fully integrated and fully virtualized cloud infrastructure system. VCE solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating, and managing IT infrastructure. For more information, go to www.vce.com.! Copyright 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.