Re: Opinions on Exhange server hardware/design
- From: "Bharat Suneja [MVP]" <bharatsuneja@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:56:56 -0700
Responses inline.
--
Bharat Suneja
MVP - Exchange
www.zenprise.com
NEW blog location:
www.exchangepedia.com/blog
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"Ryan M" <unrespected@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:eax$S$c1GHA.772@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I'm at a company that wants to move over to exchange from a linux pop
server. We don't have anyone currently with Exchange experience. Do you
think it would be possible to get an installation going without hiring
someone on and learn as we go? I'm interested in learning but admittedly
have no server experience.
Microsoft.com/exchange has plenty of info for getting started.
Introduction to Exchange Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ex2003intro.mspx
Getting Started section on TechCenter
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/gettingstarted.mspx
Planning an Exchange Server 2003 Messaging System
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/messsyst.mspx
Books:
- MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-284): Implementing and
Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 - geared for the Exchange 2003 MCP
test but a good hands-on getting started book, imo.
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Distilled - Schott Schnoll
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 24seven - Jim McBee
You could also take the 2400 course at a Microsoft CPLS
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/2400cfinal.mspx
Setup a test lab - Virtual Server 2005 is free. You can setup a decent lab
on a single box with adequate RAM.
Currently we are around 60 people. Calendaring, email, and possibly a
Blackberry enterprise server are the goals. Most of the employees are on
windows machines, but there are a number of Mac users that the engineers
and
designers use.
Do you already have Blackberry devices deployed? If not, I would recommend
testing Windows Mobile devices as well. WM5.0 devices (check for MSFP/AKU
2.0 availability for devices) will let you use Exchange Server 2003
DirectPush, and may lower your costs compared to a Blackberry deployment
which requires a separate server.
I'm curious if we could get away with Server/exhange standard edition,
keeping in mind that we are expanding. Will we be able to pass the 100,
150
or even get up to the 200 user mark with this version.
Exchange Server 2003 Std. Edition doesn't limit you to number of users. The
Store (post-SP2) can grow to 75 Gigs. It'll depend on how large you want the
mailboxes to grow. Enterprise Edition gives you Stores with no hard-coded
limit on size, as well as multiple Storage Groups & Stores.
If we did get too big
later on, then move to enterprise?
You can always upgrade from Std Edition to Enterprise. It's a seamless/no
pain upgrade. You can create additional Storage Groups so Store can be
"split" into multiple mailbox Stores and distributed over different volumes.
This lets you maintain the disk I/O required for more users. A single server
can scale up to thousands of users provided you have correctly sized
storage, which is perhaps the most critical component of Exchange as far as
performance goes.
Could we get away with one domainAt least 2 GCs are recommended. Virtual Machines can be considered for DC/GC
controller?
roles, particularly additional ones for redundancy.
What would be a good practice as far as back ups or redundancy?The Disaster Recovery Ops Guide provides plenty of guidance. Recommended.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/disrecopgde.mspx
And then as far as hardware, what would be some suggestions that would
scale
well. I know we would be maxed at 4gigs of ram, I have recieved a
suggestion
for a motherboard that supports dual processors. I got another suggestion
for 1 hard drive to install all the server/exhange files on in raid 1
configuration. Then three 75 gig hard drives in raid 5 configuration for
the
echange mail boxes. Does this sound about right? Any suggestions for
hardware or better ideas?
To scale, you need to determine what component(s) is becoming a bottleneck.
With 2-4 processors and 4 Gigs (max allowed), Storage will be your moving
target.
To start with, you need another volume - preferably RAID1, to locate
transaction logs.
Further scale can be achieved by adding more spindles (drives). In many
cases this means multiple Storage Groups - databases from different Storage
Groups are located on separate volumes, increasing available disk I/O.
Performance and Scalability Guide for Exchange Server 2003
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_ScalGuide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true
.
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