Re: Exchange 2007 and Hyper-V question
- From: "Mark Arnold [MVP]" <mark@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:36:55 -0400
On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 21:45:01 -0700, Scott Lowe
<ScottLowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
All,
I'm finalizing a design for a client that wants a 5,000 user Exchange 2007
system to replace a legacy mail system. I've run through the whole process
and have developed what appears to be a reasonable design that will provide
them with enough disk space for now and good disk performance - 48 SAS 10K
RPM disks for the database and a number of additional disks for logs.
However, I'm a bit over their budget and am looking for areas where I might
be more conservative. My design does call for multiple mail servers and hub
transport and CAS servers...
However, a thought struck me tonight and I wanted to run it by some people.
I understand that E2K7 is supported in Hyper-V, with the exception of the UM
role. They aren't going to use UM quite yet but they have plans to do so in
the relatively near future, so it's also built into the solution.
Would THIS work: Buy a Dell PowerEdge R900 with four 6 core processors and
64 GB RAM (or more). Install Hyper-V on the server as well as the UM role.
I;m not saying I would install the UM role in a VM... I'd install it
alongside Hyper-V and install all of the other components in their own VMs.
First, I realize that this would be a single point of failure, but the
possibility got me thinking. If the server was tuned right and enough
processor time reserved for the host, is there any reason that this wouldn't
be a viable solution?
We're not building true redundancy into the system as it is... we have two
mailbox servers in the plan, but not clustered, so going to this
single-server solution would not impact availaility with the exception that a
server crash would be a tad more problematic.
Thoughts on the Hyper-V/UM question?
Scott
No, don't co-host Hyper-V and the UM role. The whole point of the UM
role not being virtualized is that it's traffic profile hasn't been
measured in a state of co-existence with other application services.
You might as well just stick it in a VM; you'd be in the same state of
supportability.
You would need to take a look at your entire environment. You talk
about multiple mailbox, CAS and HT boxes. If you managed to get three?
boxes, each with say 30GB of memory and as many cores as you can
afford; not less than eight.
You would then be able to use three mailbox servers (one on each) as
children and five stores in each (let's you buy Exchange Standard
edition) at around 300 per store, give or take. Make cluster out of
the parents because you don't need to cluster them if you don't have
sufficient budget. You can always have the customer add to the
environment later. Spread the HT/CAS across the Parents.
Of course, bottom line here is that you ignore the budget completely
and construct your architecture in bricks that translate into options
going up in terms of resiliency. Each solution is a coherent design
with progressively greater levels of resiliency/redundancy. If you
can't make the most basic house from the bricks with the available
cash then frankly you tell the customer that they can't have any
resiliency and your solution is one mailbox server, one HT/CAS and
(perhaps) one Edge. Period. Done. Finish.
Naturally you have a greater insight to the business and budget but if
the cash isn't there you do yourself a dis-service if you try and
squeeze in more than is financially competent.
.
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