Of course it's always best, but I have to wonder what the benefit of running
smaller exchange servers in a virtual environment would be? Is that to deal
with shrinking datacenter floor space? I was thinking this might be
interesting in an environment where I had lots of branch office deployments.
Might be easier to deploy a "solution in a box" to those sites. Faster
recovery scenarios come to mind as well.
I have to say, I'm with Deji on this. If you want to deploy a mailbox
server, I don't see a problem with it up front as long as you treat it like
clustering: respect the tool and it's idiosynchratic behavior patterns.
Otherwise, how many people are really deploying >2500 user density (and have
heavy user populations) for Exchange? Not nearly as many as those deploying
less if the majority of companies out there are ~99 employees in the first
place. [1]
[1] just some stat I picked up in a magazine. Whatever. My point is that
the number of companies that have a) the number of employees to do large
density deployments and b) the networks to support it are fewer than those
that would have 10 users here and 50 users there spread out across the
globe. By the numbers, you're more likely to deploy to a smaller user
population than a larger one and I like the idea of virtualization for these
environments. It cuts down on some of the datacenter clutter although it
does increase my risks of failure; it may cancel out if I can better watch a
single machine's environmentals vs. a room full of them.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:21:24 -0500
I could see virtualizing low-end Exchange systems such as FEs and
Bridgehead servers as stated earlier. The higher end databases are the
ones that I have a problem with at this point in time, but I'm sure that
the technology will evolve to where this becomes possible for higher end
databases.
It would be best in all cases to test a virtualized and non-virtualized
option with production levels before proceding in a production environment.
Chuck Gafford
Systems Architect
Unisys
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 09:25:09 -0800
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>>Perhaps some day I'll have time to run JetStress on an clustered
Exchange
server on ESX attached to a SAN to see how it performs.
Which is a good thing to do before concluding that virtualizing exchange is
a
"no-no". I'm jetstressing, and doing the old, trusted loadsim (albeit
without
access to a SAN) and I can't see a diff in performance. It's easy to based
our conclusions on prior (bad) experiences and start telling people not to
virtualize exc. But, until we can see any conclusive study of a performance
lag, such advice is technically unsound and indefensible. Virtualization
has
evolved.
Sincerely,
Dèjì Akómöláfé, MCSE+M MCSA+M MCT
Microsoft MVP - Directory Services
www.readymaids.com - we know IT
www.akomolafe.com
Do you now realize that Today is the Tomorrow you were worried about
Yesterday? -anon
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Presley, Steven
Sent: Sun 10/30/2005 8:51 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
We are quite a large ESX shop (number of guest OS's are in the 1000's I
believe) and while I fought it for quite some time we have ended up
using ESX for our 5 front-end servers and our 3 bridgehead servers.
Most ESX guest OS's don't require much tweaking, but Exchange certainly
does (at least the bridgehead servers). Once we got the settings right
for the bridgehead servers they fly like any other piece of hardware
(the FE's didn't really require much tweaking). We have roughly 4,000
POP3\IMAP users, an average of 6k-7k of unique logons into OWA weekly,
and roughly 800,000 messages going through the bridgehead servers daily.
Virtualization of Exchange does indeed work for these types of servers
when properly configured. Where I have seen ESX (and its little sister
GSX) fail is hosting for servers that run highly active databases. ESX
works great for dedicated SMTP\POP3\IMAP\HTTP servers, but I would never
put a production Exchange mail store server on ESX for performance
reasons alone. I have not specifically tested it however, but its more
of based on past experience (perhaps as virtualization advances this
will be a reality some day). Perhaps some day I'll have time to run
JetStress on an clustered Exchange server on ESX attached to a SAN to
see how it performs.
For anyone who might ask why such a large virtualization footprint in
our datacenters. The reason is simple. We have literally ran out of
space and power in our datacenters. Even as we build new datacenters
they fill up just as fast as we open them. While I don't have the
numbers to give (not my field of focus here) I seem to remember seeing a
report that virtualizing certain portions of our datacenter, where
possible, has so far saved millions in hardware costs.
It certainly is not for everything, but virtualization technology is
definitely improving to where it is definitely an option. For Exchange
and Active Directory, if ESX (or Virtual Server) is properly configured
it can work quite well.
Best regards,
Steven
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Desmond
> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 6:49 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>
> I disagree. Exchange on ESX can work out quite well in
> certain situations...
>
> Thanks,
> Brian Desmond
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> c - 312.731.3132
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> Medeiros, Jose
> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 5:29 PM
> To: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>
> I could not have worded that better.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jose Medeiros
> ADP | National Account Services
> ProBusiness Division | Information Services
> 925.737.7967 | 408-449-6621 CELL
> --------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Friday, October 28, 2005 6:53 AM
> To: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>
>
> I couldn't agree more with Tony -- Exchange is a resource hog
> and should not
> be done on VMWare except for testing purposes. Just because
> you can doesn't
> mean you should....
>
> Chuck Gafford
> Systems Architect
> Unisys
> Mobile: (405) 819-6766
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Medeiros, Jose <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [email protected]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: # Jose Medeiros-IBM (E-mail) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 15:39:35 -0700
> Subject: [ActiveDir] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>
>
> Hi Tony,
>
> I have to respond to this. Many IT managers think you can
> just virtualize
> any
> application because of all the marketing hype. Be very careful, I/O is
> critical
> to Exchange and any other database application which may make
> running it on
> VMWARE or VIRTUAL SERVER unpractical not to mention Exchange
> is also very
> resource intensive and will take whatever it can. Now I am
> sure if you have
> a
> very small environment that it may make sense, but with
> Microsoft Small
> Business
> server why would you want to?
>
> Any body else car e to throw in there two cents?
>
> Sincerely,
> Jose Medeiros
> ADP | National Account Services
> ProBusiness Division | Information Services
> 925.737.7967 | 408-449-6621 CELL
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> ------------------------------------
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Behalf Of Tony Murray
> Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 2:49 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [ActiveDir] [OT] Exchange now supported on virtual hardware
>
>
> Microsoft has introduced support for Exchange 2003 SP2 and
> later on Virtual
> Server 2005 R2. This article has just been released.
>
> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320220
>
> I guess this means we can now run a DC and Exchange on the
> same physical
> hardware without any of the previous limitations.
>
> Tony
>
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