To set some very general guidelines: 1. 400 users with an average mailbox size of 500mb is 100% manageable and well within the limiting factors of running on one Exchange 2003 back-end server. The only reason to put this on multiple server installations is for high-availability, disaster recovery, or if you want to implement a Front-End, Back-End topology for specific security reasons. 400 users just isn't going to generate a huge load unless they all have 5GB mailboxes and are running OWA and Outlook at the same time. :-) 2. The main limiting factors here with Exchange 2003 is almost always going to start with disk I/O. That’s the case whether you talk virtualized or not. Exchange demands a certain amount of reads/writes per second, and straying from those guidelines will always result in performance issues. Use the sizing calculator or Exchange Perf whitepapers, or hit up an experienced consultant to size this right. And by sizing I mean spindle count. Did I mention disk I/O? Again, your small user base will make it very easy to have a well-performing Exchange 2003 server. 3. Given the fact that you definitely do NOT need multiple servers here, virtualization probably doesn't make sense. Can you just buy another server with DAS to handle your needs? Or is it cheaper to go the VM route? 4. Support from Microsoft is more forgiving on this than it used to be by A LOT. MS is RARELY turning away PSS cases because of virtualization anymore (unless it’s a bug). However if you do decide to virtualize, make sure you have some sort of plan to go V to P easily, as that is the only way you'll get support if it is a bug. 2003 is pretty old now though, and I'd be shocked if you uncovered a bug at this date.
The most obvious play here is one server, with multiple storage groups. We usually recommend customers keep their Exchange 2003 databases at 20G or so. That makes for much quicker recovery when needed. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Hutchings Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:55 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Nearly Full Exchange Server/Virtualization Help We don't really suffer from poor Outlook performance, there are odd occasions where opening Outlook can cause a short delay whilst the Inbox is "parsed" especially if the focus is on a large message. One of the areas that I am very green on is more servers vs. more databases/storage groups on one server. I take the point about spikes in activity, perhaps I need to do some logging over several days to try and determine the current activity. I should add as well that not all 400 users are active during the day and of course of the users with the most mail some are fairly heavy users of email, and some are light users who just like to horde. I'm ashamed to say as well that after all this time I've only just found/remembered the Mailbox Management function in Exchange so am running some reports as I type. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wells, James Arthur Sent: 27 May 2008 14:18 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Nearly Full Exchange Server/Virtualization Help First - from the size you're describing, and without limits-I'm assuming you have some slow Outlook performance on the client side? That will certainly be helped by spreading the load to more Exchange servers. Even in Outlook Cached Mode, Exchange 2003 has some limits on the resources it can commit to an environment like that. VMWare may also not be very well suited for this type of Exchange environment - VMWare does best with systems that maintain a nominal load - your Exchange systems on VMWare are going to have significant spikes in disk activity, and possibly CPU/RAM. Unless there are no other VMs on that ESX cluster, your performance is goibg to decline. I would use the Exchange 2003 sizing calculators and size your current environment plus growth for a few years. You also may do the same with Exchange 2007, as it's more suited for an environment with no limits, on the performance front. Take the cost numbers and give them to your management. It may be that with an environment your size, you won't have serious problems if you keep going down -----Original Message----- From: "Paul Hutchings" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Exchange Discussions" <[email protected]> Sent: 5/27/08 4:30 AM Subject: RE: Nearly Full Exchange Server/Virtualization Help Accepted and understood. My rationale is that virtualizing the box (feel free to disagree here!) should make maintenance and DR simpler as we do image level VM backups, plus with things like maintenance/hotfixes there is the ability to stop all the services, take a snapshot, and apply the fixes before continuing - I appreciate 100% that this is a not a substitute for a proper exchange aware backups and I'd still be taking these via exchange aware ntbackup. Where I would appreciate a little input is in how I could be smarter about doing things. If you assume VMware's high availability rules out the chances of hardware failure knocking all your VM's out of action, is there any benefit in having say 2 virtual Exchange servers and splitting the mailboxes over those? Is that benefit greater than sticking with a single server and having more than one Storage Group or Private Store? Similar question marks over limits for example, in principle I hate the concept, in practise how else do you stop people hording assuming you can't change their behaviour through education or by throwing money at an archiving package? I have a very good Exchange 2003 book that I shall be referencing, as well as the VMware white papers, but it's never quite the same as advice from people who've been there. Also just to confirm, for the next couple of years I don't see us moving off Exchange 2003, the CAL costs don't seem to make it viable for the benefit so we'll most likely skip and wait it out until 2010/100 or until 2003 no longer does what we need. Cheers, Paul -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Crowley Sent: 27 May 2008 06:22 To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: Nearly Full Exchange Server/Virtualization Help A 400-user Exchange server should probably be fine for virtualization, but be aware that virtualization does not do anything for you regarding disk performance, the typical Exchange performance bottleneck. SAN doesn't either by itself; the disks on the SAN still must support the required number of I/Os. However, we're talking about 400 users, not 40,000. Be aware of the support issues. Ed Crowley MCITP MCSE+I MCSE+M MCTS MVP "There are seldom good technological solutions to behavioral problems." -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Hutchings Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 3:04 AM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Nearly Full Exchange Server/Virtualization Help At the current rate of usage, I reckon I have around 3 months until our single Exchange 2003 SP2 Enterprise server is full. Adding more disk capacity isn't an option as there are no more drive bays, plus the box is due to be replaced in around six months so it's not viable to be throwing money at it now. We do have a 2 server ESX cluster sat on a Clariion AX4 FC SAN. Our userbase is diverse, people like to horde and never delete/archive, and I haven't helped us by not having any hard mailbox or message size limits. My rough plan for when the box was due for renewal was to virtualize anyway, and also to add a third box to the cluster. As I see it, one plan to deal with the imminent problem would be to buy some 15k spindles for the SAN and possibly a little more RAM for the ESX hosts and move Exchange onto it, job done, end of story. I'd also like to implement maximum message size limits both internally and externally, whatever you choose someone won't be happy, and my initial thoughts are that 25mb seems a figure where anything larger and you should probably be looking at an alternative means of sending. We have around 400 users and 190gb of mail (140/50 private/public store split) in a single Storage Group. Appreciate any feedback/thoughts/opinions etc. -- MIRA Ltd Watling Street, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV10 0TU, England. Registered in England and Wales No. 402570 VAT Registration GB 114 5409 96 The contents of this e-mail are confidential and are solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you receive this e-mail in error, please delete it and notify us either by e-mail, telephone or fax. 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