Bonnie,
You could have a look at the Web Service object, it contains counters to
measure users/traffic on the web server. There also appears to be a
MSExchangeWEB object which will provide counters for the OWA part to give
you an idea of load. Because you share the OWA with exchange atm it will be
difficult to separate the processor load / mem usage out. Also if this is
going in the DMZ, it will effect the firewall as all traffic will pass
through it from either side of the LAN.
Let me know how you get on
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 12 September 2001 17:13
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: RE: OWA Server
Richard:
Thanks for the feedback. Our old Exchange box is <cringe-this was before my
time here> an Alpha with 512MB ram-I'm not sure what the processor speed is,
but it is a DEC-221164. Obviously, it must go and become something else
(like replacing our syslog server!) since it can't run E2k. It has been
bearing the burden with 5.5, but IS coming close to being overloaded. I've
been watching it closely as we've added users to the system this last
year-processor queue is an average of 1-3, with spikes to 10 during the
daytime hours, eventually it starts some paging to disk (but very little)
and the processor can jump from 30-90% at times. We are not adding a large
number of users to the system over the next few months.
As for the gigabit, we did just get gigabit core switches in, but I'll have
to check with our Network Admin about the DMZ-you are probably right about
it not being there yet as we have very few DMZ servers.
I think we do have a decent percentage of OWA users. There are some teacher
assistants, for example, who don't necessarily have their own pcs (they must
share with classroom teacher). They often log on via OWA to check their
mail briefly without logging off the teacher. From the number of
instruction packets we've sent out, I would GUESS there are probably 200-400
people who regularly use OWA either during the work day or while at home,
but that wouldn't be concurrent accesses. It is always much higher in the
summertime and during break periods. Is there a specific counter I can log
to watch OWA connections that will tell me how many users are on the system
(vs. how many files are open via OWA)?
Thanks,
Bonnie M.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard McMahon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 7:41 AM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: RE: OWA Server
Bonnie,
What spec is the old exchange box? What is your average OWA usage, I take
your 1600-1700 users mainly use Outlook. If it is only to handle a small
number of concurrent users then the PII with more ram (256MB ish) would be
more than fine. The only reason for the RAID would be for protection as
performance should be mostly related to RAM/Processor and your internet
pipe. As for a gigbit NIC, I cannot see how this would increase the
performance unless your DMZ port on the firewall is also gigabit. Also you
dont really need a lot of disk space for OWA so larger drives would not
probably be a huge benefit either.
Hope this is helpful, just my 2c worth ;)
Richard
-----Original Message-----
From: Miller Bonnie L. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: 12 September 2001 15:23
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: OWA Server
I'm starting to investigate hardware for our eventual (maybe by winter
break?) migration to Exchange 2000 from 5.5. Our current Exchange server is
running SSL OWA on the same server as Exchange. When we move to 2000, we
are looking at having a Server for Exchange, and a separate Win2k IIS5
server in the DMZ that runs OWA.
We already have an idea of what we'll be purchasing for the Exchange server,
but I'm looking for recommendations to spec out the server that will run
OWA. We have almost 1800 exchange accounts, probably 1600-1700 of which are
in use and might be accessed via OWA. Single server, single site (although
we'd have 2 up during the migration, we will end up with one again). This
IIS server would only run OWA and not other major services such as www/ftp
sites, dns, etc.
We have a few older "generic" server boxes that are currently being taken
out of service and reassigned as we consolidate domains, and I'm wondering
if one of these would serve this purpose. One is a PII 266 w/96 ram,
Adaptec Ultra2 4GB and 9GB hds, 100MB Intel server NIC. We would probably
consider buying a hardware raid controller, more memory, some larger hard
drives, and possibly a gigabit NIC, if you think the processor could handle
the requests and it would cost sufficiently less. If this wouldn't work,
our current contracted vendor is Dell, so we would be looking at something
from them.
Thanks for your input, comments, corrections, flames ;)-I'll gladly provide
more info as needed. I really don't have any idea at this point as I'm
diving headfirst into Exchange while still in the midst of our Win2k
migration (mostly completed at the server level). I've done some
preliminary white-paper reading, but have not yet been to any E2k training.
(Believe me, I plan on it before we migrate though!)
-Bonnie M.
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
List Charter and FAQ at:
http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
