Maximizing Efficiency with Exchange 2010 on Dell …...Deploying Exchange 2010 on Dell Servers Page 2 Introduction IT organizations today are challenged with doing more with less

Maximizing Efficiency with Exchange 2010 on Dell Servers and Storage

A Dell Technical White Paper

Dell

Casey Birch

Exchange Solutions Product Manager

Deploying Exchange 2010 on Dell Servers

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THIS WHITE PAPER IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, AND MAY CONTAIN TYPOGRAPHICAL

ERRORS AND TECHNICAL INACCURACIES. THE CONTENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITHOUT EXPRESS OR

IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND.

© 2010 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this material in any manner whatsoever without

the express written permission of Dell Inc. is strictly forbidden. For more information, contact Dell.

Dell, the DELL logo, and the DELL badge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Microsoft, are either trademarks or

registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other

trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the

marks and names or their products. Dell Inc. disclaims any proprietary interest in trademarks and trade

names other than its own.

May 2010


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Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................ 2

Mailbox Resiliency and Database Availability Groups ............................................................ 2

Personal Archiving ...................................................................................................... 2

Reduced Disk IO ......................................................................................................... 3

Support for Very Large Mailboxes .................................................................................... 3

64-bit Architecture ..................................................................................................... 3

User Productivity Enhancements..................................................................................... 3

Exchange 2003 Configuration............................................................................................ 3

Exchange 2010 Configurations .......................................................................................... 5

Agile Consolidated Example .......................................................................................... 5

Simple Distributed Example .......................................................................................... 8

Comparative Analyses .................................................................................................... 9

Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 11


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Introduction IT organizations today are challenged with doing more with less. Energy costs have increasingly

become a factor in IT architecture and planning. We must not only power the servers and storage we

deploy, but also adequately cool them. For every dollar spent powering a server we are likely to spend

another dollar to cool it. While some organizations absorb power and cooling costs in their facilities

budget, IT is more often being asked to pay directly for those costs. In any case, the costs are real and

organizations would do well to consider how to run their IT infrastructure more efficiently. Another

challenge to doing more with less is a shrinking amount of available data center space. IT

administrators are being asked to squeeze more juice and capacity out of a smaller data center

footprint, rather than increasing data center space. The implementation of more space-efficient ways

to deliver processing power and storage space would significantly mitigate these issues. Exchange 2010

offers new features and capabilities that, when matched with Dell’s latest server and storage offerings

in optimized configurations, can provide significant efficiencies in both power and cooling costs well as

datacenter space, especially for those customers running on Exchange 2003 or older versions. Dell™

and Microsoft® offer these efficiencies while simultaneously providing features that enhance user

productivity, much larger mailboxes, and better availability.

In this paper we compare a typical Exchange 2003 configuration of 10,000 mailboxes on somewhat

legacy hardware with two examples of an Exchange 2010 configuration to show the potential

efficiencies attainable by migrating to Exchange 2010 on new server and storage hardware from Dell.

Before detailing the configurations, it will be useful to briefly highlight some of the new features in

Exchange 2010 that come into play or that otherwise provide cost benefits in these configurations. For

a more in-depth look at these capabilities, see

www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/overview.aspx.

Mailbox Resiliency and Database Availability Groups Exchange 2010 has new features which improve and stabilize high availability options for Exchange

2010 while bringing down cost and complexity. The Database Availability Group (DAG) is a group of

Exchange servers hosting the mailbox role which can be clustered together. Up to 16 servers can be

clustered together in a DAG. Unlike previous versions of Exchange however, the administrator does not

have to install Microsoft Cluster Services or use the MSCS console to administer the cluster. MSCS is

there, but is transparent to the administrator. Also unlike previous version, these servers cannot share

single sets of data or storage. For a database to be clustered on multiple servers, each server must

contain its own replica of the database. A mail database on a server in the DAG can be replicated to

any server in that DAG (up to 16 copies, or one per server). Replication is handled by Exchange via log

shipping. Using a DAG in Exchange 2010 means that both the server/application and storage/data

layers are protected and highly available. Clustering in Exchange 2003, however, is limited in that the

data or storage can be seen as a single point of failure.

Personal Archiving Exchange 2010 introduces native archive and compliance features which are aimed at allowing

administrators to eliminate PST files and implement basic compliance features such as e-discovery,

legal hold and data retention policies. This is accomplished via a combination of server-side rules and

a new archive mailbox which resides in the same database as a user’s primary mailbox. For a more

comprehensive archive and compliance solution see Dell’s Email Management Services (link).


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Reduced Disk IO Microsoft has reduced the average IOPS/user by 70% over Exchange 2007 and 90% over Exchange 2003.

This greatly reduces the need for expensive 10K and 15K RPM SAS and FC disks that were required in

previous versions of Exchange, opening the door to reducing storage costs by using cheaper but larger

nearline SAS (NL-SAS) and SATA drives. It also means that for the first time, most Exchange

deployments will be capacity-bound instead of performance-bound in the storage design.

Support for Very Large Mailboxes Changes to the database allow very large mailboxes (10GB +) to perform in 2010 like 500MB mailboxes

perform in 2003. Additionally, the further reductions in IOPS make using 1 and 2 TB SATA and NL-SAS

drives ideal for many Exchange deployments, allowing for much more disk space and lower costs. This

reduces the costs of large mailboxes significantly.

64-bit Architecture Like Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010 will only be available in 64-bit versions and therefore run on 64-bit

server architectures. This enables Exchange to break the 4GB RAM limitation in Exchange 2003 and

has the effect of partially enabling the reduction of disk IO mentioned above as well as multiplying the

potential scaling of users on a server. By taking advantage of RAM over 128GB and today’s multi-core

processors, servers can easily scale to 10,000 heavy users on a single system.

User Productivity Enhancements Microsoft has added a range of time-saving and productivity-enhancing features to Exchange. There

are enhancements to mobility, and to organizing and searching email, etc. Having a significantly larger

mailbox can also enhance user productivity by reducing the daily time consumed in managing email

quotas by moving mail around to various personal archive folder and searching for them later.

Exchange 2003 Configuration Let’s now look at a typical Exchange 2003 configuration as a comparison point to determine any cost

efficiencies in its Exchange 2010 equivalents. This configuration is for 10,000 heavy profile mailboxes

(1 IOP/user) at 250MB in size, each. Please also note that the server and storage hardware used in this

configuration may be relatively newer when compared with many environments running Exchange

2003; these more established environments can often be found on hardware installations around five

years old. Because of that, the differences in energy consumption can be significant for servers even a

generation or two older.

In our typical configuration, we have two front-end servers that provide web and mobility access.

There are six back-end servers in a/a/a/a/p/p cluster (4+2). That means that there are four active

servers running mailboxes and mail processing, and two standby servers that can take over the

databases of the active servers in case of a server or application failure but which are otherwise idle.

Each server has 2xdual-core processors and 4GB of RAM. The storage is a Dell/EMC CX3-40 with six

additional DAEs. A total of 88 HDD’s are used (10 for logs, 78 for databases), each a 15K RPM, 73GB

SCSI hard drive.

Another concern regarding legacy installations of Exchange are the costs to support and maintain the

hardware. Often hardware warranties are expired, support contracts expired and the older parts have

a higher rate of failure. Also, only having one ‘live’ copy of the data can be considered a single point

of failure in this high availability cluster.


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Table 1. Typical Exchange 2003 Hardware Configuration Specifications

Number of mailboxes 10,000

User IO profile 1 IOPs (heavy)

Avg. Mailbox Size Limit 250 MB

Mailbox HA 4+2 shared cluster

Front En Server HA Hardware based IP load balancer

Figure 1. Exchange 2003 Hardware Configuration

Table 2. Exchange 2003 Configuration

Front End Server (x2) PE 2950; 2xdual core with 4GB RAM

Back End Server (x4 + 2) PE 2950; 2xdual core with 4GB RAM

Mailbox Storage CX-340 w/6 DAEs

# of disks 88

disk/RAID config 15K RPM, 73GB FC HDD's; RAID 10


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Table 3. Exchange 2003 Configuration Power and Space Requirements

Watts Rack Space in ‘u’

Total: 5594 39

Servers 2456 16

active mailbox server (x4) 348 2

passive mailbox server (x2) 266 2

front end server (x2) 266 2

Storage 3138 23

CX-340 (x1) 690 5

DAE (x6) 408 3

Exchange 2010 Configurations We will now look at two comparable Exchange 2010 configurations. We have chosen two configurations

to illustrate two different architectural approaches customers may have depending on their specific

requirements. One configuration is an example of what Dell calls the Agile Consolidated architecture

model, and the other an example of our Simple Distributed model. For more information on Dell’s

Exchange 2010 architecture models see the following links:

www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/security/exchange_2010.pdfwww.microsoft.com/c

asestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000005765

www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/Introduction_to_Exchange_2010_Sizing.pdf

The Exchange 2010 configurations were sized for capacity and performance based upon extensive

performance testing carried out by Dell’s Enterprise Product Group engineers. For other

configurations, or to customize one based on Dell and Microsoft best practices see:

www.dell.com/exchange

Also see the Dell Exchange 2010 Advisor Tool at:

advisors.dell.com/advisorweb/Advisor.aspx?advisor=b6372fc5-7556-4340-8328-b8a88e2e64b2-

001ebc;4&c=us&l=en&cs=g_5

Agile Consolidated Example The Dell Exchange 2010 Agile Consolidated approach seeks to fit Exchange into a data center where

virtualization and consolidation are key values. It assumes a shared infrastructure that enables

dynamic resource allocation and the administrative benefits of centralized resources. Many companies

are turning to blades, SAN and virtualization to gain better energy and space efficiencies. This

approach is embraced by the Agile Consolidated architecture model. In this example configuration we

are using Dell PE modular servers: the M1000e blade chassis and two m710 full height blades. Blades

provide significantly more compute density than traditional rack mounted servers. Each server is


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equipped with 2xquad-core processors and 144Gb of RAM. For storage, we are using two Dell

EqualLogic PS6500 iSCSI SAN’s, with 48x 10K SAS drives each in a RAID 50 configuration. These can be

connected with other EqualLogic iSCSI arrays into a group for centralized administration.

The Exchange server roles have been deployed in VM’s on two physical blade servers for full

redundancy. The four mailbox server VM’s are designed to hold up to 5,000 heavy users each and make

up a four node DAG. Each has 4vCPU’s and 48GB of RAM. Additionally, there are two VM’s each for the

Hub and CAS roles. All VM’s are 2vCPU with 12GB of RAM for the CAS role, and 24GB of RAM for the

Hub role.

This configuration supports 10,000 1GB mailboxes in a highly available configuration. Within the four-

server DAG, there are two copies of every database so that in the case of a server or data failure, or

maintenance of any kind, the mailbox VM’s on the other physical server can pick up the load. Each

database is replicated to both arrays, insuring full redundancy even in the very unlikely case of an

array failure. Under normal operation each physical server will carry 50% of the mailbox, CAS and Hub

loads, avoiding the waste of idle servers.

Table 4. Exchange 2010 AC Configuration


User IO profile .1 IOPs (heavy)


Mailbox HA 2 copy DAG/ 4 VM nodes

CAS HA hardware based IP load balancer

Hub HA automatic within Exchange 2010


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Figure 2. Exchange 2010 Configuration

Table 5. Exchange 2010 Agile Consolidated Configuration

Hyper-V server (x2) M710 (in M1000e blade enclosure); 2xquad-core with 144GB RAM

CAS VM (x2) 2vCPU with 12GB RAM

Hub VM (x2) 2vCPU with 24GB RAM

Mailbox VM (x4) 4vCPU with 48GB RAM

Mailbox Storage PS6500X (x2)

disk/RAID config 96x 10K 600GB SAS HDD's; RAID 50

Table 6. Exchange 2010 AC Configuration Power and Space Requirements

Watts Rack Space in ‘u’

Total: 2703 10.5

Servers 1307 2.5


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M1000e blade enclosure (x1) 185 (738 x .25)* 0**

Hyper-V server (M710) (x2) 561 1.25**

Storage 1396 8

PS6500X (x2) 698 4

* Here we are only calculating percentage of power based on number of slots the servers for Exchange are using, not the whole chassis. Assuming m1000e is at capacity with other blades and workloads (AD, etc.).

** Here we are only calculating server rack space used for Exchange servers, not the whole chassis.

Simple Distributed Example The Dell Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed architecture model is most useful for those customers

planning to implement an infrastructure dedicated to Exchange alone; it has the advantage of being

simple and less expensive, though it may increase the number of end points administrators must

manage. This model focuses a configuration comprising simple internal storage or DAS and a DAG with

three copies of every database for maximum availability at a low cost. Having three local copies of

each database that provides triple protection at both the server and storage layers, an effectively

RAID-less design is recommended to eliminate the overhead of RAID 10 or RAID 5. This is accomplished

by using RAID 0 where each physical disk in also a logical disk. Each disk holds one database and its

accompanying transaction logs.

For 10,000 heavy users (.1 IOPS each in Exchange 2010) at 2GB mailboxes each, this example

configuration is built on six PE R510’s. The R510 is a dual quad-core processor rack-mounted server

with 12x 3.5” HDD and 2x2.5” internal HDDs and eight DIMM slots. In this case we are using twelve 2TB

NL-SAS drives for Exchange data and two 300GB 10K SAS drives for the OS in a RAID 1 configuration.

Each server is installed with the Hub Transport, CAS and Mailbox server roles as a multi-role server.

This allows maximum use of each server’s resources given that each server will typically only run at

one-third of its possible capacity for mailboxes since each mailbox database will be replicated to three

of the six servers. This configuration also provides full protection even in the event of two

simultaneous server failures.

Table 7. Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed Configuration


User IO profile .1 IOPs (heavy)


Mailbox HA 3 copy DAG/ six nodes

CAS HA hardware based IP load balancer

Hub HA automatically in Exchange 2010


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Figure 3. Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed Hardware Configuration

Table 8. Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed Configuration

Mailbox/Hub/CAS server (x6)

PE R510, 2xQuad-Core with 48GB of RAM

Mailbox Storage internal drives

disk/RAID config 72x 7.2K RPM 2TB NL-SAS HDDs; RAID 0 (1 HDD/logical drive)

Table 9. Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed Configuration Power and Space Requirements

watts rack space in ‘u’

Total: 2542 12

Servers 2542 12

Mailbox/CAS/Hub server (x6) 424 2

Storage n/a n/a

Comparative Analyses A glance at the power and space requirements tables from all three solutions makes it immediately

apparent that the Exchange 2010 configurations are significantly more efficient than the Exchange 2003

configuration. Stopping there, however, would be missing half of the story given that the Exchange

2010 configurations offer considerably larger mailboxes, better availability and enhanced feature sets

for both users and administrators. The following able demonstrates some of these comparisons side by

side:


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Table 10. Configuration Comparison

Exchange 2003

Exchange 2010 Agile Consolidated

Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed

Mailbox Limit Sizes 250 MB 1024MB 2048 MB

Data Center Footprint

configuration in ‘u’ 39 10.5 12

mailboxes per ‘u’ 256.41 962.38 833.33

actual mailbox GB per ‘u’ 62.6 952.38 1666.67

Estimated Power Consumption*

Watts 5594 2702 2542

watts per mailbox 0.56 0.27 0.25

watts per actual mailbox GB 2.29 0.27 0.13

Estimated Annual Power and Cooling Costs**

annual power and cooling costs $1,119 $540 $508

annual power and cooling costs per mailbox $0.11 $0.05 $0.05

annual power and cooling costs per actual mailbox GB

$0.46 $0.05 $0.03

*Power consumption numbers are estimates based on the Dell Energy Smart Solution Advisor tool (ESSA) at www.dell.com/calc

**Figures are in $USD and are based on Department of Energy’s average commercial costs of power and cooling in the US at .0989 per KWh for Feb 2010 found at www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

In terms of the data center footprint, both Exchange 2010 configurations are less than a third the size

of the Exchange 2003 configuration, though they offer larger mailbox sizes by 4x for the Agile

Consolidated and 8x for the Simple Distributed configurations. We can measure and compare the

density of each solution in terms of mailboxes per u or actual mailbox size in GB per u. ‘Actual

mailbox size’ is defined as the amount of mailbox space available after factoring in RAID, number of

copies, database overhead, etc. In other words, even though there are three copies of each 2GB

mailbox in the Exchange 2010 Simple Distributed configuration, this calculation only takes into account

the single active copy. The differences between these numbers is more dramatic still if just the raw

data capacity is calculated. In terms of actual mailbox GB the Exchange 2010 configurations are 15

(Agile Consolidated)or 26 (Simple Distributed) times more efficient that the 2003 configuration.

Regarding power and cooling, the new configurations are each just over 100% more efficient than the

older configuration. This also means they incur less than half of the recurring annual power and

cooling costs. The 2003 configuration comes to about $.11 per mailbox and the Exchange 2010

configurations represent only about $.05 per mailbox. Again, the benefit of the Exchange 2010

configuration is even more dramatic when one takes into account the massive increase in mailbox

sizes. In terms of dollars per actual mailbox GB, the new configurations are 9 and 15 times cheaper.

http://www.dell.com/calc

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html


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Conclusion At the time of the release of Exchange 2010, most organizations continued to run on Exchange 2003,

and most on a legacy infrastructure. Microsoft offers considerable enhancements and features in

Exchange 2010 that, when combined with the latest server and storage offerings from Dell, gives

compelling reasons to finally migrate. IT can provide more capabilities and considerably larger

mailboxes to their end-users while simultaneously reducing their footprint in the data center and

power and cooling costs—all on a more robust architecture in terms of availability. Dell provides two

Exchange 2010 architecture models to achieve these benefits. The Simple Distributed model stresses

simplicity and low costs taking advantage of the new mailbox resiliency features in Exchange 2010.

The Agile Consolidated model adapts Exchange into a shared and virtualized infrastructure taking

advantage of the density and flexibility of Dell blade servers and SAN. The two configurations given in

this paper are examples of how these models can be implemented to meet your specific requirements.

Visit www.dell.com to learn more and Dell’s Exchange 2010 Advisor Tool to customize your own

Exchange 2010 architecture:

advisors.dell.com/advisorweb/Advisor.aspx?advisor=b6372fc5-7556-4340-8328-b8a88e2e64b2-

001ebc;4&c=us&l=en&cs=g_5

Documents

Maximizing Efficiency with Exchange 2010 on Dell …...Deploying Exchange 2010 on Dell Servers Page 2 Introduction IT organizations today are challenged with doing more with less