This calculator is an essential part of the Exchange admin’s toolkit and I highly recommend staying up to date with new releases.

The update includes these improvements and new features:

• Added the ability to define a custom number of databases that you would like to implement in the solution.
• Added support for 2-node site resilient Database Availability Groups.
• Added 1 and 6 processor cores as selectable options.
• Improved breakdown of the activation scenarios in a site resilient solution.
• Improved breakout of the role requirements section.
• The Storage Design tab now indicates that when you select a custom RAID configuration that the calculator ignores RAID-5 and RAID-6 for 5.xK and 7.2K spindles due to performance concerns.
• Updated processor utilization results to show the processor utilization even if it is above the recommended threshold.
• Made conditional formatting improvements throughout the calculator to warn you when you have a configuration that will not work.
• Improved various cell comments.

Find out more on their blog post here or download the updated calculator here.

Related posts:

• Improved Database Integrity Checking in Exchange Server 2010 SP1
• Changing Default Mailbox Database Path in Exchange Server 2010
• Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers
• SSL Certificate Trust Errors for New Thawte Certificates
• Exchange Server 2010 and the Benefits of Commercial SSL Certificates

This article Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Requirements Calculator Updated is © 2010 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

Link: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Storage Considerations: DAS or SAN

Related posts:

• Browsing Mailbox Databases in Exchange 2007 and 2010
• How to Modify Recipient Scope in the Exchange Management Shell
• Configuring the Exchange Server 2007 Product Key
• Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers
• Are you getting enough IOPS in your diet?

This article Video: Exchange Server 2007 storage considerations by EMC is © 2008 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

• Project Coconut: Introduction
• Project Coconut: Part 1 – Getting the environment up to scratch
• Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers
• Project Coconut: Part 3 – Deploying the first Exchange Server 2007 server
• Project Coconut: Part 4 – Configuring Standby Continuous Replication
• Project Coconut: Part 5 – Its mailbox migration time!
• Project Coconut: Part 6 – Finishing the job

Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 Servers

In this post in the Project Coconut series I’ll describe the process that was undertaken for sizing the hardware that will run the Exchange Server 2007 servers.

Microsoft provides extensive guidance on how to calculate your hardware requirements for Exchange Server 2007. If you are embarking on an Exchange Server 2007 project you should familiarise yourself with these resources.

• Planning processor configurations
• Planning memory configurations
• Planning storage configurations
• Mailbox Server role storage calculator

I certainly recommend you read the abovementioned resources, however here are some guidelines that I follow which outlining the bare minimum, recommended, and maximum configurations.

Note that CPU cores refer to modern, server class CPU cores (ie, not your 3 year old Pentium 4 desktop processor). Maximum figures represent the point at which you would consider adding more servers to continue scaling upwards. Although the maximum memory recommendations are below what 64-bit hardware and 64-bit Windows Server are capable of running, they represent the level at which adding more memory is not cost effective due to diminishing returns.

Client Access Server

Hub Transport Server

Mailbox Server

As there are no Unified Messaging or Edge Transport servers involved in this project I have excluded them from this post.

Multi-Role Server

Although the above guidelines are fairly straight-forward, sizing a multi-role Exchange Server 2007 server is a slightly different story. The “Typical” installation of Exchange Server 2007 installs the Client Access, Hub Transport, and Mailbox server roles.

Mailbox Server Memory Recommendations

In the tables above I mention “per-mailbox calculations” for servers that will hold the Mailbox Server role. What this means is that you plan for base amount of memory plus an amount of memory for each mailbox that will be hosted on the server.

The base amounts of memory are calculated using the Microsoft guidance here. Microsoft provides memory sizing guidance right up to the maximum (for Enterprise Edition) of 50 storage groups, but I will reproduce only the first few rows here.

Note that SP1 has some memory utilisation improvements as you scale to more storage groups compared to RTM.

In the case of Project Coconut we are planning for five storage groups, and using Exchange Server 2007 SP1, so the base memory amount is 4Gb.

To apply the per-mailbox memory sizing you use the following Microsoft guidance. Microsoft defines the different user types here.

For Project Coconut we have profiled the users as “Average”, and there are approximately 1000 of them. We also want to provide scalability up to around 1250 users. So, 1300 x 3.5Mb = 4550, divided by 1024 = 4.4Gb.

Base memory for a multi-roled server of 4Gb plus 4.4Gb for up to 1300 mailbox users and rounding it up to an even number brings us to a memory sizing of 9Gb. Both the production and standby servers will be provisioned with this amount of memory.

Storage Recommendations

The recommendations for most server roles are simple – separate the operating system from the application files, and on Hub Transport servers separate the Transport Queue from any other volumes if possible (this is more important in very large environments than it is in smaller environments).

For mailbox servers there is a lot more to consider, so have a read of my post on designing mailbox server storage.

In the next part of Project Coconut I’ll describe the process for introducing the first Exchange Server 2007 server into an existing organisation.

Related posts:

• Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Requirements Calculator Updated
• Video: Exchange Server 2007 storage considerations by EMC
• Are you getting enough IOPS in your diet?
• Exchange Server 2010 and the Benefits of Commercial SSL Certificates
• COM Class Factory Error 8007007E Moving Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007

This article Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers is © 2008 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com

Storage guys

What are IOPS?

IOPS stands for Input/Output operations Per Second, and is basically a measure of how fast a disk (or disk array) can read and write data to and from a hard disk.

IOPS are somewhat important to your Exchange Server 2007 design because you want to ensure you provide Exchange with an adequate storage configuration to handle the transactional I/O load it will produce in daily operations.

Gross generalisation #1 – in smaller environments you will often find that simply providing enough storage capacity of the usual recommended RAID types will achieve your IOPS needs.

Gross generalisation #2 – in larger environments you will often find that simply providing enough IOPS of the usual recommended RAID types will achieve your storage capacity needs.

What type of RAID do you recommend?

Very simply:

• Transaction Logs – RAID1+0, RAID1, or RAID5 (in that order of preference)
• Databases – RAID5

Where do I get some IOPS then?

Microsoft (once again) has provided extensive guidance on how to plan your Exchange Server 2007 storage design.  Although there are considerations for several of the Exchange Server 2007 roles most often the only role you need to pay very close attention to is the Mailbox Server role.

Here is an example of calculating IOPS requirements for a simple 1000 mailbox environment.  Although in this example the server is multi-role, the Transport queue is on a separate LUN and therefore the Transaction Log and Database LUN IOPS can be calculated without taking it into consideration.

Your first stop should be the Exchange Server 2007 Storage Calculator.  This is an Excel spreadsheet developed by the Exchange Server Team at Microsoft to help customers calculate their storage requirements.

First enter some basic information, such as the version of Exchange you are deploying (in this case SP1), the number of mailbox servers, and whether any continuous replication is being deployed.

Next, enter the type of user profile that best represents the environment.  I have selected 1000 “average” users (10 sent/40 received per day), with a 250mb mailbox limit.

Switch to the “Storage Requirements” tab and you will be presented with the results of the IOPS calculations.

Now we see that the calculator is estimating 206 IOPS for databases, and 68 IOPS for transaction logs.  How can we design a disk layout to provide this?  Lets look at the types of disks we will be using here.

A 10K SCSI disk provides 100 IOPS/disk.  A 15K SCSI disk provides 120 IOPS/disk.  The customer in this example has 15K disks.

When used in a RAID configuration there is an IOPS penalty applied to the calculation as follows:

• RAID 0 – x1.0 penalty
• RAID1/1+0 – x0.8 penalty
• RAID5 – x0.57 penalty

Being budget conscious the customer wishes to go with RAID1 for transaction logs, and RAID5 for databases.  We are provided with two 15K SCSI 300Gb disks (do you still buy smaller than that?) for the transaction logs and four 15k SCSI 300Gb disks for the databases.

So given the above data, the IOPS that will be provided by the disks are as follows:

• Transaction logs – (2 x 120 IOPS) x 0.8 penalty = 192 IOPS.  This exceeds the requirement of  68 IOPS for transaction logs.
• Databases – (4 x 120 IOPS) x 0.57 penalty = 273 IOPS.  This exceeds the requirement of 206 IOPS for databases.

You can also see that if 1000 mailboxes is considered a “larger” environment then Gross Generalisation #2 is proven, in that providing adequate IOPS to the Exchange server has also met storage capacity requirements:

• Transaction logs – 2 x 300Gb RAID1 = 279Gb usable space.  This exceeds the requirement of 72Gb storage capacity for transaction logs.
• Databases – 4 x 300Gb RAID5 = 838Gb usable space.  This exceeds the requirement of 441Gb storage capacity for databases.

Resources:

• Planning Storage Configurations – Microsoft Technet
• Exchange Server 2007 Mailbox Server Storage Calculator
• RAID Disk Space Utilisation Calculator
• IOPS on Wikipedia

Related posts:

• Video: Exchange Server 2007 storage considerations by EMC
• Project Coconut: Part 2 – Sizing the Exchange Server 2007 servers
• Exchange Server 2010 and the Benefits of Commercial SSL Certificates
• COM Class Factory Error 8007007E Moving Mailboxes in Exchange Server 2007
• Public Folders Not Replicating Between Exchange 2007 and 2010

This article Are you getting enough IOPS in your diet? is © 2008 ExchangeServerPro.com

Get more Exchange Server tips at ExchangeServerPro.com