Planning your Ex2007 infrastructure

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I have been busy this past month hence hardly any posts... hardly an excuse, but the truth..! Yesterday I visited a great bunch of Exchange minded people who are currently testing Ex2007 and starting to look at how to plan what hardware is required, what the disk subsystem should look like - and this is with no mailbox size limits..! ;)

I would like to thank Nino for allowing me to publish this... the following links are an essential read when any Exchange Administrator for any size company is thinking about Ex2007.

1. What's the big deal?

In the past, when releasing new versions of Exchange Server, the coverage of our official (and tested) recommendations as far as storage, processor and memory requirements for Exchange was not ideal. This in turn lead to many customers, consultants and PSS engineers alike guessing what those major components of Exchange servers should look like, and has at least partially, contributed to the number of performance issues that customers have experienced in years after the release.

Exchange 2007 Server is indeed very different in this regard. There has been a tremendous amount of work - both writing and testing - done to define what those components should look like, down to the server role level. We even have a tool published that can help customers calculate their storage requirements.

Please note:

The links in this Bulletin point to the documentation that is current as of now (January 2007). The information that has been published to the Exchange Team Blog is being plugged in into the official Exchange 2007 documentation. Some of it is already there, some of it will make it there over next several months. Please make sure to check the official Exchange 2007 documentation too for most updated information on this subject.

2. Exchange 2007 Processor and Memory Recommendations

The most updated Exchange 2007 Processor and Memory Recommendations have been posted here:

https://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/16/432222.aspx

Major areas covered are:

  • · Exchange 2007 server hardware requirements are different than previous versions of Exchange (2003)
  • · Processor types supported by Exchange 2007
  • · Multi-core processor considerations for Exchange 2007
  • · Hardware specific memory considerations for Exchange 2007
  • · Applying the processor and memory configuration factors to specific Exchange 2007 server roles
  • · Processor Configuration Table for Exchange 2007
  • · Memory Configuration Table for Exchange 2007
  • · Server Role "Rule of Thumb" Ratio Recommendations

3. Configuring, validating and monitoring your Exchange 2007 storage

The most updated recommendation on configuration, validation and monitoring of Exchange 2007 storage has been posted here:

https://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432199.aspx

Major areas covered are:

  • · Capacity (both mailbox and transaction log)
  • · Transactional I/O (understanding IOPS)
  • · Non-Transactional I/O
  • · Apply to the Hardware Design
  • · Storage Technology
  • · RAID Selection
  • · LUN Design
  • · Partition Design
  • · Storage Validation
  • · Storage Monitoring

4. Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

Indeed, the Storage Calculator, which we have been using internally for a long time, has been published externally for customers to use. NOTE: only the Exchange 2007 version is public at this time.

Customers can download the calculator from here:

https://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/01/15/432207.aspx

5. Additional reading

There are tons of links made in the above blog posts that will take you to more information about those subjects. Last and not the least, please make sure to check the Exchange 2007 documentation for latest information on those recommendations:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cb24ddb7-0659-4d9d-9057-52843f861ba8.aspx