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Windows Server Forum / Exchange Server / Design / September 2006Opinions on Exhange server hardware/design
I'm at a company that wants to move over to exchange from a linux pop server. We don't have anyone currently with Exchange experience. Do you think it would be possible to get an installation going without hiring someone on and learn as we go? I'm interested in learning but admittedly have no server experience. Currently we are around 60 people. Calendaring, email, and possibly a Blackberry enterprise server are the goals. Most of the employees are on windows machines, but there are a number of Mac users that the engineers and designers use. I'm curious if we could get away with Server/exhange standard edition, keeping in mind that we are expanding. Will we be able to pass the 100, 150 or even get up to the 200 user mark with this version. If we did get too big later on, then move to enterprise? Could we get away with one domain controller? What would be a good practice as far as back ups or redundancy? And then as far as hardware, what would be some suggestions that would scale well. I know we would be maxed at 4gigs of ram, I have recieved a suggestion for a motherboard that supports dual processors. I got another suggestion for 1 hard drive to install all the server/exhange files on in raid 1 configuration. Then three 75 gig hard drives in raid 5 configuration for the echange mail boxes. Does this sound about right? Any suggestions for hardware or better ideas? Responses inline.  SignatureBharat Suneja MVP - Exchange www.zenprise.com NEW blog location: www.exchangepedia.com/blog ---------------------------------------------- > I'm at a company that wants to move over to exchange from a linux pop > server. We don't have anyone currently with Exchange experience. Do you > think it would be possible to get an installation going without hiring > someone on and learn as we go? I'm interested in learning but admittedly > have no server experience. Microsoft.com/exchange has plenty of info for getting started. Introduction to Exchange Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ex2003intro.mspx Getting Started section on TechCenter http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/gettingstarted.mspx Planning an Exchange Server 2003 Messaging System http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/messsyst.mspx Books: - MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-284): Implementing and Managing Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 - geared for the Exchange 2003 MCP test but a good hands-on getting started book, imo. - Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Distilled - Schott Schnoll - Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 24seven - Jim McBee You could also take the 2400 course at a Microsoft CPLS http://www.microsoft.com/learning/syllabi/en-us/2400cfinal.mspx Setup a test lab - Virtual Server 2005 is free. You can setup a decent lab on a single box with adequate RAM. > Currently we are around 60 people. Calendaring, email, and possibly a > Blackberry enterprise server are the goals. Most of the employees are on > windows machines, but there are a number of Mac users that the engineers > and > designers use. Do you already have Blackberry devices deployed? If not, I would recommend testing Windows Mobile devices as well. WM5.0 devices (check for MSFP/AKU 2.0 availability for devices) will let you use Exchange Server 2003 DirectPush, and may lower your costs compared to a Blackberry deployment which requires a separate server. > I'm curious if we could get away with Server/exhange standard edition, > keeping in mind that we are expanding. Will we be able to pass the 100, > 150 > or even get up to the 200 user mark with this version. Exchange Server 2003 Std. Edition doesn't limit you to number of users. The Store (post-SP2) can grow to 75 Gigs. It'll depend on how large you want the mailboxes to grow. Enterprise Edition gives you Stores with no hard-coded limit on size, as well as multiple Storage Groups & Stores. If we did get too big > later on, then move to enterprise? You can always upgrade from Std Edition to Enterprise. It's a seamless/no pain upgrade. You can create additional Storage Groups so Store can be "split" into multiple mailbox Stores and distributed over different volumes. This lets you maintain the disk I/O required for more users. A single server can scale up to thousands of users provided you have correctly sized storage, which is perhaps the most critical component of Exchange as far as performance goes. >Could we get away with one domain > controller? At least 2 GCs are recommended. Virtual Machines can be considered for DC/GC roles, particularly additional ones for redundancy. >What would be a good practice as far as back ups or redundancy? The Disaster Recovery Ops Guide provides plenty of guidance. Recommended. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/disrecopgde.mspx > And then as far as hardware, what would be some suggestions that would > scale [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > echange mail boxes. Does this sound about right? Any suggestions for > hardware or better ideas? To scale, you need to determine what component(s) is becoming a bottleneck. With 2-4 processors and 4 Gigs (max allowed), Storage will be your moving target. To start with, you need another volume - preferably RAID1, to locate transaction logs. Further scale can be achieved by adding more spindles (drives). In many cases this means multiple Storage Groups - databases from different Storage Groups are located on separate volumes, increasing available disk I/O. Performance and Scalability Guide for Exchange Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_ScalGuide/ e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true I don't think we will go larger than 250 meg mailboxes. Even at 200 users that would only be 2/3 of the standard edition store. This should work fine now. Does standard edition allow splitting the message store on to multiple volumes? There isn't currently a Blackberry server in place. I have heard/read we could get this functionality with windows mobile 5.0 devices (Push email/calendar/contacts). If we did decide on BES however, where should this go. I'm a little confused as far as what a design would look like and what should be seperated onto different servers. Should there be a backend server with exchange on it that is basically just for the mailboxes? And then another server that handles the active directory/domain controller functions and other services, maybe BES? How does the GCs work in this. So what I'm thinking now for exchange is a dual processor system with 4 gigs of ram, with the system files raid1, the transactions logs raid1 and the message store on 3 75 gig hard drives raid5. And then another server, which I'm not sure on configuration hardware and software wise. WOuld this require another server2003 license? Are there any suggested configurations or white papers that chart what a design would like visually even if it doesn't match completely our size/needs? -Ryan > Responses inline. > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ex2003intro.mspx > Getting Started section on TechCenter http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/gettingstarted.ms px > Planning an Exchange Server 2003 Messaging System http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/messsyst. mspx > Books: > - MCSA/MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-284): Implementing and [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > >What would be a good practice as far as back ups or redundancy? > The Disaster Recovery Ops Guide provides plenty of guidance. Recommended. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/disrecopg de.mspx > > And then as far as hardware, what would be some suggestions that would > > scale [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > Performance and Scalability Guide for Exchange Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_ScalGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true > I don't think we will go larger than 250 meg mailboxes. Even at 200 > users that would only be 2/3 of the standard edition store. This > should work fine now. Does standard edition allow splitting the > message store on to multiple volumes? No split on standard. I'd go with enterprise. > There isn't currently a Blackberry server in place. I have heard/read > we could get this functionality with windows mobile 5.0 devices (Push [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > active directory/domain controller functions and other services, maybe > BES? How does the GCs work in this. Exchange on it's own. I'd have 2 DCs. I personnally like having DCs only as DCs. You also load DNS, DHCP and WINS services on them. If budget is an issue, you can use a DC for file services. Install BES on it's own machine. A low power server will do. 3GHZ Xeon, 2-4 Gig will do. Mirrorred 200GB SATA drives and you're fine. You could get away with running DC on it. My personal design would be: 1) DC, DNS, DHCP, WINS, GC 2) DC, DNS, WINS, GC 3) Exchange 4) BES 5) file and print The only thing to make absolutely sure of is that Exchange is all alone on it's server. > So what I'm thinking now for exchange is a dual processor system with > 4 gigs of ram, with the system files raid1, the transactions logs > raid1 and the message store on 3 75 gig hard drives raid5. And then > another server, which I'm not sure on configuration hardware and > software wise. WOuld this require another server2003 license? I'd go raid1 on the store as well. DCs could be single P4/Xeon with 2 GB BES could be P4 with 2GB > Are there any suggested configurations or white papers that chart what > a design would like visually even if it doesn't match completely our [quoted text clipped - 132 lines] > http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S > calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true Would 250 mailboxes be about the limit for a dual xeon machine, 3 gigs of ram, and raid1 for the system files, raid for the logs, and raid 10 for the databases? (consider normal usage/some departments heavy usage, some very low) Is there a general idea on how many storage groups to split up for ease ( I think this might depend on the business, but is there a general recomendation?) And then after 250 mail boxes, we would need to cluster two machines with exchange? Does that mean more copies of server/exchange need to be purchased? Does clustering essentially make these two machines look like one? If we cluster two exchnage machines, do the 2 two seperate DC servers still hold up for this model or would we need to add something else. We definately need a frontend server in a DMZ to prozy mobile requests? > > I don't think we will go larger than 250 meg mailboxes. Even at 200 > > users that would only be 2/3 of the standard edition store. This [quoted text clipped - 179 lines] > > http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S > > calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true If more mailboxes we're needed in the future, could another server with exchange be placed on the network? How does this work exactly? For instance, licensing the software. Is this considered a cluster or a member server? >> I don't think we will go larger than 250 meg mailboxes. Even at 200 >> users that would only be 2/3 of the standard edition store. This [quoted text clipped - 179 lines] >> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S >> calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true You can add additional servers - by default these install in the same Administrative Group. You will need an additional server license. SignatureBharat Suneja MVP - Exchange www.zenprise.com NEW blog location: www.exchangepedia.com/blog ---------------------------------------------- > If more mailboxes we're needed in the future, could another server with > exchange be placed on the network? How does this work exactly? For [quoted text clipped - 184 lines] >>> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S >>> calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true > If more mailboxes we're needed in the future, could another server with > exchange be placed on the network? How does this work exactly? For instance, > licensing the software. Is this considered a cluster or a member server? Every time you add an Exchange server, you'll need an Exchange server license. You also have to have a client access license (CAL) for each mailbox. Say you start off with 1 server and 500 mailboxes, then next year you go to 2 servers and 2500 mailboxes-- you'd need to buy 1 server license and 2000 additional CALs. Not 100% sure that this answers your question, though. Cheers, -Paul > >> I don't think we will go larger than 250 meg mailboxes. Even at 200 > >> users that would only be 2/3 of the standard edition store. This [quoted text clipped - 179 lines] > >> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S > >> calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true Thanks for answering my question, that makes sense. So right now I'm designing an exchange implementation for 100 mailboxes, but I'm hoping this will scale to at least 200 in the next couple of years. Most users will use cached exchange mode with outlook 2003. I also have several users with phones, I'm trying to get us to use windows mobile 5 devices. I'm looking at setting up a front-end server with server/exchange. Is it common practice to put a windows server like this in a DMZ, or is there a more secure option? On the backend, two domain controllers and an exchanger server running enterprise. The exchange server will have dual xeon processors, 4gigs of ram and the system files/log files/database files will be split up onto disks in raid1/raid1/raid5 or raid10 configurations. Any guesses on the number of mailboxes I could manage on this configuration? Any recomendations on a good disk size for the database files? If I'm running this configuration and I need to add another server, can I painlessly bring up another exchange server, and is this considered a cluster? Is it possible to run antivirus on the frontend server on incoming messages? > > If more mailboxes we're needed in the future, could another server with > > exchange be placed on the network? How does this work exactly? For instance, [quoted text clipped - 85 lines] > > >>> http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ex2003intro.mspx > > >>> Getting Started section on TechCenter http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/gettingstart > > >> ed.ms px > > >>> Planning an Exchange Server 2003 Messaging System http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/mess > > >> syst. mspx > > >>> [quoted text clipped - 64 lines] > > >>> The Disaster Recovery Ops Guide provides plenty of guidance. > > >>> Recommended. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/disr > > >> ecopg de.mspx > > >>> [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > > >>> > > >>> Performance and Scalability Guide for Exchange Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S > > >> calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true > Thanks for answering my question, that makes sense. > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Is it possible to run antivirus on the frontend server on incoming > messages? I run 100 mailboxes on a dual Xeon 2.8 with 2GB RAM with room to spare. I didn't bother with the FE for 2 reasons. I didn't want to spend extra money on hardware and another copy of Exchange, and with only one server, there was not much point. I run ISA and publish my Exchange server through that. I see no need for a DMZ. When you get to 2 servers then add a FE and point everything to the FE, it will route to the proper BE. >> > If more mailboxes we're needed in the future, could another server >> > with exchange be placed on the network? How does this work exactly? [quoted text clipped - 221 lines] > http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/guides/E2k3Perf_S >> > >> calGu ide/e2279cc7-9e38-49e7-a8f1-bfcb03ea4f55.mspx?mfr=true I would recommend at least two DCs for redundancy. Try keep the DC function off the Exchange server. > I'm at a company that wants to move over to exchange from a linux pop > server. We don't have anyone currently with Exchange experience. Do you [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > echange mail boxes. Does this sound about right? Any suggestions for > hardware or better ideas? |
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