HP DL760 Microsoft Exchange 2000 Consolidation Using ProLiant Essentials Workl - Page 4

TC020602TB TECHNOLOGY BRIEF (cont.) Microsoft Exchange 2000 Consolidation Using ProLiant Essentials Workload Management Pack ... requirements in the event of database corruption or failure. Assuming an average mailbox size of 50 MB and a target database size of 35 to 50 GB, the average number of users on an Exchange 5.5 server would be between 700 and 1000. Exchange 2000 addresses the single instance of ESE by allowing up to four instances of ESE per server (still governed by a single instance of store.exe), known as storage groups. Each storage group has its own transactional logs, thereby making it the unit of backup. Also, each storage group can contain as many as five databases, which become the unit of restore. Partitioning the information store into more manageable sizes (for backup and restore) provides the basis for consolidating larger numbers of users onto a single server. Exchange 2000 also features improved SMP scalability over its predecessor to take better advantage of multi-processor servers. Vying for system resources on Exchange 2000 deployment servers, however, are additional applications and services, including: Anti-Virus agents. The primary entry point for viruses into organizations has migrated from floppy disks and internet downloads, to the outward-facing email environment. Many third parties offer Exchange-specific anti-virus solutions, which may integrate directly with ESE through the virus-scanning API 2.0 to scan email and attachments. These agents have a resource cost in real-time monitoring mode, and they may have an additional impact when performing a scan of the information store. Management agents. In addition to server management agents such as Insight Manager, third party vendors such as NetIQ and BMC provide enhanced management capabilities for applications such as Exchange. While designed to be unobtrusive to the environment, these agents may also require additional server resources, depending upon their level of activity. Backup/Restore agents. Most organizations will leverage a third-party backup vendor to take advantage of such Exchange-specific capabilities as storage group and individual database recovery, parallel backup of storage groups, and backup/recovery of key Exchange services, such as site replication services and the key management service. Like anti-virus agents, these agents have may have additional resource impact during the backup or restore. Other Exchange services. New to Exchange 2000, the full-text indexing service can place a CPU-intensive load during its crawl and rebuild operation. These types of services are often scheduled for after-hours operation, due to the load placed on the server and the potential impact to the core messaging services. Other applications. Exchange 2000 scales well through four processors, and initial testing indicates some potential benefits with as many as six processors. However, the resources of an 8-way server, such as the ProLiant DL760 server, may be better utilized through the partitioning of services, specifically by limiting the Exchange STORE process to four or six processors, and granting other agents or processes access to the remaining physical processors. These applications could include Active Directory, Collaborative Applications, and even file/print services. Our testing was designed to prove that the Exchange environment would function similarly when limited to six processors, thereby freeing up additional resources for other supporting or even unrelated applications. Our testing focused on using RPM to better manage the supporting agents partitioning the workload on the Exchange 2000 server, while experiencing the same or better overall Exchange performance (measured through lower CPU consumption). NOTE: It is important to mention that CPU utilization is only one resource consumed by Exchange. Before consolidating unrelated applications on the same box, consider the additional resource constraints of these applications and factor these requirements, such as storage I/O, memory, network, etc., into your configuration. 4