GWAVACon 2015: Microsoft MVP - Exchange Architecture & Sizing
0 likes1,315 views
This document provides an overview and best practices for Exchange architecture and sizing. It discusses fundamentals like Exchange versions, roles, and requirements. It describes the preferred Exchange architecture and considerations for designing a highly available architecture using a Database Availability Group (DAG). It also covers steps for sizing an Exchange deployment including gathering user statistics, using the role requirements calculator, adjusting the design, and validating storage. Best practices for virtualizing Exchange are also presented.
GWAVACon 2015: Microsoft MVP - Exchange Architecture & Sizing
- 1. Exchange Architecture & Sizing Dave Stork Architect @ OGD ict- diensten Exchange MVP Mail: dave.stork@ogd.nl Twitter: @dmstork Blog: https://dirteam.com/dave Podcast: www.theUCarchitects.com
- 3. Fundamentals
- 4. Fundamentals On-prem, full cloud or Hybrid? I’ll assume on-premises for this talk ;-) Which version? Exchange 2007 & 2010 – Extended Support until 2017 & 2020 – Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2000 & 2003 Exchange 2013 – Mainstream support until 2018 – Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2007 Exchange 2016 – not yet released – Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2010
- 5. Fundamentals What is necessary to run Exchange? Active Directory DNS – Active Directory integrated Certificates – Use SHA2 certificates Windows Server – Use highest supported version – Enterprise or Standard? Server resources – CPU & Memory – Storage – Network
- 6. Fundamentals What might be necessary? Load Balancer – When more than one (Client Access) server Reverse Proxy – Extra security layer – Pre-authentication Office Web App Server Others from business requirements
- 7. Outer DMZ public IP adressing Inner DMZ private IP adressing Datacenter Zone Users (Outlook, Mobile, OWA) Exchange DAG Reverse Proxy (TMG) Load balancer File share Witness Office Web App (Optional) Users (Outlook, Mobile, OWA) IP-PBX (Optional) Lync (Optional) SharePoint (Optional) Anti Malware
- 8. Fundamentals Exchange 2010 Roles Client Access – HTTPS: OWA Rendering, ActiveSync etc. Hub Transport – SMTP transport and handling Mailbox Unified Messaging – Voicemail and Auto-Attendant Best practice: Multi role (CAS, HUB, MBX) Edge Transport – Perimeter network SMTP cleaning – Non-domain joined
- 9. Fundamentals Exchange 2013 Roles Client Access – “Just a proxy” Mailbox – Alle business logic; SMTP, HTTP, UM, Database Best practice: Multi role Edge Transport – Perimeter network SMTP cleaning – Non-domain joined – Since SP1 (CU4)
- 10. Fundamentals Exchange 2016 Roles There is just one role – However, the concept of Client Access Proxy is still present in Exchange 2016. – Consider 2016 an automatic 2013 multi-role Edge Transport – Perimeter network SMTP cleaning – Non-domain joined
- 11. Infrastructuur Database Availability Group (DAG) “Clustering” for High Availability and Disaster Recovery There is always one Active Copy There can be multiple Passive Copies of a database Max 16 (Mailbox) servers in a DAG – Theoretically max 16 copies of DB (including Active) Lagged DB Recommended max 2TB per DB in DAG – I prefer smaller database sizes even in a DAG (~300GB) File Share Witness – Tie breaker: the majority of votes of interconnected servers wins
- 12. DAG
- 14. Preferred Architecture What is the Preferred Architecture (PA)? “The PA is the Exchange Engineering Team’s prescriptive approach to what we believe is the optimum deployment architecture for Exchange 2013, and one that is very similar to what we deploy in Office 365” There are two versions, one for 2013 and one for 2016 My advice: stay as close as possible to PA with your design. Describe any deviations and why this deviation is required.
- 15. Namespace design
- 16. DAG design
- 18. mail.contoso.com
- 19. Sizing
- 20. Sizing Design and validate your Exchange environment according to business requirements and usage. What information do you need? User activity Business requirements – High available and disaster recovery? RTO/RPO – Growth and lifecycle of environment – Physical or virtual?
- 21. Sizing What steps are involved? Gather user statistics – Generate-MessageProfile.ps1 Have a general design idea including server resources – Find SPECInt 2006 rate of the CPU of your choice Use the Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator – Note: version and update specific – Input user statistics – CPU information – Other
- 23. Server Configuration / Primary Datacenter Server (Single Failure) Recommended RAM Configuration 24 GB Number of Processor Cores Utilized 2 Server CPU Utilization 18% Server CPU Megacycle Requirements 4821 Server Total Available Adjusted Megacycles 26430 Possible Storage Architecture RAID Recommended Transport Database Location System Disk Host IO and Throughput Requirements / Database / Server / DAG Total Database Required IOPS 1 66 133 Total Log Required IOPS 0 15 29 Database Read I/O Percentage 60% -- -- Background Database Maintenance Throughput Requirements 1.0 MB/s 58 MB/s 116 MB/s
- 24. Sizing What steps are involved? Adjust your design – Other processor (or server) – More Exchange servers – Different quota’s – Etc. Use the sizing calculator again – Evaluate, repeat, evaluate, repeat… – Choose your optimal supported sizing
- 25. Sizing And then? Build your servers up until installing Exchange – including all patches/updates, Exchange requirements, antivirus, back-up agent etc.. Validate your storage with Jetstress – This can take several days Resolve any issues Remove Jetstress and install Exchange Monitor
- 26. Virtualization
- 27. Virtualization What to consider when virtualizing? Design as if physical, but… Hypervisor is validated in SVVP No dynamically expanding disks – Exception VHDX on Hyper-V No dynamic memory No overcommit of memory on host Maximum CPU overcommit ratio of 1:2 of host – Every 1 physical core is assigned 2 times max
- 28. Virtualization Hyper Threading doesn’t count Loosened heartbeat – If there is a requirement for migration of the host while running etc. Anti affinity rules – Don’t put Exchange servers and supporting infrastructure on the same host No save state moves No snapshot back-up (Only VSS)
- 29. Virtualization Take NUMA boundary into account – non-uniform memory access (NUMA) – Fastest complex of processing unit and memory Sometimes more smaller servers is a better fit with virtualization – This is also true when physical. Find your acceptable optimal point.
- 30. Virtualization Don’t deploy more Exchange VMs than Hypervisor hosts Consider capacity management for your virtualization environment – I’ve seen a lot of issues when CPU ratio was higher than 1:2 Consider physical deployment – Total cost of ownership/operation could be lower than with virtual
- 31. Microsoft Ignite 2015 sessions Meet Exchange Server 2016 Exchange Server Preferred Architecture Deploying Exchange Server 2016 Exchange on IaaS: Concerns, Tradeoffs, and Best Practices https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015
- 32. Questions? Mail: dave.stork@ogd.nl Twitter: @dmstork Blog: https://dirteam.com/dave Podcast: www.theUCarchitects.com