Deploying Microsoft ® Exchange Server 2010 on the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500
August 2010
Implementation Guide
By Patricia Brailey
Summary
IT administrators need email solutions that provide data protection and simple management in environmentally friendly data centers. Using Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 with SAN storage like the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family accomplishes those business-critical objectives.
This white paper describes how to implement Exchange Server 2010 with the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family, thus leveraging changes in Exchange and the advantages of the 2000 family to lower administration costs, improve system efficiency and enable virtualization. It focuses on deploying the
Exchange Server 2010 mailbox role and is intended for use by IT administrators responsible for Exchange and storage.
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Table of Contents
Solution Overview ... 1
Solution Components ... 3
Hardware Components ... 3
Network Components ... 3
Software Components ... 4
Solution Implementation ... 4
Configuring the 2500 ... 5
Installing Exchange ... 7
Creating a DAG with Database Copies ... 7
Deploying Microsoft ® Exchange Server 2010 on the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500
Implementation Guide
IT administrators need email solutions that provide data protection and simple management in environmentally friendly data centers. Using Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 with SAN storage like the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family accomplishes those business-critical objectives. This white paper describes how to implement Exchange Server 2010 with the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family, thus leveraging changes in Exchange and the advantages of the 2000 family to lower administration costs, improve system efficiency and enable virtualization.
Exchange Server 2010 can be deployed for many types and numbers of users in a wide variety of
infrastructure topologies. By implementing Exchange Server 2010 with the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 family of storage systems, you can effectively scale an environment from a few thousand users to hundreds of thousands of users. The active-active nature of the 2000 family controllers and the use of Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software also allow you to combine different workloads in a single storage frame for greater flexibility.
This implementation guide focuses on deploying the Exchange Server 2010 mailbox role and is intended for use by IT administrators responsible for Exchange and storage. It assumes some familiarity with Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 software, Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010. For
information about deploying other Exchange server roles, see the Microsoft TechNet library “Exchange Server 2010.”
Solution Overview
The Exchange 2010 solution described in this implementation guide is based on the Exchange Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP) submission, Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500 Dynamically Provisioned 68,800 User Exchange 2010 Resiliency Storage Solution. The 68,800 mailboxes were distributed across two Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500s and 32 servers at two sites. The tested implementation used 16 Database Availability Groups (DAGs), each containing a pair of servers, one server at each site.
Figure 1 shows the complete Exchange 2010 solution.
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Figure 1. Solution Overview
This solution also used Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software, which, when implemented with Exchange 2010, improves performance, capacity utilization and management. To implement Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning software, enable the license key on the 2500. It provides the ability to wide-stripe data across one or more pools of disks. Distributing the I/O load across many disks in the pool reduces performance issues resulting from hot spots and provides a smoothing effect that is especially beneficial in an Exchange environment where a mailbox or group of mailboxes can be unexpectedly busy. From these pools, Dynamic Provisioning virtual volumes (DP-VOLs) are created for the Exchange active and passive database copies and the transaction log volumes. The DP-VOLs are presented to the Exchange mailbox servers. The “Solution Configuration” section in this white paper describes how to implement Dynamic Provisioning pools and create DP-VOLs.
The solution described in this guide is intended for large organizations; however, Exchange 2010 can be deployed for many types and numbers of users in a wide variety of infrastructure topologies. This
implementation’s 68,800 mailboxes have a quota of 1GB each and an I/O profile of 0.1 IOPS, which is the result of sending or receiving 100 75K messages per day. Each server contains three Exchange database logical units (LUs) and three log LUs, and each database has an active and a passive copy for a total of two high availability copies.
The two Dynamic Provisioning pools on each 2500 for the Exchange database and transaction log data used a RAID-1+0 (4+4) configuration. All 480 450GB, 15K-rpm SAS disks are used. The 2500 features symmetric active-active controllers that provide integrated, automated hardware-based front-to-back-end I/O load balancing. Both controllers in a 2500 storage system are able to dynamically and automatically assign the access paths from the controller to the LU. All LUs are accessible regardless of the physical port or the server from which the access is requested. Utilization rates for each controller are monitored so that a more even distribution of workload between the two controllers can be maintained. Storage administrators are no longer
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required to manually define specific affinities between LUs and controllers, simplifying overall administration. In addition, this controller design is fully integrated with standard host-based multipathing, thereby eliminating mandatory requirements to implement proprietary multipathing software. The Hitachi ESRP submission document contains additional information about Dynamic Provisioning pool, LU, and path design for this tested implementation.
For more information about Exchange 2010 design best practices, including sizing Exchange mailbox servers and designing an appropriate storage configuration, see the Deploying Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 on the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500 white paper.
Solution Components
The following sections detail the hardware and software components that were deployed in the Hitachi Data Systems lab.
Hardware Components
Table 1 describes the hardware deployed in the Hitachi Data Systems lab.
Table 1. Deployed Hardware
Hardware Quantity Configuration Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500 storage system 2 Microcode 0890
2 storage controllers 16GB cache per controller 32 disk trays (RKA)
15 x 450GB 15K RPM SAS disks per tray
Sun Fire 4270 server 32 2 Quad Core Intel E5540 2.53GHz processors
32GB memory
2 Emulex LPe11002-MH4 Fibre Channel HBAs 4Gb/s
Brocade 5320 switch 2 FOS 6.3.0b
48 4Gb Fibre Channel ports used per switch
You can use any server that meets Microsoft’s requirements for Exchange 2010.
Network Components
This solution also uses two networks connected to two separate network adapters per server providing redundancy and enabling Exchange to distinguish between a server failure and a network failure. Each DAG member must have the same number of networks and at least one MAPI network. Follow Microsoft’s guidance regarding network latency for DAG members located in different geographic sites. For more information about network planning for Exchange Server 2010, see the Microsoft TechNet article “Planning for High Availability and Site Resilience.”
In a very large, site-resilient solution such as the one described in this guide, other networking equipment including WAN optimizers and load-balancers are also needed at each site. The maximum network latency that can be tolerated by Exchange Server 2010 is 250ms. To maintain that level of latency, you will likely need a WAN optimizer. You must deploy a network load balancer in front of the client access servers to distribute the user load, because this functionality is not built in to Exchange. Software-based network load balancers (like Microsoft’s NLB) can be used for smaller environments, but for a large environment like this one, use a hardware network load-balancing solution.
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Software Components
Table 2 describes the software deployed in the Hitachi Data Systems lab.
Table 2. Deployed Software
Software Version
Windows Server 2008 R2, Datacenter
Exchange Server 2010
Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 9.0
Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning License key for microde 0890
Multipathing software, such as Hitachi Dynamic Link Manager software or Windows Server 2008 R2 native MPIO, is a critical component to this Exchange 2010 solution. Regardless of which multipathing software is used, Hitachi recommends using the round robin load-balancing algorithm to distribute the load evenly across all available HBAs.
Solution Implementation
To deploy this Exchange Server 2010 solution, follow these high-level steps:
1. Configure the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500.
2. Install Exchange.
3. Create the DAGs and add the Exchange mailbox servers to the DAGs.
4. Create the database copies.
These are general tasks that need to be completed for a successful deployment. Your checklist might vary based on your environment. Details about each of these steps are included in the following sections.
The specific activities and detailed processes for each of these high-level tasks are located in documentation provided by Hitachi Data Systems and Microsoft. This documentation set is required to assist with deploying the solution. For more information, see the following resources:
• Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 online help
• Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2000 Family Dynamic Provisioning Software user’s guide
• Microsoft TechNet article “Deploying Exchange 2010”
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Configuring the 2500
You must create two pools on each 2500: one for the Exchange database volumes and one for the transaction log volumes.
Creating a Dynamic Provisioning Pool
Follow these steps to create a Dynamic Provisioning pool:
1. Launch Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 software.
2. Click the Groups link on the Arrays pane.
3. Click the DP Pools tab.
4. Click the Create Pool button.
The Create DP Pool window displays.
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5. Select a RAID level and combination and click OK.
Note that after a RAID level and combination are selected, all RAID groups in the Dynamic Provisioning pool will be the same.
The Dynamic Provisioning pool is created. To add capacity to the DP pool beyond the initial RAID group, follow these steps:
a) Select the pool and click the Add Pool Capacity button.
b) Enter the number of drives for a single RAID group and click OK.
c) Continue adding capacity until the required size is reached.
Configure the active and passive copies of the Exchange databases and the transaction log volumes from the Dynamic Provisioning pools on each of the Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2500 storage systems.
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Creating a Dynamic Provisioning LU
Follow these steps to create a Dynamic Provisioning LU:
1. Launch Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 software.
2. Click the Groups link on the Arrays pane.
3. Click the DP Pools tab.
4. Click a pool number to open the pool.
5. Click the Create LU button.
6. Enter the required LU size and click OK.
The Dynamic Provisioning LU can now be assigned to a host group the same as a standard LU. For more information about how to do this, see the Hitachi Storage Navigator Modular 2 online help.
Installing Exchange
To install Exchange on the mailbox servers, follow Microsoft’s instructions in the “Deploying Exchange 2010”
section of the Exchange 2010 server library on TechNet. For any Exchange management tasks listed in this guide, you can use either the Exchange Management Shell (command line) or the Exchange Management Console (GUI). They are both part of the Exchange management tools.
To create a mailbox database named DBO1, use the Exchange management shell to run the following command:
New-MailboxDatabase –Name “DB01” –EdbFilePath G:\DatabaseFiles\DB01.edb – LogFolderPath H:\Logfiles\Log01
To mount the newly created database DB01, run the following command:
Mount-Database –Identity “DB01”
These commands must be performed to create all of the active database copies. After you create all of the active database copies, you can add them to a Database Availability Group (DAG).
Creating a DAG with Database Copies
A Database Availability Group is an object in Active Directory. The Active Directory stores information about the DAG such as the name, witness server information and IP address. A failover cluster is formed when a server is added to a DAG. At that point, mailbox servers in the DAG begin to monitor each other for failures.
Replication begins when database copies are added to the DAG.
A DAG can contain up to 16 mailbox servers. In this tested implementation, 16 DAGs were created with 2 servers each. To create a DAG named DAG01 with a static IP address of 10.0.0.5, run the following Powershell command (cmdlet) in the Exchange Management Shell:
New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup –Name DAG01 –WhitnessServer EXHUB01 –
WitnessDirectory C:\Quorum –DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses 10.0.0.5
This cmdlet also configures a witness server on the hub transport server named EXHUB01. If you plan to have server members in other subnets, you must assign additional static IPs for the DAG in those subnets. The multiple IP addresses can be specified at the time of DAG creation or added later using the Set-
DatabaseAvailabilityGroup command.
To add a mailbox server to DAG01, run the following cmdlet:
Add-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer –Identity DAG01 –MailboxServer ExMail01
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New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork –DatabaseAvailabilityGroup DAG01 –Name RepNet01 –Description “Replication Network 01” –subnets 10.0.0.0/8 –
ReplicationEnabled:$True
To set up additional networks for client access, use the same command without the ReplicationEnabled parameter.
After you configure all the DAG properties, you can replicate the active databases on each server to the other DAG members. To add a database copy to a secondary server named ExMail02, use the following cmdlet:
Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy –Identity DB01 –MailboxServer ExMail02 – ActivationPreference 2
The ActivationPreference parameter is used to determine which passive copy should be activated in a failover or switchover situation. If the parameters ReplayLagTime and TruncationLagTime are not specified in the command such as in the example above, those parameters are set to the default value of 0 seconds. The parameters specify the amount of time the replication service waits before replaying log files that were copied to the database and how long the replication service waits before truncating log files that were replayed, respectively.
For more information about the cmdlets listed in this guide and high availability and site resilience in Exchange 2010, see the Microsoft TechNet article “High Availability and Site Resilience.”
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