EMC VSPEX FOR VIRTUALIZED MICROSOFT EXCHANGE 2013 WITH VMWARE VSPHERE EMC VSPEX

IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE
EMC VSPEX FOR VIRTUALIZED MICROSOFT
EXCHANGE 2013 WITH VMWARE VSPHERE
EMC VSPEX
Abstract
This Implementation Guide describes, at a high level, the steps required to deploy a
Microsoft Exchange 2013 organization on an EMC® VSPEX™ Proven Infrastructure
enabled by VMware vSphere on EMC VNX® and EMC VNXe®.
June 2013
Copyright © 2013 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.
Published June 2013.
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EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
Part Number 11795
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EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
Contents
Contents
Chapter 1
Introduction
9
Purpose of this guide................................................................................................ 10
Business value ......................................................................................................... 10
Scope ....................................................................................................................... 11
Audience .................................................................................................................. 11
Terminology.............................................................................................................. 12
Chapter 2
Before You Start
13
Overview .................................................................................................................. 14
Pre-deployment tasks ............................................................................................... 14
Deployment workflow ............................................................................................... 15
Deployment prerequisites ........................................................................................ 15
Planning and sizing Microsoft Exchange ................................................................... 18
Overview.............................................................................................................. 18
Storage pools ...................................................................................................... 18
Example: medium Exchange organization ............................................................ 18
Essential reading ...................................................................................................... 21
VSPEX Design Guide ............................................................................................ 21
VSPEX Solution Overviews ................................................................................... 21
VSPEX Proven Infrastructures ............................................................................... 21
Chapter 3
Solution Overview
23
Overview .................................................................................................................. 24
Solution architecture ................................................................................................ 24
Key components ....................................................................................................... 25
Introduction ......................................................................................................... 25
Microsoft Exchange 2013 .................................................................................... 26
EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure ......................................................................... 27
EMC VNX and VNXe .............................................................................................. 27
EMC Unisphere .................................................................................................... 29
VMware vSphere 5.1 ............................................................................................ 30
EMC Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware ........................................................... 30
VNX VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration .................................................. 30
EMC XtremSW Cache............................................................................................ 30
EMC PowerPath/VE .............................................................................................. 31
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Contents
Chapter 4
Solution Implementation
32
Overview .................................................................................................................. 33
Physical setup .......................................................................................................... 33
Network implementation .......................................................................................... 33
Storage implementation ........................................................................................... 34
Overview.............................................................................................................. 34
Example architectures ......................................................................................... 35
Setting up initial VNX/VNXe configuration............................................................ 36
Provisioning storage for NFS datastore................................................................. 37
Provisioning storage for iSCSI disks ..................................................................... 38
FAST Cache configuration .................................................................................... 48
FAST VP configuration .......................................................................................... 49
XtremSW Cache configuration .............................................................................. 50
Example storage layouts ...................................................................................... 53
ESXi and vCenter implementation............................................................................. 55
Multipathing implementation ................................................................................... 57
Overview.............................................................................................................. 57
PowerPath/VE implementation ............................................................................ 57
Exchange Server virtualization implementation ........................................................ 58
Overview.............................................................................................................. 58
Creating Exchange virtual machines..................................................................... 58
Installing Exchange guest OS ............................................................................... 59
Updating the virtual machine ............................................................................... 59
Assigning IP addresses ........................................................................................ 60
Creating NLB cluster ............................................................................................ 60
Creating virtual disks for Exchange servers .......................................................... 60
Application implementation ..................................................................................... 63
Overview.............................................................................................................. 63
Preparing Active Directory .................................................................................... 63
Installing Exchange 2013 Mailbox server roles .................................................... 64
Installing Exchange 2013 Client Access server roles ............................................ 65
Deploying database availability group ................................................................. 65
Chapter 5
Solution Verification
67
Baseline infrastructure verification ........................................................................... 68
Overview.............................................................................................................. 68
Verifying ESXi functionality .................................................................................. 68
Verifying solution components redundancy ......................................................... 68
Verifying the Exchange DAG configuration............................................................ 69
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Contents
Monitor the solution’s health ............................................................................... 69
Exchange Server performance verification ................................................................ 70
Overview.............................................................................................................. 70
Jetstress verification ............................................................................................ 71
Chapter 6
Reference Documentation
75
EMC documentation ................................................................................................. 76
Other documentation ............................................................................................... 76
Links ........................................................................................................................ 76
VMware ............................................................................................................... 76
Microsoft TechNet ................................................................................................ 77
Appendix A Configuration Worksheet
79
Configuration worksheet for Exchange 2013 ............................................................. 80
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Contents
Figures
Figure 1.
Solution architecture ........................................................................... 25
Figure 2.
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure ................................................................ 27
Figure 3.
Exchange 2013 storage elements on a vSphere 5.1 and VNX platform . 35
Figure 4.
Exchange 2013 storage elements on a vSphere 5.1 and VNXe platform36
Figure 5.
NFS datastore provisioning with VSI USM ............................................ 38
Figure 6.
Selecting storage pools ....................................................................... 40
Figure 7.
Creating a new pool ............................................................................. 40
Figure 8.
Specifying a pool name ....................................................................... 41
Figure 9.
Selecting the storage type ................................................................... 41
Figure 10.
Specifying the number of storage disks ............................................... 42
Figure 11.
Configuring storage ............................................................................. 42
Figure 12.
Selecting the storage pool ................................................................... 43
Figure 13.
Configuring host access ...................................................................... 44
Figure 14.
Adding Virtual Disk .............................................................................. 44
Figure 15.
Virtual disks for Exchange database and log........................................ 45
Figure 16.
iSCSI LUN configuration in VSI USM ..................................................... 47
Figure 17.
Storage Pool Properties—FAST Cache enabled ..................................... 48
Figure 18.
Expand Storage Pool dialog box .......................................................... 49
Figure 19.
Creating XtremSW Cache device .......................................................... 51
Figure 20.
Adding XtremSW Cache device and source LUNS ................................. 52
Figure 21.
Example storage layout for VNXe ......................................................... 53
Figure 22.
Example storage layout for VNX ........................................................... 54
Figure 23.
Network Load Balancing Manager........................................................ 60
Figure 24.
Creating a new virtual disk................................................................... 61
Figure 25.
RDM disk type selection ...................................................................... 62
Figure 26.
Formatting disk ................................................................................... 62
Figure 27.
Mailbox role selection ......................................................................... 64
Figure 28.
Exchange Client Access server role selection ....................................... 65
Figure 29.
Command to verify DAG configuration ................................................. 69
Tables
6
Table 1.
Terminology......................................................................................... 12
Table 2.
Pre-deployment tasks .......................................................................... 14
Table 3.
VSPEX for virtualized Exchange deployment process ........................... 15
Table 4.
Deployment prerequisites checklist ..................................................... 16
Table 5.
Exchange-related storages .................................................................. 18
EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
Contents
Table 6.
Sample customer qualification worksheet answers ............................. 18
Table 7.
Example of required resources—medium Exchange organization......... 19
Table 8.
Sample storage recommendations—medium Exchange organization .. 20
Table 9.
Sample performance key metrics—Jetstress tool ................................. 20
Table 10.
Exchange 2013 server roles ................................................................. 26
Table 11.
VNX software suites ............................................................................. 28
Table 12.
VNX software packs ............................................................................. 29
Table 13.
VNXe software suites ........................................................................... 29
Table 14.
VNXe software packs ........................................................................... 29
Table 15.
Tasks for physical setup ...................................................................... 33
Table 16.
Tasks for switch and network configuration ......................................... 33
Table 17.
Tasks for storage configuration............................................................ 34
Table 18.
Example additional storage pools for Exchange data on VNXe ............. 38
Table 19.
Example iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange data on VNXe ......................... 39
Table 20.
Example additional storage pools for Exchange data on VNX ............... 45
Table 21.
Example iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange data on VNX ........................... 46
Table 22.
Steps for ESXi and vCenter installation and configuration .................... 55
Table 23.
Exchange host virtual machine installation and configuration ............. 58
Table 24.
Example of Exchange reference virtual machines................................. 59
Table 25.
Tasks to implement Exchange 2013 .................................................... 63
Table 26.
Tasks for verifying the solution ............................................................ 68
Table 27.
Tools to monitor the solution ............................................................... 69
Table 28.
Example qualification worksheet with user profile ............................... 70
Table 29.
Key metrics for Jetstress verification .................................................... 71
Table 30.
Jetstress verification example results .................................................. 73
Table 31.
Common server information ................................................................ 80
Table 32.
Exchange information .......................................................................... 81
Table 33.
ESXi server information ....................................................................... 81
Table 34.
Array information................................................................................. 81
Table 35.
Network infrastructure information ...................................................... 82
Table 36.
VLAN information ................................................................................ 82
Table 37.
Service accounts ................................................................................. 82
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Contents
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EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 1
Introduction
This chapter presents the following topics:
Purpose of this guide ............................................................................................... 10
Business value .........................................................................................................10
Scope ....................................................................................................................... 11
Audience ..................................................................................................................11
Terminology .............................................................................................................12
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Purpose of this guide
EMC® VSPEX™ Proven Infrastructures are optimized for virtualizing business-critical
applications. VSPEX provides modular solutions built with technologies that enable
faster deployment, more simplicity, greater choice, higher efficiency, and lower risk.
VSPEX provides partners with the ability to design and implement the virtual assets
required to support Microsoft Exchange on an EMC VSPEX Private Cloud.
VSPEX provides a validated system capable of hosting a virtualized Exchange
solution at a consistent performance level. This solution is layered on a VSPEX Private
Cloud for VMware vSphere architecture and leverages the highly available EMC VNX®
family, which provides the storage. The compute and network components, while
vendor-definable, are designed to be redundant and are sufficiently powerful to
handle the processing and data needs of the virtual machine environment.
This Implementation Guide describes how to implement, with best practices, the
resources necessary to deploy Microsoft Exchange on any VSPEX private cloud with
VMware solution.
Business value
Email is an indispensable lifeline for communication within your business, and
connects you with customers, prospects, partners, and suppliers. IT administrators
who support Microsoft Exchange are challenged with maintaining the highest
possible levels of performance and application efficiency. At the same time, most
organizations struggle to keep pace with relentless data growth while working to
overcome diminishing or stagnant budgets. Administering, auditing, protecting, and
managing an Exchange environment for a modern geographically diverse work force
is a major challenge for most IT departments.
EMC has joined forces with the industry’s leading providers of IT infrastructure to
create a complete virtualization solution that accelerates the deployment of private
cloud and Microsoft Exchange.
VSPEX enables customers to accelerate their IT transformation with faster
deployment, more simplicity, greater choice, higher efficiency, and lower risk versus
the challenges, complexity, and difficulties of building an IT infrastructure
themselves. VSPEX validation by EMC ensures predictable performance and enables
customers to select technology that uses their existing or newly acquired IT
infrastructure while eliminating planning, sizing, and configuration burdens that are
typically associated with deploying a new IT infrastructure. VSPEX provides
infrastructures for customers who want to simplify their system while at the same
time gaining more choice in individual stack components.
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EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Scope
This guide describes the high-level steps required to deploy Microsoft Exchange 2013
on a VSPEX Private Cloud with vSphere and VNX/VNXe®. This guide assumes that a
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure already exists in the customer environment.
This guide applies to VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, virtualized with VMware vSphere
on VNX/VNXe. This document provides an example of deployment on a VNX5700 and
a VNXe3150. The same the principles and guidelines that apply to all VNX or VNXe
models that VSPEX Proven Infrastructures offer.
Audience
This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel and qualified EMC VSPEX Partners.
The guide assumes that VSPEX partners who intend to deploy this VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure for virtualized Exchange are:

Qualified by Microsoft to sell and implement Exchange solutions

Certified in Exchange 2013, ideally with one or both of the following Microsoft
certifications:

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) - Messaging - Core Solutions of
Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 (Exam: 341)

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) - Messaging - Advanced
Solutions of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 (Exam: 342)

Qualified by EMC to sell, install, and configure the VNX family of storage
systems

Certified to sell VSPEX Proven Infrastructures

Qualified to sell, install, and configure the network and server products
required for VSPEX Proven Infrastructures
Readers must also have the necessary technical training and background to install
and configure:

VMware vSphere virtualization platforms

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 operating systems (OS)

Microsoft Exchange 2013
External references are provided where applicable and EMC recommends that readers
are familiar with these documents. For details, refer to Essential reading and Chapter
6.
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Chapter 1: Introduction
Terminology
Table 1 lists the terminology used in this guide.
Table 1.
12
Terminology
Term
Definition
AD
Active Directory
BDM
Background Database Maintenance
CAS
Client Access Server
DAG
Database availability group
DNS
Domain name system
FAST™ VP
Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools
FQDN
Fully Qualified Domain Name
IOPS
Input/output operations per second
NFS
Network File System
NIC
Network interface card
NLB
Microsoft Network Load Balancing
NL-SAS
Near-line serial-attached SCSI
NMP
VMware Native Multipathing Plug-in
PCIe
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
Reference virtual machine
Represents a unit of measure for a single virtual machine to
quantify the compute resources in a VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure
rpm
Revolutions per minute
RTM
Release to manufacturing
SAS
Serial-attached SCSI
VMDK
VMware Virtual Machine Disk
VMFS
VMware Virtual Machine File System
VSS
Volume Shadow Copy Service
XtremSW™
EMC software for server-side caching on PCIe Flash cards
XtremSW Cache
EMC server Flash-caching software as part of XtremSW
software suite
EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
Chapter 2: Before You Start
Chapter 2
Before You Start
This chapter presents the following topics:
Overview ..................................................................................................................14
Pre-deployment tasks .............................................................................................. 14
Deployment workflow .............................................................................................. 15
Deployment prerequisites ........................................................................................ 15
Planning and sizing Microsoft Exchange ..................................................................18
Essential reading .....................................................................................................21
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Overview
This chapter provides an overview of important information you need to be aware of,
documents you need to be familiar with, and tasks you need to perform before you
start implementing your VSPEX for virtualized Exchange 2013 solution.
The Design Guide for this solution - VSPEX for virtualized Exchange 2013 - describes
how to size and design your solution and how to select the right VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure on which to layer Exchange 2013. The deployment examples in this
Implementation Guide are based on the recommendations and examples in the
Design Guide.
Before you implement Exchange on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, EMC recommends
you check and complete the pre-deployment tasks described in Table 2.
Pre-deployment tasks
Pre-deployment tasks include procedures that do not directly relate to environment
installation and configuration, but whose results are needed at the time of
installation. Examples of pre-deployment tasks include the collection of hostnames,
IP addresses, VLAN IDs, license keys, installation media, and so on. These tasks
should be performed before a customer visit to decrease the time required on site.
Table 2 shows a list of pre-deployment tasks.
Table 2.
14
Pre-deployment tasks
Task
Description
Reference
Gather documents
Gather the related documents
listed in Essential reading.
These are referred to
throughout this guide. They
provide details on setup
procedures, sizing, and
deployment best practices for
the various components of the
solution.
Essential reading
Gather tools
Gather the required and
optional tools for the
deployment. Use Table 4 to
confirm that all equipment,
software, and licenses are
available before the
deployment process.
Deployment prerequisites
checklist
Gather data
Collect the customer-specific
configuration data for
networking, arrays, accounts,
and so on. Enter this
information into the Customer
Exchange configuration
worksheet for reference during
the deployment process.
Configuration worksheet for
Exchange 2013
EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Deployment workflow
To design and implement your VSPEX for virtualized Exchange 2013 solution, refer to
the process flow in Table 3.
Table 3.
VSPEX for virtualized Exchange deployment process
Step
Action
1
Use the VSPEX for virtualized Exchange 2013 qualification worksheet to collect
user requirements. The qualification worksheet is in Appendix A of the Design
Guide.
2
Use the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure for virtualized Exchange 2013, based on the user requirements
collected in Step 1. Refer to the Design Guide for guidance.
For more information about the Sizing Tool, refer to the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool
portal.
Note: If the Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size Exchange 2013
using the guidelines in Appendix B of the Design Guide.
3
Refer to the Design Guide to determine your final design for the VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure for virtualized Exchange.
Note: Ensure that all application requirements are considered, not just the
requirements for Exchange.
4
Refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in Essential
reading to select and order the correct VSPEX Proven Infrastructure.
5
Follow this Implementation Guide to deploy and test your VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure for virtualized Exchange 2013.
Note: If you already have a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure environment, you can
skip the implementation steps already completed.
Deployment prerequisites
This guide applies to VSPEX Proven Infrastructures virtualized with VMware on VNX or
VNXe. The principles and guidance from the example provided applies to all VNX or
VNXe models that VSPEX Proven Infrastructures support. Table 4 itemizes the
hardware, software, and licenses required to configure the solution.
For additional information, refer to the hardware and software tables in the relevant
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in the Essential reading section.
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Table 4.
Requirement
Deployment prerequisites checklist
Description
Version
Reference/notes
Physical servers: Sufficient
physical server capacity to
host the required number of
virtual machines as
recommended by the Design
Guide and VSPEX Sizing Tool.
Hardware
VMware vSphere 5.1 servers
to host virtual infrastructure
servers.
Note: This requirement may
be covered in the existing
infrastructure.
Essential reading
Networking: Switch port
capacity and capabilities as
required by the virtual server
infrastructure.
EMC VNX/VNXe: Multiprotocol
storage array with the
required disk layout.
Software
16
VNX OE for file
Release 7.1.65-8
VNX OE for block
Release 05.32.000.5.201
VNXe OE
Release 2.4.0.20932
EMC Unisphere® for VNX
1.2.25.1.0156
EMC Unisphere for VNXe
1.9.0.11964
EMC Virtual storage integrator
(VSI) for VMware vSphere:
Unified Storage Management
5.4
EMC VSI for VMware vSphere:
Storage Viewer
5.4
EMC PowerPath®/VE
5.7
EMC XtremSW™ Cache
1.5.1
VMware ESXi installation
media
5.1
EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
Implementation Guide
EMC Online Support
http://www.vmware.com
Chapter 2: Before You Start
Requirement
Licenses
Description
Version
Reference/notes
VMware vCenter Server
installation media
5.1
Microsoft Windows Server
installation media (for
Exchange Server 2013)
Microsoft Windows Server
2012 Standard or
Datacenter edition
Microsoft Exchange Server
installation media
Exchange Server 2013
Standard or Enterprise
edition
http://www.microsoft.com
Jetstress
2013 version
15.00.0658.004
For verification tests only
Microsoft Windows Server
license keys
Note: This requirement may
be covered by an existing
Software Assurance
agreement and may be found
on an existing customer
Microsoft Key Management
Server (KMS) (if applicable).
Microsoft Exchange Server
license keys
2012 (Standard or
Datacenter)
VMware vSphere license keys
Note: This may covered in the
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure.
5.1
http://www.microsoft.com
2013 (Standard or
Enterprise)
http://www.vmware.com
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Planning and sizing Microsoft Exchange
Overview
To plan and size your Exchange 2013 deployment on the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure,
follow the recommendations and guidelines in the Design Guide. Use the VSPEX
Sizing Tool and the VSPEX for virtualized Exchange 2013 qualification worksheet, as
described in that guide.
Storage pools
In this VSPEX solution, we1 introduced general storage pools which are used to store
Exchange data. Table 5 shows an example of the storage pools needed in an
Exchange database availability group (DAG) deployment where each database has
two copies. For detailed information, refer to the Design Guide.
Table 5.
Example: medium
Exchange
organization
Exchange-related storages
Pool name
Purpose
VSPEX private cloud pool
The pool where all the virtual machines’
operation system volumes reside. For details,
refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure in Essential reading.
Exchange database pool 1
The pool where all the Exchange database data
of the first database copy reside.
Exchange database pool 2
The pool where all the Exchange database data
of the second database copy reside.
Exchange log pool 1
The pool where all the Exchange log files of the
first database copy reside.
Exchange log pool 2
The pool where all the Exchange log files of the
second database copy reside.
The following example is described in the Design Guide. A customer wants to create a
medium Exchange 2013 organization on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Complete the
evaluation, as shown in Table 6.
Table 6.
Sample customer qualification worksheet answers
Question
Example answer
Number of mailboxes
9,000
Maximum mailbox size (GB)
1.5 GB
Mailbox IOPS profile (messages sent/received
per mailbox per day)
0.101 IOPS per user (150 messages
sent/received per mailbox per day)
DAG copies (including Active one)
2
Deleted Items Retention (DIR) Window (days)
14
1
In this guide, "we" refers to the EMC Solutions engineering team that validated the solution.
18
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Question
Example answer
Backup/Truncation Failure Tolerance (days)
3
Included number of years’ growth
1
Annual growth rate (number of mailboxes, %)
11%
After you have received a completed qualification worksheet from the customer, and
entered those answers into the VSPEX Sizing Tool, you will see results similar to those
shown below:

Required resources table listing the number of virtual machines and their
characteristics.

Storage recommendations table listing the additional storage layout required to
run Exchange Server. This is in addition to VSPEX private cloud pool.

Performance metrics table listing the key performance metrics to be achieved in
the Jetstress tests. EMC recommends running Jetstress tests to verify the
Exchange performance before putting Exchange in the production environment.
For more information, refer to the Exchange Server performance verification
section of this guide.
Table 7, Table 8, and Table 9, are examples based on the customer information
provided in Table 6. In this example, you need to set up eight Exchange Mailbox
servers and four Client Access servers to support the Exchange requirements. Then
you can determine the equivalent number of reference virtual machines required for
each Exchange server role by calculating the maximum of the individual resources
(CPU, memory, capacity, and IOPS).
Table 7.
Exchange Server role
Resource
requirements
Mailbox
server
Client
Access
server
Example of required resources—medium Exchange organization
vCPU
Memory
OS volume
capacity
OS volume
IOPS
12
68 GB
300 GB
Less than
25
Equivalent
reference
virtual
machines
12
34
3
1
Resource
requirements
8
20 GB
100 GB
Less than
25
Equivalent
reference
virtual
machines
8
10
Total equivalent reference virtual machines
1
No. of
virtual
machines
Total
reference
virtual
machines
8
272
4
40
1
312
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
For example, each Mailbox server requires twelve vCPUs, 68 GB of memory, 300 GB of
storage, and 25 IOPS. This translates to:

Twelve reference virtual machines for CPU

Thirty four reference virtual machines for memory

Three reference virtual machine for capacity

One reference virtual machine for IOPS
The values round up to 34 reference virtual machines for each Mailbox server,
multiplied by the number of virtual machines needed (eight in this example), which
results in 272 reference virtual machines in total for the Mailbox server role:
34 reference virtual machines x 8 virtual machines = 272 total
reference virtual machines
For more details about how to calculate the equivalent reference virtual machines,
refer to the appropriate document in Essential reading.
Table 8.
Sample storage recommendations—medium Exchange organization
Recommended additional storage layout
Storage pool name
RAID type
Disk type
Disk
capacity
No. of
disks
Exchange database pool 1
RAID 1/0 (16+16)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
32
Exchange database pool 2
RAID 1/0 (16+16)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
32
Exchange log pool 1
RAID 1/0 (2+2)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
4
Exchange log pool 2
RAID 1/0 (2+2)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
4
Table 9.
Sample performance key metrics—Jetstress tool
Performance counters
Target values
Achieved Exchange transactional IOPS
Number of mailboxes * Exchange 2013 user IOPS profile
(I/O database reads/sec + I/O database writes/sec)
20
I/O database reads/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
I/O database writes/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
Total IOPS (I/O database reads/sec + I/O database
writes/sec + BDM reads/sec + I/O log replication
reads/sec + I/O log writes/sec)
N/A (for analysis purpose)
I/O database reads average latency (ms)
Less than 20 ms
I/O log reads average latency (ms)
Less than 10 ms
EMC VSPEX for Virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2013 with VMware vSphere
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
Essential reading
EMC recommends that you read the following documents, available from the VSPEX
space in the EMC Community Network or from EMC.com or the VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure partner portal.
VSPEX Design
Guide
Refer to the following VSPEX Design Guide:
VSPEX Solution
Overviews
Refer to the following VSPEX Solution Overview documents:
VSPEX Proven
Infrastructures

EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for Virtualized Exchange 2013

EMC VSPEX Server Virtualization for Midmarket Businesses

EMC VSPEX Server Virtualization for Small and Medium Businesses
Refer to the following VSPEX Proven Infrastructure documents:

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.1 for up to 100 Virtual Machines

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud VMware vSphere 5.1 for up to 500 Virtual Machines
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Chapter 2: Before You Start
22
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Chapter 3: Solution Overview
Chapter 3
Solution Overview
This chapter presents the following topics:
Overview ..................................................................................................................24
Solution architecture ............................................................................................... 24
Key components ......................................................................................................25
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Chapter 3: Solution Overview
Overview
This chapter provides an overview of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized
Exchange 2013 and the key technologies used in this solution. The solution has been
proven and designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud, which uses storage,
compute, and network resources. The solution enables customers to quickly and
consistently deploy a virtualized Exchange organization in a VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure. VNX/VNXe and VMware vSphere virtualized Windows Server platforms
provide storage and server hardware consolidation.
This Implementation Guide supports all VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized
Exchange solutions with VMware and VNX/VNXe. This guide uses, as working
examples, 500 virtual machines enabled by EMC VNX and VMware vSphere 5.1, and
50 virtual machines enabled by EMC VNXe and VMware vSphere 5.1.
The VNX and VNXe storage arrays are multiprotocol platforms that can support
different file and block protocols depending on the customer’s specific needs. The
solution was validated using iSCSI storage for Exchange database and log files.
This solution requires the presence of Active Directory (AD) and Domain Name System
(DNS). The implementation of these services is beyond the scope of this guide, but
they are considered prerequisites for a successful deployment.
Solution architecture
Figure 1 shows an example of the architecture that characterizes the infrastructure
validated for the support of Exchange 2013 layered on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure.
All Exchange servers are deployed as virtual machines on a vSphere cluster, and any
VNX or VNXe model that has been validated as part of the VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure can be used to provide the back-end storage functionality.
In this example, we set up eight Exchange Mailbox servers and four Exchange Client
Access servers to meet a medium Exchange organization’s requirements, as
described in Table 6. The Exchange Server virtual machine boot volumes are stored in
virtual machine data file (VMDK) format on NFS datastores, and the Exchange Server
database and log volumes are stored in RDM format on iSCSI native disks.
Note: This solution applies to all VSPEX offerings on VMware.
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Chapter 3: Solution Overview
Figure 1.
Solution architecture
For more details, refer to the appropriate document in Essential reading.
Key components
Introduction
This section provides an overview of the technologies used in this solution:

Microsoft Exchange 2013

EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure

EMC VNX and EMC VNXe

EMC Unisphere

VMware vSphere 5.1

EMC Virtual Storage Integrator for VMware

VNX VMware vStorage API for Array Integration Support

EMC XtremSW Cache
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
Microsoft
Exchange 2013
EMC PowerPath/VE
Microsoft Exchange 2013 is an enterprise email and communication system that
allows businesses and customers to collaborate and share information. EMC
enhances Exchange 2013 with the industry’s broadest choice of storage platforms,
software, and services.
Exchange 2013 builds on the Exchange Server 2010 architecture and has been
redesigned for simplicity of scale, hardware utilization, and failure isolation.
Exchange 2013 uses Database Availability Groups (DAGs) and mailbox database
copies, along with other features such as single item recovery, retention policies, and
lagged database copies, to provide high availability, site resilience, and Exchange
native data protection. The high availability platform, the Exchange Information Store,
and the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), have all been enhanced to provide greater
availability, easier management, and to reduce costs.
Improvements with the application database structure and input/output (I/O)
reduction include support for a larger variety of disk and RAID configurations,
including high-performance Flash, Fibre Channel (FC), and serial-attached SCSI (SAS)
drives; and slower-performing SATA and near-line serial-attached SCSI (NL-SAS)
drives.
In Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010, different server roles were defined and allowed
scale out through server separation, including Mailbox server, Client Access server,
Hub Transport server, Edge Transport server and Unified Messaging server. In
Exchange 2013, the number of server roles has been reduced to two: the Client
Access server role and the Mailbox server role, as shown in Table 10.
Table 10.
Exchange 2013 server roles
Role
Function
Mailbox server
 Client Access protocols
 Transport service
 Mailbox databases
 Unified Messaging (Except SIP redirection)
 Handles all activities for active mailboxes on the server
Client Access server
 Authentication
 Redirection (limited)
 Proxy services for HTTP, POP, IMAP and SMTP
 Thin and stateless server
 Does not do any data rendering
 Nothing is queued or stored here (except diagnostic
logging)
At the time of publication, an Exchange 2013 version of the Edge Transport server is
not available. If customers need an Edge Transport server, they can install an
Exchange 2007 or Exchange 2010 Edge Transport server in the perimeter network.
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EMC VSPEX Proven VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, as shown in Figure 2, are modular virtualized
infrastructures validated by EMC and delivered by EMC’s VSPEX partners. VSPEX
Infrastructure
includes a virtualization layer, server and network layers, and EMC unified storage,
designed by EMC to deliver reliable and predictable performance.
VSPEX provides the flexibility to choose network, server, and virtualization
technologies that fit a customer’s environment to create a complete virtualization
solution. VSPEX delivers faster deployment for EMC partner customers, with greater
simplicity and efficiency, more choice, and lower risk to a customer’s business.
Figure 2.
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure
Application-based solutions such as Exchange can be deployed on VSPEX Proven
Infrastructures. We validated the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized Exchange
2013 using VNX/VNXe and a VMware virtualized Windows Server platform to provide
storage and server hardware consolidation. The virtualized infrastructure is centrally
managed, and enables you to efficiently deploy and manage a scalable number of
virtual machines and associated shared storage.
EMC VNX and VNXe The EMC VNX family, including VNXe, is optimized for virtual applications delivering
industry-leading innovation and enterprise capabilities for file, block, and object
storage in a scalable, easy-to-use solution. This next-generation storage platform
combines powerful and flexible hardware with advanced efficiency, management,
and protection software to meet the demanding needs of today’s enterprises.
The VNX family is powered by Intel Xeon processors, for intelligent storage that
automatically and efficiently scales in performance, while ensuring data integrity and
security.
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The VNX series is designed to meet the high-performance, high-scalability
requirements of midsize and large enterprises. The VNXe series is purpose-built for
the IT manager in smaller environments.
VNX features
VNX supports the following features:

Next-generation unified storage, optimized for virtualized applications

Capacity optimization features including compression, deduplication, thin
provisioning, and application-centric copies

High availability, designed to deliver five 9s availability

Automated tiering with FAST VP (Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual
Pools) and FAST™ Cache that can be optimized for the highest system
performance and lowest storage cost simultaneously

Multiprotocol support for file, block, and object with object access through EMC
Atmos® Virtual Edition (Atmos VE)

Simplified management with EMC Unisphere for a single management interface
for all network-attached storage (NAS), storage-area network (SAN), and
replication needs

Up to three times improvement in performance with the latest Intel Xeon
multicore processor technology, optimized for Flash
VNXe features
VNXe supports the following features:

Next-generation unified storage, optimized for virtualized applications

Capacity optimization features including compression, deduplication, thin
provisioning, and application-centric copies

High availability, designed to deliver five 9s availability

Multiprotocol support for file and block

Simplified management with EMC Unisphere for a single management interface
for all NAS, SAN, and replication needs
VNX software suites
Table 11 lists the software suites that are available with VNX.
Table 11.
28
VNX software suites
Suite
Features
FAST Suite
Automatically optimizes for the highest system
performance and the lowest storage cost
simultaneously
Local Protection Suite
Practices safe data protection and repurposing
Remote Protection Suite
Protects data against localized failures, outages, and
disasters
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Suite
Features
Application Protection Suite
Automates application copies and proves compliance
Security and Compliance Suite
Keeps data safe from changes, deletions, and malicious
activity
VNX software packs
Table 12 lists the software packs that are available with VNX.
Table 12.
VNX software packs
Pack
Features
Total Efficiency Pack
Includes all five software suites
Total Protection Pack
Includes local, remote, and application protection suites
VNXe software suites
Table 13 lists the software suites that are available with VNXe.
Table 13.
VNXe software suites
Suite
Features
Local Protection Suite
Increases productivity with snapshots of production
data
Remote Protection Suite
Protects data against localized failures, outages, and
disasters
Application Protection Suite
Automates application copies and proves compliance
Security and Compliance Suite
Keeps data safe from changes, deletions, and malicious
activity
VNXe software packs available
Table 14 lists the software packs that are available with VNXe.
Table 14.
EMC Unisphere
VNXe software packs
Pack
Features
VNXe3300 Total
Protection Pack
Includes local, remote, and application protection suites
VNXe3150 Total Value
Pack
Includes remote and application protection suites, and
security and compliance suite
EMC Unisphere is the next-generation unified storage management platform that
provides intuitive user interfaces for the newest range of unified platforms including
the VNX and VNXe series. Unisphere’s approach to storage management fosters
simplicity, flexibility, self-help, and automation—all key requirements for the journey
to the cloud. Unisphere can be customized to the needs of a mid-size company, a
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Chapter 3: Solution Overview
department within a large enterprise, or a smaller remote or branch office
environment. With Unisphere’s pluggable architecture, it is easily extensible and
continues its seamless support for additional EMC offerings, including integration
with data protection and security.
VMware vSphere
5.1
VMware vSphere 5.1 transforms a computer’s physical resources, by virtualizing the
CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network controller. This transformation creates fully
functional virtual machines that run isolated and encapsulated operating systems
and applications just like physical computers.
The high-availability features of vSphere 5.1, such as vMotion and Storage vMotion,
enable seamless migration of virtual machines and stored files from one vSphere
server to another with minimal or no performance impact. Coupled with vSphere
Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and Storage DRS, virtual machines have access
to the appropriate resources at any point in time through load balancing of compute
and storage resources.
VMware Native Multipathing
VMware Native Multipathing (NMP) is the default module in vSphere used for
multipathing. It provides a default path selection algorithm based on the array type.
NMP associates a set of physical paths with a specific storage device, or LUN. The
specific details of handling path failover for a given storage array are delegated to a
Storage Array Type Plug-In (SATP). The specific details for determining which physical
path is used to issue an I/O request to a storage device are handled by a Path
Selection Plug-In (PSP). SATPs and PSPs are sub plug-ins within the NMP module.
30
EMC Virtual
Storage Integrator
for VMware
EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) for VMware vSphere is a plug-in to the vSphere
client that provides a single management interface that is used for managing EMC
storage within the vSphere environment. Features can be added and removed from
VSI independently, which provides flexibility for customizing VSI user environments.
Features are managed using the VSI Feature Manager. VSI provides a unified user
experience, which allows new features to be introduced rapidly in response to
changing customer requirements.
VNX VMware
vStorage APIs for
Array Integration
Hardware acceleration with VMware vStorage APIs for Array Integration (VAAI) is a
storage enhancement in vSphere 5.1 that enables vSphere to offload specific storage
operations to compatible storage hardware such as the VNX family platforms. With
storage hardware assistance, vSphere performs these operations faster and
consumes less CPU, memory, and storage fabric bandwidth.
EMC XtremSW
Cache
If your customer has special performance requirements on Exchange Server, consider
using EMC XtremSW Cache as a solution. EMC XtremSW Cache (formerly known as
EMC VFCache) is intelligent caching software that leverages server-based Flash
technology to reduce latency and accelerate throughput for dramatic application
performance improvement. XtremSW Cache accelerates reads and protects data by
using a write-through cache to the networked storage to deliver persistent high
availability, integrity, and disaster recovery. XtremSW Cache, coupled with arraybased EMC FAST software, creates the most efficient and intelligent I/O path from the
application to the data store. The result is a networked infrastructure that is
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dynamically optimized for performance, intelligence, and protection for both physical
and virtual environments.
EMC PowerPath/VE EMC recommends installing PowerPath/VE on VMware ESXi hosts for advanced
multipathing functionality such as intelligent path testing and performance
optimization.
EMC PowerPath/VE provides intelligent, high-performance path management with
path failover and load balancing optimized for EMC and selected third-party storage
systems. PowerPath/VE supports multiple paths between a vSphere host and an
external storage device. Having multiple paths enables the vSphere host to access a
storage device, even if a specific path is unavailable. Multiple paths can also share
the I/O traffic to a storage device. PowerPath/VE is particularly beneficial in highly
available environments because it can prevent operational interruptions and
downtime. The PowerPath/VE path failover capability avoids host failure by
maintaining uninterrupted application support on the host in the event of a path
failure (if another path is available).
PowerPath/VE works with VMware ESXi as a Multipath Plug-in (MPP) that provides
path management to hosts. It is installed as a kernel module on the vSphere host. It
plugs in to the vSphere I/O stack framework to bring the advanced multipathing
capabilities of PowerPath/VE including dynamic load balancing and automatic
failover to the vSphere hosts.
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Chapter 4: Solution Implementation
Chapter 4
Solution Implementation
This chapter presents the following topics:
Overview ..................................................................................................................33
Physical setup..........................................................................................................33
Network implementation .......................................................................................... 33
Storage implementation .......................................................................................... 34
ESXi and vCenter implementation ............................................................................55
Multipathing implementation ..................................................................................57
Exchange Server virtualization implementation ....................................................... 58
Application implementation ..................................................................................... 63
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Overview
This chapter describes how to implement the solution. If you already have a VSPEX
Proven Infrastructure environment, you can skip the sections for the implementation
steps already completed.
Physical setup
This section includes information about the preparation of the solution physical
components. After you complete the steps listed in Table 15, the new hardware
components will be racked, cabled, powered, and ready for network connection.
Table 15.
Tasks for physical setup
Task
Description
Reference
Prepare network
switches
Install switches in the rack
and connect them to power.
Your vendor’s installation
guide
Prepare servers
Install the servers in the rack
and connect them to power.
Your vendor’s installation
guide
Prepare VNX/VNXe
Install the VNX/VNXe in the
rack and connect it to power.
 VNXe Installation Guide
 VNX Unified Installation
Guide
For details of the physical setup, refer to the appropriate document in Essential
reading.
Network implementation
This section provides the requirements for the network infrastructure needed to
support this architecture. Table 16 provides a summary of the tasks for switch and
network configuration and references for further information.
Table 16.
Tasks for switch and network configuration
Task
Description
Reference
Configure
infrastructure
network
Configure the storage array and
VMware host infrastructure
networking as specified in the
solution Reference Architecture.
Refer to the appropriate VSPEX
Proven Infrastructure document
in Essential reading.
Complete
network
cabling
Connect:
 Switch interconnect ports
 VNX/VNXe ports
 ESXi server ports
Configure VLAN
Configure private and public
VLANs as required.
Vendor’s switch configuration
guide
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For details of network implementation, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure document in Essential reading.
Storage implementation
Overview
This section describes how to configure the VNX/VNXe storage array. In this solution,
the VNX/VNXe provides Network File System (NFS) for file variant or LUNs for block
variant to VMware hosts. This guide takes iSCSI as a block storage example for the
Exchange 2013 database and log volumes. If you already have a VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure environment on other block protocols, refer to the relevant VSPEX
Proven Infrastructure document in Essential reading for more information about
storage implementation.
Note: Microsoft has support policies on the types of storage (file or block protocols) that can
be used by the Exchange 2013 virtual machines for Exchange data. For detailed information,
refer to the Microsoft TechNet topic Exchange 2013 Virtualization.
Table 17 provides a summary of the tasks for storage configuration, and references
for further information.
Table 17.
Tasks for storage configuration
Task
Description
Reference
Set up initial
VNX/VNXe
configuration
Configure the IP address
information and other key
parameters on the VNX/VNXe.
 VNXe Installation Guide
Provision storage
for NFS datastores
Create NFS file systems that
will be presented to the ESXi
servers as NFS datastores that
host the virtual servers.
Provision storage
for iSCSI
34
Configure iSCSI on VNX/VNXe
and present iSCSI disks to
VMware ESXi servers to house
Exchange data.
 VNX Unified Installation
Guide
 EMC VNXe Series Using a
VNXe System with Generic
iSCSI Storage
 EMC Host Connectivity
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Guide for VMware ESX
Server
Chapter 4: Solution Implementation
Example
architectures
Figure 3 illustrates an example of the high-level architecture with Exchange Server
components and storage elements validated in an EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure
for virtualized Exchange 2013 on a VMware vSphere virtualization platform and VNX
storage array.
Figure 3.
Exchange 2013 storage elements on a vSphere 5.1 and VNX platform
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Figure 4 illustrates an example of the high-level architecture with Exchange 2013
components and storage elements validated in an EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure
for virtualized Exchange 2013 on a VMware vSphere virtualization platform and VNXe
storage array.
Figure 4.
Setting up initial
VNX/VNXe
configuration
36
Exchange 2013 storage elements on a vSphere 5.1 and VNXe platform
Ensure that network interfaces, IP address information, and other key parameters
such as DNS and NTP are configured on the VNX/VNXe before storage provisioning.
For more information, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document
in Essential reading.
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Provisioning
storage for NFS
datastore
In this solution, VMware NFS datastores are used to store the virtual disks of the
virtual machine operating system. Before you provision the storage for the NFS
datastore, follow the recommendations and VSPEX Sizing Tool proposals introduced
in the Design Guide.
For detailed information on configuring NFS file systems and provisioning storage for
the virtual machine operating system on VNX or VNXe, refer to the appropriate VSPEX
Proven Infrastructure document in Essential reading.
Using EMC VSI Unified Storage Management
To provision storage for NFS datastores, you can also use VSI Unified Storage
Management (USM). VSI USM is a feature of VSI for VMware vSphere designed to
simplify storage administration on EMC storage platforms including VNX/VNXe. The
feature enables VMware administrators to provision new NFS or VMFS datastores,
and RDM volumes, directly from the vSphere Client.
After installing VSI USM, you can add the VNX/VNXe storage array into USM for
management and then perform the NFS provisioning. There are two options when
provisioning NFS datastores: create a new NFS export, or use an existing NFS export.
In some environments, VMware administrators may not have the necessary privileges
to create NAS file systems and NFS exports, or may not need to do so if such tasks are
completed by a storage administrator. In such cases they can use the provision
storage feature to attach ESX/ESXi hosts to existing NFS exports.
Complete the following steps to provision NAS storage on a new NFS export:
1.
In vSphere client, right-click an object (the object can be a host, cluster,
folder, or data center), and select EMC  Unified Storage  Provision Storage.
2.
Select Network File System and follow the Provision Storage wizard to create a
new NFS export. Figure 5 shows an example.
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Figure 5.
NFS datastore provisioning with VSI USM
For detailed steps on how to use VSI USM for NFS provisioning, refer to the EMC VSI
for VMware vSphere: Unified Storage Management—Product Guide.
Provisioning
storage for iSCSI
disks
In this solution, all the Exchange Server database and log volumes are stored in
VMware native iSCSI disks. Before you provision the storage for the iSCSI disks,
follow the recommendations and VSPEX Sizing Tool proposals introduced in the
Design Guide.
Provisioning iSCSI storage on VNXe
Table 18 shows an example of storage pools for Exchange data in VNXe, in addition
to the VSPEX private cloud pool.
Table 18.
38
Example additional storage pools for Exchange data on VNXe
Storage pool name
RAID type
Disk type
Disk capacity
No. of disks
Exchange data pool 1
RAID 5 (4+1)
15,000 rpm SAS disks
600 GB
10
Exchange data pool 2
RAID 5 (4+1)
15,000 rpm SAS disks
600 GB
10
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Table 19 shows an example of iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange databases and
transaction logs.
Table 19.
Server role
Exchange Mailbox server 1
Exchange Mailbox server 2
Example iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange data on VNXe
LUN name
LUN size
No. of LUNs
Database LUNs
1,520 GB
2
Log LUNs
90 GB
2
Database LUNs
1,520 GB
2
Log LUNs
90 GB
2
Storage pool name
Exchange data pool 1
Exchange data pool 2
To provision storage for Exchange 2013 databases and logs on VNXe, use EMC
Unisphere to:
1.
Configure an iSCSI server.
2.
Create a storage pool.
3.
Create iSCSI virtual disk storage.
Configuring an iSCSI server
Complete the following steps in EMC Unisphere to configure iSCSI servers on the
VNXe array to be used to store Exchange data:
1.
In Unisphere, select Settings  iSCSI Server Settings  Add iSCSI Server. The
wizard appears.
2.
Enter the following and click Next:
3.
a.
Server Name: Name for the iSCSI server.
b.
IP Address: IP address of the iSCSI server.
c.
Subnet mask: Subnet mask of the iSCSI server.
Click Finish and then click Close when the message appears that the iSCSI
server was created successfully.
Creating a storage pool
Complete the following steps in EMC Unisphere to create storage pools on the VNXe
array to be used to store Exchange data:
1.
Log in to Unisphere as an administrator.
2.
Select System  Storage Pools, as shown in Figure 6.
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Figure 6.
3.
Open the Disk Configuration wizard by clicking Configure Disks.
4.
Select the storage pool configuration mode by selecting Manually create a
new pool by Disk Type, as shown in Figure 7, and then click Next.
Figure 7.
5.
40
Selecting storage pools
Creating a new pool
The Specify Pool Name dialog box opens. Type a name and an optional
description for the storage pool, as shown in Figure 8, and then click Next.
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Figure 8.
6.
The Select Storage Type window appears. Select a disk type for the storage
pool, as shown in Figure 9. In this example, select SAS disks using RAID 5
(4+1). Click Next.
Figure 9.
7.
Specifying a pool name
Selecting the storage type
Select the number of disks to use for the storage pool according to the VSPEX
Sizing Tool recommendation, as shown in Figure 10, and then click Next.
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Figure 10. Specifying the number of storage disks
8.
The Summary window opens. Verify that the information is correct, then click
Finish.
Note: For an Exchange 2013 DAG deployment, provision each DAG copy in a separate
storage pool. The example presented above is sufficient for one DAG copy. Repeat this
procedure for each additional DAG copy.
Creating iSCSI virtual disk storage
Complete the following steps in EMC Unisphere to create iSCSI disks on the VNXe
array to be used to store Exchange data. You can provision storage for Exchange 2007
or 2010 using the VNXe Exchange wizard; for Exchange 2013, you need to use the
generic iSCSI storage wizard:
1.
Log in to Unisphere as an administrator.
2.
Select Storage  Generic iSCSI Storage , as shown in Figure 11, and then click
Create.
Figure 11. Configuring storage
3.
42
The Generic iSCSI Storage wizard opens. Type a name and description for this
iSCSI storage, and click Next.
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4.
The Configure Storage dialog box appears. Select the storage pool created
previously for the DAG copy, as shown in Figure 12, and type the size of the
first Exchange database LUN. Then click Next.
Figure 12. Selecting the storage pool
5.
The Configure Protection dialog box appears. Select the protection options for
the storage pool, according to the VSPEX Sizing Tool recommendation and
then click Next. In this solution, do not enable snapshots.
6.
The Configure Host Access dialog box appears. Specify the host access for
this deployment, as shown in Figure 13. In this solution, assign access rights
to both nodes in the cluster, and then click Next.
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Figure 13. Configuring host access
7.
The Summary window opens. Verify the details, and then click Finish.
8.
The Results dialog box appears. Review the results and ensure the job
completes successfully. Select Add Virtual Disk, as shown in Figure 14, and
then click Close. The Virtual Disk wizard appears to allow you to continue to
create additional Exchange database and log LUNs.
Figure 14. Adding Virtual Disk
9.
44
Repeat the above steps until all Exchange database and log LUNs from the
same DAG copy are added as virtual disks. Figure 15 shows the iSCSI storage
created for one DAG copy.
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Figure 15. Virtual disks for Exchange database and log
Note: The steps presented above are sufficient for one DAG copy. Repeat this procedure for
each additional DAG copy.
10. The Summary window opens. Verify the details, and then click Finish.
Provisioning iSCSI storage on VNX
Table 20 shows an example of storage pools for Exchange data on VNX, in addition to
the VSPEX private cloud pool.
Table 20.
Example additional storage pools for Exchange data on VNX
Storage pool name
RAID type
Disk type
Disk capacity
No. of disks
Exchange database pool 1
RAID 1/0 (16+16)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
32
Exchange database pool 2
RAID 1/0 (16+16)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
32
Exchange log pool 1
RAID 1/0 (2+2)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
4
Exchange log pool 2
RAID 1/0 (2+2)
7,200 rpm NL-SAS disks
3 TB
4
Complete the following steps in EMC Unisphere to configure iSCSI network settings
and storage pools:
1.
In Unisphere, select the VNX array that is to be used in this solution.
2.
Select Settings  Network  Settings for Block.
3.
Configure the IP address for network ports used for iSCSI.
4.
Select Storage  Storage Configuration  Storage Pools.
5.
Click the Pools tab and create the additional storage pools on the VNX for
Exchange database and transaction logs. Refer to Table 20 for detailed
information.
To configure iSCSI LUNs and unmask LUNs to VMware hosts, you can either use
Unisphere or EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI).
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Complete the following steps in EMC Unisphere to configure iSCSI LUNs and unmask
LUNs on the VNX array:
1.
Right click a storage pool and click Create LUN to provision the LUNs in each
of the pools. Table 21 shows an example of iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange
databases and transaction logs.
2.
In Unisphere, select Host  Storage Groups.
3.
Complete the following steps to create storage groups to unmask LUNs to the
ESXi hosts:
a.
Click Create and type a name for the storage group.
b.
Click Yes to finish the creation.
c.
In the prompt dialog, click Yes to select LUNs or connect hosts.
d.
Click the LUNs tab. In the Available LUNs panel, select all the LUNs
created in the previous steps and click Add.
e.
Click the Hosts tab. In the Available Hosts panel, select the ESXi servers
to be used and add them into the The Hosts to be Connected panel. Click
OK to finish.
Table 21.
46
Example iSCSI LUN layout for Exchange data on VNX
Server role
LUN name
LUN size
No. of LUNs
Storage pool name
Exchange Mailbox
server 1
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 1
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 1
Exchange Mailbox
server 2
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 2
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 2
Exchange Mailbox
server 3
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 1
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 1
Exchange Mailbox
server 4
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 2
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 2
Exchange Mailbox
server 5
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 1
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 1
Exchange Mailbox
server 6
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 2
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 2
Exchange Mailbox
server 7
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 1
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 1
Exchange Mailbox
server 8
Database LUNs
1,900 GB
4
Exchange database pool 2
Log LUNs
110 GB
4
Exchange log pool 2
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You can also use VSI USM to configure iSCSI LUNs and unmask LUNs to VMware
hosts. To do this, follow these steps:
1.
In vSphere client, right-click an object (the object can be a host, cluster,
folder, or data center), and select EMC  Unified Storage  Provision Storage.
2.
Select Disk/LUN and follow the Provision Storage wizard to connect the VNX
storage array and select the storage pools.
3.
Follow the remaining steps in the wizard to create iSCSI LUNs and configure
RDM, as shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16.
iSCSI LUN configuration in VSI USM
For detailed steps, refer to the EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: Unified Storage
Management—Product Guide.
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FAST Cache
configuration
The following sections describe FAST Cache and FAST VP implementation steps on the
VNX storage array. Due to the changes in Exchange 2013 storage architecture,
resulting in lower I/O to storage devices and the trend to deploy larger mailboxes,
many Exchange designs are capable of utilizing high-capacity, low revolutions per
minute (rpm) drives (for example, 7.2k rpm NL-SAS). However, there are Exchange
configurations with considerably higher I/O demands and smaller mailbox
requirements that would benefit from adding Flash drives and enabling the FAST
Cache or FAST VP feature.
Enabling FAST Cache is a transparent operation to Exchange and no reconfiguration
or downtime is necessary. To make the best use of either of the FAST technologies,
EMC recommends that you enable FAST Cache on the Exchange database storage
pools. Do not enable FAST Cache on the Exchange log storage pools. For more details,
refer to the Design Guide.
To create and configure FAST Cache, use the following steps:
1.
Refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in Essential
reading for detailed steps about how to create FAST Cache.
2.
In Unisphere, after the FAST Cache is created, click the Storage tab and select
Storage Pool. Select an Exchange database pool, and click Properties.
3.
Click the Advanced tab in Storage Pool Properties and click Enabled to enable
FAST Cache, as shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17. Storage Pool Properties—FAST Cache enabled
4.
Click OK to complete the configuration.
Note: The FAST Cache feature on the VNX series array does not cause an instant performance
improvement. The system must collect data about access patterns and promote frequently
used information into the cache. This process can take a few hours during which the
performance of the array steadily improves.
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FAST VP
configuration
If FAST VP is the enabled technology on the VNX system, you can use this by adding
additional Flash disks (or SAS disks) as an extreme performance tier (or a
performance tier) into the Exchange database pool. For more information about FAST
VP design considerations for Exchange, refer to the Design Guide.
To add Flash disks to an existing Exchange database pool, use the following steps:
1.
In Unisphere, click the Storage tab, then select Storage Pool.
2.
Select an Exchange database pool and click Properties.
3.
Select Disks Type and click Expand to show the Expand Storage Pool dialog
box.
4.
In the Extreme Performance section, select the number of Flash disks and
RAID configuration to add into the Exchange database storage pool for tiering.
EMC recommends using RAID 5 for the extreme performance tier in the
Exchange database storage pool.
The bottom section of the screen shows the Flash drives that will be used for the
extreme performance tier. You can choose the drives manually by selecting the
Manual option, as shown in Figure 18.
Figure 18.
Expand Storage Pool dialog box
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XtremSW Cache
configuration
In a VMware environment, the XtremSW Cache card resides on the ESXi server, while
XtremSW Cache software is installed on each of the virtual machines that are
accelerated by XtremSW Cache. The XtremSW Cache VSI plug-in, which resides on the
vCenter client, is used to manage XtremSW Cache. XtremSW Cache can accelerate
performance for either RDM or VMFS LUNs in a VMware environment. For more
information about XtremSW Cache design considerations for Exchange, refer to the
Design Guide.
The XtremSW Cache installation is distributed over various components of the
vSphere system. The XtremSW Cache components in a VMware environment are:

XtremSW Cache driver for PCIe card

XtremSW Cache and Agent software in the virtual machines hosted by ESXi
servers

XtremSW Cache VSI plug-in in the VMware vSphere client
Perform the following steps to configure XtremSW Cache in a VMware environment:
50
1.
Install the XtremSW Cache PCIe Flash device.
2.
Install and configure the XtremSW Cache software in the virtual machines.
3.
Use the vfcmt command to enable or disable the XtremSW Cache cache
device.
4.
Use the vfcmt command to add or remove the source device.
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Using VSI to create and configure XtremSW Cache
XtremSW Cache is integrated with the VSI plug-in to simplify XtremSW Cache
management and monitoring. To create and configure XtremSW Cache through the
VMware VSI plug-in, perform the following steps:
1.
Create an XtremSW Cache device by carving the space from the XtremSW
Cache data store, as shown in Figure 19.
Figure 19.
2.
Creating XtremSW Cache device
Add XtremSW Cache to a virtual machine, and add source LUNs from the
virtual machine, as shown in Figure 20.
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Figure 20.
3.
Adding XtremSW Cache device and source LUNS
Monitor XtremSW Cache usage and statistics through the VSI plug-in the GUI.
For more information, refer to EMC VFCache Installation Guide for VMware and EMC
VFCache VMware VSI Plug-in Administration Guide.
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Example storage
layouts
Figure 21 shows an example storage layout for VNXe. The number of disks used in the
VSPEX private cloud pool may vary according to your customer’s requirements. For
detailed information, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in
Essential reading.
Figure 21.
Example storage layout for VNXe
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Figure 22 shows an example storage layout for VNX. The number of disks used in the
VSPEX private cloud pool may vary according to your customer’s requirements. For
detailed information, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in
Essential reading.
Figure 22.
54
Example storage layout for VNX
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ESXi and vCenter implementation
This section provides the requirements for the installation and configuration of the
ESXi hosts, vCenter, and infrastructure servers required to support the solution
architecture. Table 22 describes the tasks that must be completed.
Table 22.
Steps for ESXi and vCenter installation and configuration
Task
Description
Reference
Install ESXi
Install the ESXi 5.1 hypervisor on the
physical servers that are being deployed for
the solution.
vSphere Installation and Setup
Configure ESXi
networking
Configure ESXi networking (including NIC
trunking), vmkernel ports (including those
for NFS and iSCSI), virtual machine port
groups, and Jumbo Frames.
vSphere Networking
Configure
multipathing
Configure VMware NMP or install
PowerPath/VE multipathing software on
ESXi hosts.
Multipathing implementation
Configure ESXi iSCSI
adapters
Configure ESXi iSCSI adapters to connect
iSCSI disks to ESXi hosts.
Connect VMware
datastores
Connect the VMware datastore to the ESXi
hosts deployed for the solution.
Create a virtual
machine for
Microsoft SQL Server
for vCenter server
database
Create a virtual machine to host SQL Server
that will be used for the vCenter Server
database. Verify that the virtual server
meets the hardware and software
requirements.
Install Microsoft
Windows on the
virtual machine
Install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
Standard Edition on the virtual machine
that is created to host SQL Server.
Install SQL Server
Install SQL Server on the virtual machine
designated for that purpose.
Configure database
for VMware vCenter
Create the database required for the
vCenter server on the appropriate
datastore.
Preparing vCenter Server
Databases
Configure database
for VMware Update
Manager
Create the database required for Update
Manager on the appropriate datastore.
Preparing the Update Manager
Database
Create the vCenter
Server virtual
machine
Create a virtual machine to be used for the
VMware vCenter Server.
vSphere Virtual Machine
Administration
Install vCenter guest
OS
Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard
Edition on the vCenter host virtual machine.
N/A
vSphere Storage
Microsoft TechNet
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Task
Description
Update the virtual
machine
Install VMware Tools, enable hardware
acceleration, and enable remote console
access.
Create vCenter ODBC
connections
Create the 64-bit vCenter and 32-bit vCenter
Update Manager ODBC connections.
Reference
vSphere Virtual Machine
Administration
 vSphere Installation and
Setup
 Installing and Administering
VMware vSphere Update
Manager
Install vCenter Server
Install vCenter Server software.
vSphere Installation and Setup
Install vCenter
Update Manager
Install vCenter Update Manager software.
Installing and Administering
VMware vSphere Update Manager
Create a virtual data
center
Create a virtual data center.
vCenter Server and Host
Management
Apply vSphere
license keys
Type the vSphere license keys in the
vCenter licensing menu.
Add ESXi hosts
Connect vCenter to ESXi hosts.
Configure vSphere
clustering
Create a vSphere cluster and move the ESXi
hosts into it.
Perform array ESXi
host discovery
Perform ESXi host discovery within the
Unisphere console on VNX/VNXe.
vSphere Installation and Setup
vCenter Server and Host
Management
vSphere Resource Management
 Using EMC VNX Storage with
VMware vSphere–TechBook
 Using an EMC VNXe System
with VMware
Enable VMware High
Availability (HA),
DRS, and vMotion
functionality
After you enable DRS, EMC recommends
you use VMware vSphere DRS Affinity and
Anti-Affinity rules for specific groups of
virtual machines, for example, groups of
Mailbox servers, which should never reside
on the same host if they are hosting the
copies of the same databases in a DAG.
Install the vCenter
Update Manager
plug-in
Install the vCenter Update Manager plug-in
on the administration console.
Deploy the VNX VAAI
for NFS plug-in
Using VMware Update Manager, deploy the
VNX VAAI for NFS plug-in to all ESXi hosts.
N/A
Installing and Administering
VMware vSphere Update Manager
 EMC VNX VAAI NFS plug-in installation HOWTO video
available at
www.youtube.com
 Installing and Administering
VMware vSphere Update
Manager
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Task
Description
Install the EMC VNX
UEM CLI
Install the EMC VNX Unisphere command
line interface (UEM CLI) on the
administration console.
Install the EMC VSI
plug-in
Install the EMC VSI plug-in on the
administration console.
Reference
EMC VSI for VMware vSphere:
Unified Storage Management—
Product Guide
 EMC VSI for VMware vSphere:
Storage Viewer—Product
Guide
 EMC VSI for VMware vSphere:
Unified Storage
Management—Product Guide
For details of ESXi and vCenter installation and configuration for your VSPEX Proven
Infrastructure, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in Essential
reading.
Multipathing implementation
Overview
To manage storage multipathing, ESX/ESXi by default provides the VMware Native
Multipathing Plugin (NMP) as the VMkernel multipathing plug-in. EMC recommends
installing PowerPath/VE on VMware ESXi hosts for advanced functionality such as
intelligent path testing and performance optimization.
PowerPath/VE
implementation
You can install PowerPath/VE by using remote vCLI, VMware Update Manager, or
VMware Auto Deploy.
Complete the following steps to install PowerPath/VE by using remote vCLI:
1.
Download the PowerPath/VE software from EMC Online Support.
2.
Make the offline package available for use on the local vSphere host.
3.
Use the scp (secure copy) command to copy the PowerPath/VE ZIP offline
package to the vSphere host. Alternatively, copy the PowerPath/VE ZIP offline
package to the local vCenter data store using vSphere client.
4.
On the remote host running vCLI, type the following command to install the
PowerPath/VE package:
# esxcli -s <vSphere server IP address or hostname>
software vib install -d <absolute path to PowerPath
package>
5.
Bring the vSphere host into Maintenance mode.
6.
Reboot the vSphere host onto which you are installing.
7.
Bring the vSphere host out of Maintenance mode.
For more information, refer to the EMC PowerPath/VE for VMware vSphere Installation
and Administration Guide.
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Exchange Server virtualization implementation
Overview
This section provides the requirements for the installation and configuration of the
Exchange host virtual machine. Table 23 describes the tasks that must be completed.
Table 23.
Exchange host virtual machine installation and configuration
Task
Description
Create the
Exchange virtual
machines
Create the virtual machines to be used for
the Exchange 2013 organization.
Install Exchange
guest OS
Install Windows Server 2012 on the
Exchange virtual machines.
Update the virtual
machines
Install VMware Tools, enable hardware
acceleration, and enable remote console
access.
Assign IP
addresses
 Assign the IP addresses for all
networks in the virtual machine.
Reference
vSphere Virtual
Machine
Administration
 Join all the Exchange servers to the
domain.
Creating Exchange
virtual machines
Create NLB cluster
Create the software NLB cluster to balance
the load among Exchange Client Access
servers (CAS). Hardware NLB is also
supported. Contact your vendor for the
detailed configurations.
Network Load
Balancing
Deployment Guide
Provision storage
for Exchange data
Provision storage for Exchange data from
VNX/VNXe, and create virtual disks for
Exchange virtual machine operation
system, database, and transaction logs.
N/A
EMC recommends that you use the VSPEX Sizing Tool and follow the
recommendations in the Design Guide to determine the number of Exchange 2013
Mailbox server and Client Access server roles required for your Exchange
organization, and the resources (processor, memory, and so on) required for each
server role.
Table 24 shows an example of equivalent reference virtual machine requirements for
different Exchange server roles used in this solution. In this example, you need to
setup eight Exchange Mailbox servers and four Client Access servers to support the
requirements from the qualification worksheet in Table 6. Then you determine the
equivalent number of reference virtual machines required for each Exchange server
role by calculating the maximum of the individual resources (CPU, memory, capacity,
and IOPS).
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Table 24.
Exchange Server role
Resource
requirements
Mailbox
server
Client
Access
server
Example of Exchange reference virtual machines
vCPU
Memory
OS volume
capacity
OS volume
IOPS
12
68 GB
300 GB
Less than
25
Equivalent
reference
virtual
machines
12
34
3
1
Resource
requirements
8
20 GB
100 GB
Less than
25
Equivalent
reference
virtual
machines
8
10
1
No. of
virtual
machines
Total
reference
virtual
machines
8
272
4
40
1
Total equivalent reference virtual machines
312
For example, each Mailbox server requires 12 vCPUs, 68 GB of memory, 300 GB of
storage, and 25 IOPS. This translates to:

Twelve reference virtual machines for CPU

Thirty-four reference virtual machines for memory

Three reference virtual machine for capacity

One reference virtual machine for IOPS
The values round up to 34 reference virtual machines for each Mailbox server,
multiplied by the number of virtual machines needed (eight in this example), which
results in 272 reference virtual machines in total for the Mailbox server role:
34 reference virtual machines x 8 virtual machines = 272 total
reference virtual machines
For more details about how to determine Equivalent Reference Virtual Machines, refer
to the appropriate document in Essential reading.
Installing
Exchange guest
OS
Install Windows Server 2012 on the Exchange virtual machine and apply the latest
service pack.
Updating the
virtual machine
EMC recommends that you install VMware Tools, enable hardware acceleration, and
enable remote console access on the guest OS.
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Assigning IP
addresses
Assign an IP address for each network adapter in all the Exchange virtual machines,
according to what you have planned for the IP reservation for each server. Join every
server to an existing domain.
For more information, refer to Essential reading.
Creating NLB
cluster
Load Balancing, together with the Exchange 2013 Client Access servers, provides key
benefits for Exchange 2013, including:

It reduces the impact of a single Client Access server failure within one of the
Active Directory sites.

It helps distribute the load evenly across the Client Access servers.
If you have more than one Exchange Client Access server in your organization, you
can add these Client Access servers to the NLB cluster and assign a virtual IP address
for the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of this NLB cluster.
Note: In this implementation guide, the network load balancer is the native Windows
software network load balancer. While hardware load balancers are not described in this
document, they are supported provided they are implemented using the vendors’ and
Exchange 2013's best practices.
For more information, refer to the Microsoft TechNet topic Load Balancing.
After you configure the NLB clusters, as shown in Figure 23, the DNS record must be
configured with an address record (A record) for the NLB cluster FQDN.
Note: Address or A records (also known as host records) are the central records of DNS.
These records link a domain to an IP address.
Figure 23.
Network Load Balancing Manager
You can calculate the number of virtual disks by using the VSPEX Sizing Tool and
Creating virtual
disks for Exchange following the recommendations in the Design Guide. You can either use VMDK or RDM
for Exchange database and log files; however, if you plan to implement VNX Snapshot
servers
to protect Exchange data, use RDM. In this example, all Exchange Server virtual
machine boot volumes are stored in VMDK format on NFS, and all Exchange Server
database and log volumes are stored in RDM format on iSCSI.
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Adding a VMDK virtual disk
To add a VMDK virtual disk for a virtual machine boot disk, use the following steps:
1.
In vSphere vCenter, right-click the Exchange Server virtual machine and select
Edit Settings.
2.
Click Add, select Add Hardware, then select Hard Disk.
3.
Select Create a new virtual disk and specify Disk Size and Location. Do not
change the remaining default settings, as shown in Figure 24.
Figure 24.
4.
Creating a new virtual disk
Start the virtual machine and install the operating system.
Adding an RDM disk
To add an RDM disk for an Exchange database or log volume, use the following steps:
1.
In vSphere vCenter, right-click an Exchange Server virtual machine and select
Edit Settings.
2.
Click Add, select Add Hardware, select Raw Disk Mappings, and click Next, as
shown in Figure 25.
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Figure 25.
RDM disk type selection
3.
Select an iSCSI native disk and click Next.
4.
Follow the wizard to specify a datastore to store the LUN mapping files and a
compatibility mode for this RDM disk.
5.
In the virtual machine, these disks appear as normal block iSCSI devices.
Format the disk with 64 KB allocation unit size, as shown in Figure 26.
Figure 26. Formatting disk
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Application implementation
Overview
This section includes information about how to implement Exchange 2013 in the
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, as shown in Table 25.
Before you implement Exchange 2013, read the Design Guide to plan your Exchange
organization based on your business needs.
Table 25.
Tasks to implement Exchange 2013
Task
Description
Pre-deployment
verification by Jetstress
Run Jetstress to verify the disk
subsystem performance before you
implement the Exchange
application.
Jetstress
verification
Prepare Active Directory
Prepare Active Directory for the
Exchange organization.
Prepare Active
Directory and
Domains
Install Exchange 2013
Mailbox server role
1. Install Exchange 2013 Mailbox
server role.
Deploy a New
Installation of
Exchange 2013
Mailbox Server
2. Install Exchange latest service
pack and update rollup.
Install Exchange 2013
Client Access server role
1. Install Microsoft Exchange 2013
Client Access server role.
2. Install Exchange latest service
pack and update rollup.
Deploy database
availability group (DAG)
Preparing Active
Directory
Reference
Deploy DAG and create multiple
copies for each mailbox database
to provide high availability for
Exchange mailbox databases.
Deploy a New
Installation of
Exchange 2013
Client Access
Server
Managing
Database
Availability Groups
Managing Mailbox
Database Copies
Before installing Exchange 2013, complete the following steps to prepare your Active
Directory environment for the Exchange organization:
1.
Extend the Active Directory schema for Exchange 2013 by running the
following command:
Setup /PrepareSchema /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
2.
Create the required Active Directory containers and set up the necessary
permissions for the Exchange organization by running the following
command. You can also specify the organization name here.
Setup /PrepareAD /OrganizationName: <organization name>
/IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
3.
Prepare other Active Directory domains by running the following command:
Setup /PrepareDomain /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms
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For more information about Active Directory preparation, refer to the Microsoft
TechNet Library article Prepare Active Directory and Domains.
Installing
Exchange 2013
Mailbox server
roles
Before installing Exchange server roles, confirm the steps of Exchange 2013
Prerequisites are completed. To install Mailbox server roles on the virtual machine,
use the Exchange 2013 installation media and follow these steps:
1.
On the Exchange Server 2013 setup wizard Installation Server Role Selection
page, select Mailbox role, as shown in Figure 27.
Figure 27.
64
Mailbox role selection
2.
Use the wizard to complete the installation of the Mailbox server role. When
the installation is complete, apply the latest service pack and the latest
update rollup.
3.
Repeat the same steps if there are other Exchange Mailbox server virtual
machines to deploy.
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Installing
Exchange 2013
Client Access
server roles
Complete the following steps to use the Exchange Server installation media to install
Exchange 2013 Client Access server roles:
1.
On the Server Role Selection page, select the Client Access server role, as
shown in Figure 28.
Figure 28. Exchange Client Access server role selection
Deploying
database
availability group
2.
Follow the wizard to complete the installation of the Client Access server role.
After the installation completes, apply the latest service pack and the latest
update rollup.
3.
Repeat the same steps if there are other Exchange Client Access server virtual
machines.
A database availability group (DAG) is the base component of the high availability
framework built into Exchange 2013. It is a group of up to 16 Mailbox servers that
hosts a set of databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from
failures that affect individual servers or databases. Complete the following steps to
deploy DAG in the Exchange 2013 environment:
1.
Run the following command to create a DAG:
New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Name <DAG_Name> WitnessServer <Witness_ServerName> -WitnessDirectory
<Folder_Name> -DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses
<DAG_IP>
2.
If you create a DAG on a Mailbox server running Windows Server 2012, prestage the cluster name object (CNO) before adding members to the DAG. For
detailed steps, see the Pre-Stage the Cluster Name Object for a Database
Availability Group article on Microsoft TechNet website.
3.
Run the following command to add the Mailbox servers to the DAG:
Add-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupServer -Identity <DAG_Name> MailboxServer <Server_Name>
4.
Run the following command to create a DAG network:
New-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupNetwork DatabaseAvailabilityGroup <DAG_Name> -Name <Network_Name> -
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Description "Network_Description" -Subnets <SubnetId> ReplicationEnabled:<$True | $False>
For more details about how to manage Exchange DAG, refer to the Microsoft
TechNet Library topic Managing Database Availability Groups.
5.
Create Exchange databases by running the following command:
New-MailboxDatabase -Name <Database_Name> -EdbFilePath
<Database_File_Path> -LogFolderPath <Log_File_Path> MailboxServer <Mailbox_Server_Name>
6.
Add mailbox database copies for each mailbox database by running the
following command:
Add-MailboxDatabaseCopy -Identity <Database_Name> MailboxServer <Server_Name> -ActivationPreference
<Preference_Number>
For more details, refer to the Microsoft TechNet Library topic Managing
Mailbox Database Copies.
After these steps have been completed, the Exchange organization should be up and
running. You can refer to the Essential reading section to verify the functionality and
monitor the system health.
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Chapter 5: Solution Verification
Chapter 5
Solution Verification
This chapter presents the following topics:
Baseline infrastructure verification ..........................................................................68
Exchange Server performance verification ............................................................... 70
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Chapter 5: Solution Verification
Baseline infrastructure verification
After you configure the solution, review this section to verify its configuration and
functionality, and ensure that the configuration supports the core availability
requirements.
Overview
Table 26 describes the tasks that you should complete when verifying the VSPEX
installation.
Table 26.
Tasks for verifying the solution
Task
Description
Reference
Verify ESXi functionality
Verify the basic ESXi
functionality of the solution
with a post-installation
checklist.
 Using EMC VNX Storage with
Verify redundancy of the
solution components
VMware vSphere
 VSPEX Proven Infrastructure
documents in Essential
reading
Verify the redundancy of the
solution components:
 Storage
Vendor documentation
 ESXi host
 Network switch
Verify the Exchange DAG
configuration
Verify the DAG configuration in
the solution.
Monitor the solution’s health
Use tools to monitor the
solution’s health.
 Server Health and
Performance
 EMC Unisphere: Unified
Storage Management
Solution
 VNX Monitoring and Reporting
1.0 User Guide
Verifying ESXi
functionality
EMC recommends that you verify the ESXi configurations before deployment to
production on each ESXi server.
For more detailed information, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure
document in Essential reading and the vendor documentation in Table 26.
Verifying solution
components
redundancy
To ensure that the various components of the solution maintain availability
requirements, it is important that you test specific scenarios related to maintenance
or hardware failure. EMC recommends that you verify redundancy of the solution
components including storage, ESXi hosts, and network switches.
For detailed steps, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure document in
Essential reading.
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Verifying the
Exchange DAG
configuration
To ensure the Exchange DAG is working smoothly, use these steps to verify the DAG
configuration:
1.
Use the following command to verify on which Mailbox servers the databases
are activated:
Get-MailboxDatabaseCopyStatus –Server <Server_Name>
Normally, the active databases are hosted on different Mailbox servers, as
shown in Figure 29. If the Status is Mounted, it means the database is active
on this Mailbox server; if the Status is Healthy, it means this is a passive
database on this Mailbox server.
Figure 29.
Command to verify DAG configuration
2.
Shut down one Mailbox server to simulate a failure.
3.
Monitor the database copy status to verify that DAG detects the failure and
automatically fails over the affected databases to another Mailbox server that
hosts a passive copy of these databases.
4.
Verify that users can access the mailbox after the database is activated on
another Mailbox server.
For more information, refer to the Microsoft TechNet Library topic Monitoring
Database Availability Groups.
Monitor the
solution’s health
The solution’s health is a simplified measurement that reflects the reliability,
stability, and performance of the entire solution.
Table 27 lists several tools you can use to monitor and troubleshoot the solution.
Table 27.
Tools to monitor the solution
Tool
Description
esxtop
The esxtop tool provides a real-time view (updated every five seconds, by
default) of ESXi hypervisor performance metrics, such as CPU and memory.
It is important that you understand the performance for hypervisor in order
to measure or troubleshoot the Exchange performance-related issues.
Event Viewer
Event Viewer is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. It lets you
browse and manage event logs. It is a useful tool for troubleshooting
problems. You can filter for specific events across multiple logs, and reuse
useful event filters as custom views.
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Tool
Description
Exchange Diagnostic
Logging
The Exchange diagnostic logging level determines which events are written
to the Application event log in Event Viewer. The default logging level is 0
(Lowest). You can increase the logging level when you troubleshoot a
specific issue. EMC recommends that you return the logging level to the
default setting after you complete the troubleshooting activities.
Microsoft Windows
performance counters
By using Windows performance counters, you can analyze bottlenecks in
areas such as CPU utilization, memory, disk I/O, and network I/O.
VNX/VNXe Unisphere
management interface
You can use the VNX/VNXe Unisphere management interface dashboard to
monitor and determine VNX/VNXe system health, including: capacity
utilization statistics, CPU usage statistics, storage resource health, health
of hardware component, system alerts, and log files.
For detailed instructions, refer to EMC Unisphere: Unified Storage
Management Solution.
VNX Monitoring and
Reporting
VNX Monitoring and Reporting is a software solution that extends
Unisphere element manager capabilities by providing unified performance
and capacity trending information for VNX storage systems. This solution
automatically collects block and file storage statistics along with
configuration data and stores them in a database that can be viewed
through dashboards and reports.
For more information, refer to VNX Monitoring and Reporting 1.0 User
Guide.
EMC recommends that you use the test tools to validate the performance of the entire
Exchange environment. For details about performance verification and test
methodology, refer to the Design Guide.
Exchange Server performance verification
Overview
This section provides an example of an Exchange environment in this solution. The
purpose is to measure the performance of the Exchange Server roles to ensure the
solution meets your business requirements.
Before you verify your own solution, to understand the test methodology, EMC
recommends you refer to the Design Guide.
In this solution, we verified that the Exchange organization could support the user
profile shown in Table 28.
Table 28.
70
Example qualification worksheet with user profile
Question
Example answer
Number of mailboxes
9,000
Maximum mailbox size (GB)
1.5 GB
Mailbox IOPS profile (messages sent/received
per mailbox per day)
0.101 IOPS per user (150 messages
sent/received per mailbox per day)
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Jetstress
verification
Question
Example answer
DAG copies (including Active one)
2
Deleted Items Retention (DIR) Window (days)
14
Backup/Truncation Failure Tolerance (days)
3
Included number of years’ growth
1
Annual growth rate (number of mailboxes, %)
11%
Overview of Jetstress tool
Verify the Exchange 2013 storage design for the expected transactional IOPS before
placing it in a production environment. To ensure that the environment functions
appropriately, EMC recommends that you use the Microsoft Jetstress tool to verify the
Exchange storage design.
The Jetstress tool simulates Exchange I/O at the database level by interacting with
the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database technology (also known as Jet) on
which Exchange is built.
You can configure Jetstress to test the maximum I/O throughput available to the disk
subsystem within the required performance constraints of Exchange. Jetstress can
accept a simulated profile of specific user counts and IOPS per user to verify that the
disk subsystem is capable of maintaining an acceptable performance level by the
metrics defined in that profile.
Key metrics
Before you run the Jetstress tool, you need to know which Jetstress testing key
metrics to capture and what thresholds must be met for each metric when running the
tests. Table 29 lists the key metrics of Jetstress verification.
Table 29.
Key metrics for Jetstress verification
Performance counters
Target values
Achieved Exchange transactional IOPS (I/O
database reads/sec + I/O database
writes/sec)
Number of mailboxes * Exchange 2013 user
IOPS profile
I/O database reads/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
I/O database writes/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
Total IOPS (I/O database reads/sec + I/O
database writes/sec + BDM reads/sec + I/O
log replication reads/sec + I/O log
writes/sec)
N/A (for analysis purpose)
I/O database reads average latency (ms)
Less than 20 ms
I/O log reads average latency (ms)
Less than 10 ms
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Building the test environment
To build the Jetstress test environment:
1.
Install the guest OS on the virtual machines in your test environment used for
Exchange Mailbox servers on your ESXi hosts and provision storage to these
virtual machines.
Note: You do not need to install Exchange Server 2013 on your virtual machines in order to
run Jetstress workload simulation.
2.
Install Jetstress on the virtual machines.
3.
Populate Jetstress databases according to your requirements.
4.
Run Jetstress tests and analyze the report.
Test results
In this solution, we used Jetstress 2013 version 15.00.0658.004 to simulate an I/O
profile of 0.101 IOPS per user. For detailed information about the Exchange 2013
mailbox IOPS profile definition, refer to the Microsoft TechNet topic Sizing Exchange
2013 Deployments.
We validated the Exchange building blocks using a two-hour performance test.
10,000 active users (to meet the customer requirement of 9,000 mailboxes with one
year’s 11% growth rate in mailbox number) were simulated on four Mailbox servers
(2,500 active users per Mailbox server) to validate the performance under the worst
(failover) situation.
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Table 30 shows the average I/O and the average latency on the Mailbox server. The
performance of the Exchange organization exceeds the design target.
Table 30.
Jetstress verification example results
Results (single
Mailbox server)
Performance counters
Target values
Achieved Exchange
transactional IOPS (I/O
database reads/sec + I/O
database writes/sec)
Number of mailboxes * Exchange
2013 user IOPS profile
I/O database reads/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
252
I/O database writes/sec
N/A (for analysis purpose)
111
Total IOPS (I/O database
reads/sec + I/O database
writes/sec + BDM reads/sec +
I/O log replication reads/sec +
I/O log writes/sec)
N/A (for analysis purpose)
482
I/O database reads average
latency (ms)
Less than 20 ms
18.2 ms
I/O log reads average latency
(ms)
Less than 10 ms
2.4 ms
363
In this solution: 2,500 * 0.101 =
252.5 on each Mailbox server
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Chapter 6: Reference Documentation
Chapter 6
Reference Documentation
This chapter presents the following topics:
EMC documentation .................................................................................................76
Other documentation ............................................................................................... 76
Links ........................................................................................................................ 76
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Chapter 6: Reference Documentation
EMC documentation
The following documents, available from the EMC Online Support or EMC.com
websites, provide additional and relevant information. If you do not have access to a
document, contact your EMC representative.

VNXe3150 Installation Guide

EMC VNXe Series Configuration Worksheet

EMC VNXe Series Using a VNXe System with NFS Shared Folders

EMC VNXe Series Using a VNXe System with Generic iSCSI Storage

EMC VNXe Series Using an EMC VNXe System with VMware

EMC FAST VP for Unified Storage Systems

VNX for File and Unified Worksheet

VNX Monitoring and Reporting 1.0 User Guide

VNX Unified Installation Guide

EMC Unisphere: Unified Storage Management Solution

EMC Host Connectivity Guide for VMware ESX Server

TechBook: Using EMC VNX Storage with VMware vSphere

EMC PowerPath/VE for VMware vSphere Installation and Administration Guide

EMC VFCache Installation Guide for VMware

EMC VFCache VMware VSI Plug-in Administration Guide

EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: Storage Viewer — Product Guide

EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: Unified Storage Management— Product Guide
Other documentation
For documentation on Microsoft Exchange, refer to the Microsoft website.
Links
Note: The links provided were working correctly at the time of publication.
VMware
76
Refer to the VMware website for the following VMware vSphere and vCenter
documentation:

Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager

Preparing the Update Manager Database

Preparing vCenter Server Databases
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Microsoft TechNet

vSphere Installation and Setup

vSphere Networking

vCenter Server and Host Management

vSphere Storage

vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
Refer to the following topics on the Microsoft TechNet website:

Client Access Server

Deploy a New Installation of Exchange 2013

Exchange 2013 Prerequisites

Exchange 2013 Virtualization

Load Balancing

Mailbox Server

Managing Database Availability Groups

Managing Mailbox Database Copies

Monitoring Database Availability Groups

Network Load Balancing Deployment Guide

Pre-Stage the Cluster Name Object for a Database Availability Group

Prepare Active Directory and Domains

Server Health and Performance

Sizing Exchange 2013 Deployments
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Appendix A: Configuration Worksheet
Appendix A
Configuration Worksheet
This appendix presents the following topic:
Configuration worksheet for Exchange 2013............................................................ 80
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Appendix A: Configuration Worksheet
Configuration worksheet for Exchange 2013
Before configuring Exchange 2013 for this solution, you need to gather some
customer-specific configuration information such as IP addresses, hostnames, and so
on.
The following tables provide a worksheet that you can use to record the information.
You can also print and use the worksheet as a customer “leave behind” document for
future reference.
To confirm the customer information, cross-reference with the relevant array
configuration worksheet: EMC VNXe Series Configuration Worksheet or VNX File and
Unified Worksheets.
Table 31.
Server name
Common server information
Purpose
Primary IP
Domain Controller 01
Domain Controller 02
DNS Primary
DNS Secondary
DHCP
NTP
vCenter Server
Mailbox server 01
Mailbox server 02
Mailbox server 03
Mailbox server 04
Mailbox server 05
Mailbox server 06
Mailbox server 07
Mailbox server 08
Client Access server 01
Client Access server 02
Client Access server 03
Client Access server 04
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Appendix A: Configuration Worksheet
Table 32.
Exchange information
FQDN
Purpose
Primary IP
Exchange DAG
Table 33.
Server name
ESXi server information
Purpose
Primary IP
Private network (storage) addresses
ESXi Host 1
ESXi Host 2
ESXi Host 3
ESXi Host 4
…
Table 34.
Array information
Array name
Root password
Admin password
CS0 Primary hostname
CS1 Secondary hostname (if
applicable)
CS0 Primary IP address
CS1 Secondary IP address (if
applicable)
NFS IP address
SPA IP address
SPB IP address
iSCSI IP addresses for SPA
iSCSI IP addresses for SPB
VSPEX private cloud pool name
VSPEX private cloud NFS
datastore name
Exchange database pool 1 name
Exchange database pool 2 name
Exchange log pool 1 name
Exchange log pool 2 name
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Appendix A: Configuration Worksheet
Table 35.
Name
Network infrastructure information
Purpose
IP
Subnet mask
VLAN ID
Allowed subnets
Default gateway
Ethernet Switch 1
Ethernet Switch 2
…
Table 36.
Name
VLAN information
Network purpose
Virtual Machine Management
NFS networking
iSCSI networking
vMotion
Table 37.
Account
Service accounts
Purpose
Password (optional, secure appropriately)
Windows Server administrator
Array administrator
ESXi administrator
vCenter administrator
Exchange administrator
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