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Three Virtual Disks (LUNs) 1 each for mailbox, log and backup from the
corresponding RAID Disk groups , are created:
Virtual Disk 1: Disk Group 1 Databases 300GB
Virtual Disk 2: Disk Group 2 Transaction Logs 10GB
Virtual Disk 3: Disk Group 3 Backup to Disk 400GB
A number of key factors must be addressed to support a successful and
efficient deployment of Microsoft Exchange. Indeed, the initial design and
planning phase is the most critical phase of deploying a high-performance
and fault-tolerant Exchange Server environment.
The type of server hardware, memory requirement, network infrastructure,
Active Directory design, recovery requirements, and client usage profiles are
all essential elements of the planning phase.
Since Microsoft Exchange is an I/O intensive application that is extremely
sensitive to I/O latency, configuring the storage subsystem in an optimal
manner is perhaps the most critical of these several factors that an Exchange
deployment must address.
The storage subsystem can sometimes be a complex area to understand and
can require extensive domain expertise to get the best out of it. A proper
understanding and sizing of the storage subsystem with use of vendor
specified best practice guidelines can thus help alleviate one of the most
critical and common reasons for sub-optimal Exchange performance.
This solution provides tested best practices to help Exchange administrators
design an optimal Exchange deployment based around the StorTrends 3200i
( IP-SAN iSCSI family).The solution addresses the SMB space targeting up to
600-user Exchange deployments along with disk-to-disk backup capability.
Test environment
The testing discussed in this report covers three major aspects critical to
Exchange stability and performance including the following:
• 24 Hour Stress Test – measures the longer term stability of the Exchange
infrastructure running under a load for a full 24-hour day‟s duration.
• 2 Hour Performance Test – provides performance under a heavy load for a
shorter time frame.
• Backup performance – backup-to-disk testing measures the time required
to perform streaming Exchange backups.
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