Compaq DL760 - ProLiant - 1 GB RAM Technology Brief page 4

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