We are joined again by Todd Muirhead, VMware Performance Engineer. He discusses his work with the Dell TechCenter around Microsoft Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere 4. This is a continuation of the web chat from the previous week, which covered SAP on VMware vSphere 4.0. In this chat, the entire time allotment is used to cover Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere 4.0.

Technical Community - Background Reading


Please check out the Dell TechCenter blog post at http://bit.ly/9O7bb9.

Chat Transcript

Dell-KongY So today's chat is centered around the TechCenter's initial investigation of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on VMware vSphere 4.
Dell-KongY The write-up that details our initial investigation can be viewed here: http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/dell_tech_center/archive/2010/03/02/solutions-by-engineers-for-engineers-presents-microsoft-exchange-2010-running-on-vmware-vsphere-4.aspx.
Dell-KongY Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere works - what a novel concept. :-)
Dell-ScottH So that's it? End of chat! :-)
jefferson That’s nice and to the point.
Dell-KongY Yes, that's basically it!
virtualTodd Wait - it works really well.
Dell-KongY All kidding aside, Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 has a much different workload profile than previous generations of Microsoft Exchange.
ceri So this was one virtual machine (VM) per physical server?
Dell-KongY Yes, we were only testing one virtual machine on the Dell PowerEdge R710 at a time.
ceri Scott, I'll throw you a curveball one day and catch you on your toes.
Dell-KongY Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is more memory intense and less I/O intense, which is modeled likewise in the new Microsoft Exchange load generator tool.
Dell-ScottH Todd, can you talk to some of the differences in what you did with the previous Microsoft Exchange testing and with the 2010 version? For example, more users, different workloads? Did you experience an overall increase in output with this version?
jefferson For small sites (less than 350 mailboxes) is the recommendation to put the CAS and HT roles into the same VM or put them on separate VMs (on the same physical piece of hardware)? I figure the former probably has less overhead, but I wanted to see what others thought.
virtualTodd I'm just starting some testing with multiple VMs, so I don't have any really great comparisons yet.
GabesVirtualWorld What limits were reached, such as Exchange, operating system and VM limits?
Dell-KongY We used the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 advisor tool to provide a baseline for our VM vCPU, memory and disk configuration. This tool can be found here: http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/microsoft+exchange.
virtualTodd But, as Kong said, it is less I/O intense and more CPU and RAM intense than Microsoft Exchange 2007 was.
ceri Kong, can you explain the disk setup as well please? I see four virtual disks. They were all on the same VMware vStorage VMFS, which was a 750GB VMFS striped across the four arrays, right?
Dell-KongY To answer Jefferson, we tested with all the roles in the VM at 500, 1,000 and 2,000 users. We also ran the Microsoft Exchange load generator client on the VM, which added overhead; and yet, all the tests completed successfully.
Cars Todd, are you planning on testing with DAGS anytime soon?
Dell-KongY Gabe, we weren't limit testing per se; although with all the roles and the client piece running on the VM, it was really CPU and memory intense, please see the charts.
Dell-KongY Ceri, the disk setup was Dell EqualLogic PS5000 arrays greater than 4x16 in RAID 5 with one hot spare per member array.
virtualTodd Cars, yes, the performance testing will be with DAGS. Are you looking for something specific to test out DAGS functionality?
Cars Todd, just curious about the I/O. We're debating virtual versus physical deployment.
Dell-KongY Gabe, ideally, we would test scale up and scale out configurations and heterogeneous environments like our VMworld 2007 presentation.
Cars Todd, wondering how much additional I/O is generated on servers with both passive and active DBS.
Dell-KongY But this is again an initial investigation to get a feel for Microsoft Exchange 2010 on VMware ESX.
virtualTodd Cars, the I/O should be less with Exchange 2010 than with Exchange 2007. And Exchange 2007 ran very well on VMware ESX.
virtualTodd We've actually tested much higher levels of I/O with DBS under vSphere and achieved some pretty good results.
Cars Todd, we're going from Microsoft Exchange 2003, therefore we don't have any experience with the 2007 version to base that on.
virtualTodd Gabe, we are working on some scale-up and scale-out testing now.
GabesVirtualWorld That would be great to see.
Puneet_Dell Todd, I assume all virtual disks resided on the VMware vStorage VMFS; do you plan to do any tests with direct access using the initiator from within the VM?
GabesVirtualWorld What are the major conclusions or points to be learned from these first tests?
Dell-KongY Puneet, yes the virtual disks resided on the VMware vStorage VMFS.
virtualTodd Puneet, I'm not planning to test direct access in this initial round of tests. VMware's guidance to customers has been to use VMware vStorage VMFS in most cases.
Dell-KongY Puneet, we are looking at that as well using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator to connect directly to the iSCSI SAN.
virtualTodd We’re just trying to get the basic scale-up and scale-out performance information initially.
Dell-KongY There are many questions left to be answered and we have a laundry list still to go through!
Dell-KongY For example, what feature combo should I use for HADR (high availability/disaster recovery) - what Exchange 2010 provides me or what VMware provides?
Puneet_Dell Thanks Kong and Todd.
Puneet_Dell Here’s a question for anyone using Exchange, VMware and EqualLogic: Do you prefer to use initiator from within the VM (to take advantage of any EqualLogic-specific features such as auto-snapshot manager (ASM) for Exchange, load balancing, etc.) or just standard ESX virtual disk?
virtualTodd I think all the EqualLogic guys are at the conference. :)
Dell-KongY That’s a great question Puneet, but will have to be “to be determined” from my point of view.
Dell-KongY By the way, everyone, Puneet is now in a new role over EqualLogic Product Marketing. He was an engineer in the virtual solutions engineering team.
Puneet_Dell Thanks for the intro, Kong.
Dell-KongY He is a very good friend and is extremely knowledgeable in all things virtualization, server and storage, so don’t be afraid to ask him technical questions because he gets it.
virtualTodd Gabe, these initial numbers are meant to provide an early proof point with supporting data showing Exchange 2010 on vSphere.
virtualTodd There is not really any performance information out there yet with Exchange 2010, so we wanted to get what we had public.
virtualTodd There are some difficulties working with the new version of Load Generator 2010 for Exchange, not that I'm complaining.
Cars Were these tests done simulating just Microsoft Outlook users?
Dell-KongY Cars, yes, Microsoft Outlook 2007 online users running a very heavy profile.
Dell-KongY As Todd mentioned, Load Generator 2010 has changed quite a bit.
Cars Kong, any plans to test other user types, such as IMAP and Outlook Web Access (OWA) specifically?
Dell-KongY Cars, certainly. IMAP and OWA for Outlook 2007 for sure. We’re waiting for the tool to take OWA for Outlook 2010 off beta module.
Dell-KongY With respect to Load Generator 2010, it no longer reports 95th percentiles - you basically get a “Success” or “Failed.”
Dell-KongY Also, the changes to the load generator tool, especially the I/O profile, make it restrictive to compare to previous generations, Microsoft Exchange Server Load Simulator 2003 and Load Generator 2007.
Dell-KongY So, Cars, you mentioned going from 2003 to 2010, will that be a physical to virtual or V2V upgrade/migration?
virtualTodd I'm interested to know if anyone here is planning to migrate to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 in the near term or has customers that are planning to migrate? Anybody have timeframe estimations for when they would like to migrate?
JeffHengesbach Considering an Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 in the third quarter of this year.
JeffHengesbach We have 2003 running in vSphere already.
Cars Kong, we haven't decided yet. We may be a mix of P2P and P2V depending on site and available infrastructure.
shawn We just moved to Exchange 2007, but I would like to hear about 2010 on VM farm. We always used physical servers for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.
Cars Todd, we're hoping to be done with our migration by January 2011.
Dell-KongY Shawn, how many users do you have on Microsoft Exchange 2007? Have you separated out the roles onto different servers?
Dell-KongY Todd and I presented this at VMworld 2007: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/virtexchange2k7_finalfrontier_vmworld2007.pdf
virtualTodd It sounds like the move to Microsoft Exchange 2010 is going to take about the same amount of time as previous versions. There is definitely time needed for planning and testing.
shawn Yes, Kong, split across three servers with 1000 users on each.
virtualTodd We will keep the information coming as we get more tests complete.
shawn I have a friend that suggests skipping the migration to Exchange 2007 and just waiting for Exchange 2010.
virtualTodd Hoping to present fairly complete set of tests at VMworld, but that's still some time from now.
shawn Are there any good links for VM supporting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010?
Puneet_Dell For all who are running virtualized Microsoft Exchange, do you have Exchange VMs running side by side with other apps (and perhaps use-specific resource controls) or on dedicated VMware ESX hosts?
Dell-KongY Shawn, unfortunately, not any that I’m aware of right now.
virtualTodd Kong's blog that he just posted is the only one I'm aware of - http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/dell_tech_center/archive/2010/03/02/solutions-by-engineers-for-engineers-presents-microsoft-exchange-2010-running-on-vmware-vsphere-4.aspx
Dell-KongY Folks may also be waiting for the next version of VMware to launch as well.
JeffHengesbach Puneet, yes, like many others, no specific resource pools, etc.
virtualTodd It is officially supported - see the server virtualization validation support wizard: http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp.aspx?svvppage=svvpwizard.htm
Dell-KongY Is everyone here running VMware ESX 4.0 or better U1/U2? Anyone waiting for the next release of VMware ESX before jumping into Microsoft Exchange 2010?
ceri We have VMware ESX 3.5u5 and VMware ESX 4.0u1. We are, unfortunately, a Notes shop.
JeffHengesbach Time for testing, etc., is the biggest timing factor for me.
Dell-KongY Gotcha Ceri, thanks for sharing.
shawn We’re moving to VMware ESX 4.0 now.
Puneet_Dell Thanks, Jeff.
virtualTodd And one last resource for virtualized exchange server is the reference configurations from Dell on their exchange page: http://www.dell.com/exchange
Dell-KongY Wow, how time flies! Before I forget, I'd like to thank Todd Muirhead, performance engineer from VMware for joining us as the featured guest. Also, I'd like to thank all the chat participants for taking your time and joining us.
virtualTodd Thanks, Kong.
Dell-KongY Great questions and dialogue today! All that I can say is that we'll try our very best to keep the two-way communications open around our Exchange 2010 on vSphere testing.
virtualTodd Everybody be sure and leave Kong some hard questions on his blog. :)
Dell-KongY Look for new posts around our experiences as we go to migrate Todd's 2007 VMs to 2010. It should be fun. Thanks, Puneet.
Puneet_Dell Here are a few more links for virtualized Microsoft Exchange 2010: Reference Architecture: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 - 10,000 Mailboxes on R710/PS6500 Virtualized (http://www.equallogic.com/resourcecenter/assetview.aspx?id=8911) Reference Architecture: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 - 3,000 Mailboxes on R610/PS6000 Virtualized (http://www.equallogic.com/resourcecenter/assetview.aspx?id=8907)
Dell-KongY By the way, Puneet has joined the Twitter world and has the handle @puneet_dell. He'll definitely add great tech content around the EqualLogic line. Thanks for the links, Puneet.
Dell-KongY Please join us next week for a chat led by Dennis_s around networking and simple switch mode for the Dell PowerEdge M6200 Series Blade Server.