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Question about recommended Exchange 2010 deployment on Vmware vSphere with NetApp (SRM available if
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Question about recommended Exchange 2010 deployment on ... - 6.Jul.2010 10:29:51 AM
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rolltide78
Posts: 7
Joined: 7.Feb.2008
Status: offline
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I'm in the process of gathering information about my Exchange 2003 migration to Exchange 2010 and I definitely have some questions about the best way to go about this and would love to get some other people's thoughts.
Current environment:
700 mailboxes, 600 GB of data, 15 sites (Email is centralized at the main site), Native Windows 2008 AD, Exchange 2003 (1 Front end, 1 backend active/passive cluster, 1 backend exchange server that handles video conferencing (tandberg), NetApp storage at main site and DR site with Snapmirror.
We use a product called Wansync to copy the stores to our DR location and then have an Exchange 2003 server there that can be used to access the replicated stores.
We've just deployed Vsphere in our main site as well as our DR site and have installed Vmware SRM. SRM is currently set up for failover of some VMS.
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Going forward with Exchange 2010 I'm trying to decide on the best scenario for us. I was thinking to have 2 MBX servers and 1 CAS server at our main site and then 1 MBX/CAS in our DR site. At the main site allow the CAS to vmotion but not the MBX servers. The 2 MBX servers at the main site and the 1 MBX in our DR site would be in a DAG. I'm on the fence about whether to use DAG or let the NetApp handle the replication. A big part of me feels better about having Exchange handle the HA. This may or not be the best approach to my environment. If you have any suggestions please let me know. Thanks so much.
Gary
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RE: Question about recommended Exchange 2010 deployment... - 6.Jul.2010 2:19:44 PM
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jmadsen
Posts: 62
Joined: 21.Jun.2010
From: California, US
Status: offline
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do not allow the CAS to vmotion - you either use Exchange native high availability all the way or not at all
if you use VMWare for high availability, you shouldn't be using the Exchange HA on top - it's either/or
at main site
2 MBX servers clsutered in a DAG (active/active)
2 CAS/HUB servers network load balanced
at DR site
1 MBX server member of the same DAG (passive)
1 CAS/HUB server to take care of transport and client access at DR site
since you only have 2 site, the failover will be manual using DAC
if you have 3 sites you could place a file share witness in a third site and you could implement automatic failover
I've done a few of these implementations so far, and it is not as difficult as it was with 2007 CCR across datacenters
Jens
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RE: Question about recommended Exchange 2010 deployment... - 6.Jul.2010 4:02:08 PM
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rolltide78
Posts: 7
Joined: 7.Feb.2008
Status: offline
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Thanks Jens. Now if I did want to use Vmware/SRM with the dbs on NetApp what would you recommend?
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RE: Question about recommended Exchange 2010 deployment... - 6.Jul.2010 5:53:40 PM
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jmadsen
Posts: 62
Joined: 21.Jun.2010
From: California, US
Status: offline
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i wouldn't use SRM
we just did a D/R design and implementation with VMWare Vsphere and SRM, but the exchange environment was HA at the application level and we only used SRM for server apps that didn't have built-in HA available
even on SQL we used log shipping and Double Take instead of failing over on SRM
we used HP Lefthand iSCSI SAN's on the backend but also used Double Take for some of the replication eventhough the Lefthands has the ability to do remote snapshots
you will gain much higher availability using Exchange instead of remote snapshotting your volumes across the WAN
in case of a failover your data is as old as the latest snapshot, which could be hours, whereas if you use Exchange DAG you are ALWAYS up to date
I'm not a VMWare guru - i leave that to other engineers within my organization (I do a lot of Hyper-V also in conjunction with Exchange)
Given the price difference between VMWare and Hyper-V - I nomally use Hyper-V for consolidation purposes and then HA/DAG on Exchange
Jens
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