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EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2007

Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4,

EMC Replication Manager, and VMware vSphere 4 using iSCSI

Proven Solution Guide

Copyright © 2009 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published September 2009 EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. Benchmark results are highly dependent upon workload, specific application requirements, and system design and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these and other factors. Therefore, this workload should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmark when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated. All performance data contained in this report was obtained in a rigorously controlled environment. Results obtained in other operating environments may vary significantly. EMC Corporation does not warrant or represent that a user can or will achieve similar performance expressed in transactions per minute. No warranty of system performance or price/performance is expressed or implied in this document. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Part number: H6480

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: About This Document .............................................................................................................. 4

Overview ........................................................................................................................................... 4 Audience and purpose ...................................................................................................................... 5 Scope ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Business challenge ........................................................................................................................... 6 Technology solution .......................................................................................................................... 6 Objectives .......................................................................................................................................... 6 Reference Architecture ..................................................................................................................... 7 Validated environment profile ............................................................................................................ 9 Hardware and software resources .................................................................................................. 10 Prerequisites and supporting documentation .................................................................................. 12

Chapter 2: Storage Design ...................................................................................................................... 13 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 13 Storage design layout ..................................................................................................................... 14 RAID group layout ........................................................................................................................... 14 Best practices and recommendations ............................................................................................. 15

Chapter 3: Server and Network Design .................................................................................................. 16 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Server design .................................................................................................................................. 17 Network design................................................................................................................................ 19 Best practices for virtual machines ................................................................................................. 19 Best practices for iSCSI .................................................................................................................. 20

Chapter 4: Installation and Configuration ................................................................................................ 21 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 21 Navisphere CLI scripts configuration .............................................................................................. 22 Disk management scripts ................................................................................................................ 23

Chapter 5: Testing and Validation ........................................................................................................... 25 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 25 Tested components ......................................................................................................................... 26

Section A: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 3.5 test results ....................................... 27 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 27 Test results summary ...................................................................................................................... 27

Section B: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 4.0 test results ....................................... 34 Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 34 Test result summary ........................................................................................................................ 34

Chapter 6: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 39 Supporting Information ............................................................................................................................ 41

Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 41 Navisphere CLI scripts configuration .............................................................................................. 41

EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, and VMware vSphere 4 using iSCSI Proven Solution Guide

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Chapter 1: About This Document


Overview

Introduction This document summarizes some observations using best practices that were discovered, validated, or otherwise encountered while validating the functionality of Microsoft Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008, enabled by EMC® CLARiiON® CX4-120, EMC Replication Manager, with both VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 and with VMware vSphere 4.0 using iSCSI. Replication Manager uses Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) to perform online replication of Exchange Server 2007 storage groups. The primary focus of the testing with vSphere was to validate EMC Replication with this product. Performance testing was also completed using LoadGen and results have been documented here. EMC's commitment to consistently maintain and improve quality is led by the Total Customer Experience (TCE) program, which is driven by Six Sigma methodologies. As a result, EMC has built Customer Integration Labs in its Global Solutions Centers to reflect real-world deployments in which TCE use cases are developed and executed. These use cases provide EMC with an insight into the challenges currently facing its customers. This document provides the specifications for the customer environment (that is, the storage configuration, design, sizing, and backup considerations) that constitute the requirements for this use case. This document outlines the detailed components that make up the environment and their relationship to each other. The use case test scenarios are listed, together with the objectives for completing them and the expected results.

Use case definition

A use case reflects a defined set of tests that validates the reference architecture for a customer environment. This validated architecture represents a Proven Solution that can be used for the development and implementation of customer deployments.

Contents The content of this chapter includes the following topics.

Topic See Page

Audience and purpose 5

Scope 5

Business challenge 6

Technology solution 6

Objectives 6

Reference Architecture 7

Validated environment profile 9

Hardware and software resources 10

Prerequisites and supporting documentation 12


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Audience and purpose

Audience The intended audience for the Proven Solution Guide is:

• Internal EMC personnel • EMC partners • Customers

Purpose The purpose of this use case is to provide a consolidated virtualized solution for

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The solution includes all the hardware and software components required to run this environment, including Active Directory and the required Exchange Server roles. Backup and Recovery replication and disaster recovery are applicable use cases for this solution using EMC's Replication Manager. Information in this document can be used as the basis for a solution build, white paper, best practices document, or training. It can also be used by other EMC organizations (for example, the technical services or sales organization) as the basis for producing documentation for a technical services or sales kit.

Scope

Scope This document describes the architecture of an EMC solution built at EMC’s Global

Solutions labs. The scope of this solution includes the following: • Design of the CLARiiON CX4-120 storage array to support the tested building

blocks • Design of the CLARiiON CX4-120 storage array to support Replication Manager

clones for Exchange databases and logs on a 2-day rotation cycle • Storage loading simulated using Microsoft Load Generator (LoadGen) • EMC Replication Manager performance testing and analysis

Not in scope Implementation instructions and sizing guidelines are beyond the scope of this

document. Information on how to install and configure Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and the required EMC products is out of scope for this document. However, links are provided on where to find all required software for this solution.


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Business challenge

Overview Managing a company’s growing e-mail requirements, while lowering data center

costs without compromising valuable data or service level agreements, presents a large challenge for IT departments. This demands a solution that is operationally efficient, affordable, and provides realtime backup, recovery, and data protection. This solution uses a building block designed for 600 users. The challenge was to ensure that at the building block level all components worked as expected and were within Microsoft Exchange database latencies at all times, while running local data replication.

Technology solution

Overview A consolidated Microsoft Exchange infrastructure is the first step to meeting the

challenges of e-mail management. This solution demonstrates the value of virtualizing a Microsoft Exchange 2007 environment with VMware ESX Server on Windows Server 2008. The solution described in this reference architecture utilizes EMC’s CLARiiON CX4-120 with iSCSI, which is a simple, easy-to-manage iSCSI storage system.

Objectives

Overview The following are the objectives of this solution.

Objective Details

LoadGen validation Testing and validating 2,000 users at .48 IOPS

Replication Manager validation Validating the creation of Replication Manager replicas


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Reference Architecture

Corresponding Reference Architecture

This use case has a corresponding Reference Architecture document that is available on Powerlink® and EMC.com. Refer to EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, and VMware vSphere 4 using iSCSI Reference Architecture for details. If you do not have access to this content, contact your EMC representative.

Reference Architecture diagram

The following diagram depicts the overall physical architecture of the use case. Note: Always ensure that there is redundant architecture in place for the domain controllers by having more than one domain controller server.


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Hardware layout diagram

The following diagram describes the hardware layout used in this solution.


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Validated environment profile

Profile characteristics

This configuration is based on previous testing that was run on Exchange 2007 SP1 and 300 GB 15k rpm FC drives. This configuration was tested with virtualization with no errors encountered. More information on this testing can be found on EMC.com and the Microsoft website under the Exchange Solutions Review Program (ESRP). For more information, see ESRP Storage Program - EMC CLARiiON CX3-20c (600 User) iSCSI Storage Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The solution was validated with the following environment profile.

Profile characteristic Value

Number of users 600

Exchange 2007 SP1 Mailbox Servers 1

Number of Exchange 2007 users per server 600

Number of storage groups per server 4

Number of Exchange 2007 databases per storage group 1

Number of Exchange 2007 mailboxes per mail database 150

Mailbox quota 300 MB

Exchange 2007 production data

Type Value RAID 1_0 Size 300 GB Speed 15k Connection FC


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Hardware and software resources

Hardware The hardware used to validate the solution is listed in the following table. Equipment Quantity Configuration

Rack 1 Dell 42U rack

CLARiiON CX4-120 1 2 storage processors 2.879 GB mirrored cache

DAEP 1 1

300 GB FC HDD 15 15k FC

Dell PowerEdge 2850 2 2: 1 Gb/s NICs 2: 1 Gb/s NICs iSCSI 3: MSV switch adapters 64 GB RAM 4: Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~2793 MHz processors

Dell PowerEdge 1950 1 1: 1 Gb/s NIC production 8 GB RAM 2: Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~2793 MHz processors

VMware vCenter Server 1 1: 1 Gb/s NIC production 8 GB RAM 2: Intel64 Family 15 Model 4 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~2793 MHz processors

Dell PowerConnect 5324 2 24-port 1 Gigabit Ethernet Layer 2 switch with Layer 3 awareness and with 4 combo ports


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Software The software used to validate the solution is listed in the following table. Software Version

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 RTM

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 (to support VMware vCenter Server)

SP2

VMware ESX Server 3.5 u2

VMware ESX Server 4.0

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1

EMC PowerPath® 5.2 x64

Microsoft iSCSI Initiator Built-in

EMC Replication Manager 5.2 server/mount host

EMC Solutions Enabler 6.5.2.5-891 x64

Navisphere® admsnap 2.28

Navisphere CLI 6.28.0.4.4

VMware vCenter Server 2.5

Microsoft LoadGen 8.02.0045


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Prerequisites and supporting documentation

Technology It is assumed the reader has a general knowledge of the following products:

• EMC CLARiiON storage arrays • EMC Replication Manager • EMC Navisphere Manager • Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 • Microsoft Exchange LoadGen • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 • VMware ESX Server 3.5 virtualization software

Supporting documents

The following documents, located on Powerlink.com, provide additional, relevant information. Access to these documents is based on your login credentials. If you do not have access to the following content, contact your EMC representative. • Replication Manager Version 5.2.1 Product Guide • EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 CLARiiON CX3 Series iSCSI -

Best Practices Planning • ESRP Storage Program - EMC CLARiiON CX3-20c (600 User) iSCSI Storage

Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 • EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Virtual Exchange 2007 Using

Replication Manager Clones - Reference Architecture • EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Virtual Exchange 2007 Using RM

Clones with Ontrack PowerControls for Email Recovery - Reference Architecture • EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 enabled by EMC

CLARiiON CX4-120, Replication Manager, and VMware ESX 3.5 using ISCSI - Reference Architecture

• EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Replication Manager Setup - Build Document

• EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Setup of an Exchange 2007 Mailbox Role - Build Document

• EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Standard Setup of an Exchange 2007 HUB/CAS Role - Build Document

• EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager, and VMware vSphere 4 using iSCSI - Reference Architecture

Third-party documents

The following documents are available on the Microsoft website: • Exchange Server 2007 Load Generator • Installing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007


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http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0FDB6F14-1E42-4165-BB17-96C83916C3EC&displaylang=en

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998619.aspx

Chapter 2: Storage Design


Overview

Introduction to storage design

Storage design is an important element to ensure the successful development of the EMC backup and recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2007 enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4-120, Replication Manager, and VMware ESX 3.5 and VMware ESX 4.0 using iSCSI solution. The purpose of this use case is to build an Exchange 2007 SP1 and VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 and 4.0 environment on the CLARiiON CX4-120 platform and integrate it with Replication Manager 5.2.1. This use case is not intended to be a comprehensive guide to every aspect of the Exchange 2007 SP1 with VMware ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 and 4.0 solution. The storage design layout instructions presented in this chapter apply to the specific components used during the development of this solution. The scope is roughly bound by the following parameters and assumptions. This is representative of a Replication Manager 5.2.1 integration with Exchange 2007 SP1 on VMware ESX 3.5 Server Update 2 implementation. The same parameters and building blocks were used when this solution was tested with VMware ESX Server 4.0. Note, however, that actual implementations will vary from the parameters shown based on testing results.

Contents This chapter contains the following topics:

Topic See Page

Storage design layout 14

RAID group layout 14

Best practices and recommendations 15


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Storage design layout

Introduction to storage design layout

The following sections detail the layout principles associated with this solution.

Goal The following describes some of the key objectives when designing a configuration

for the CLARiiON CX4-120 storage layout: • The performance requirements must accommodate the required I/O based on the

user profile. • The design should be easy to understand and build upon (using a building block

approach). • The design should help to minimize the time and complexity of designing the

storage layout.

Determining building block requirements

A building block approach was used to determine the number of physical spindles required for this solution. This was a commercial-level building block approach, based on ESRP testing and submissions, which are a proven solution for the desired IOPS per building block. For more information, see ESRP Storage Program - EMC CLARiiON CX3-20c (600 User) iSCSI Storage Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. For more information on Microsoft’s ESRP program, visit: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/bb412164.aspx For more information about EMC solutions using the ESRP framework, visit: http://www.emc.com/esrp

RAID group layout

RAID group layout design

This design was tested based on previous, known performances of the building block configurations using metaLUNs. This storage solution was based with a single DAE solution in mind, having the ability, once this configuration was proven, to show that linear results would be possible as building blocks are added.


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http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/bb412164.aspx

http://www.emc.com/esrp


RAID group diagram

The RAID group layout is illustrated in the following diagram.

Best practices and recommendations

CLARiiON RAID group configuration

For CLARiiON RAID group configuration, it is recommended to: • Keep the Exchange database and log LUNs in separate RAID groups. • Keep the Replication Manager clone LUNs in a separate RAID group from the

Exchange production LUNs. • Balance the RAID group across the storage processors. • Ensure that a hot spare disk is assigned.

Exchange online maintenance

For Exchange online maintenance, ensure that Replication Manager jobs are running outside the Exchange online maintenance window. Do not run Exchange online maintenance against an Exchange storage group while its Replication Manager job is running. Note: Failure to follow this recommendation will cause a large decrease in the clone resync speed and slow online maintenance. A best practice for running Replication Manager jobs is to run them during off-peak hours.

Clone RAID group configuration

For clone RAID group configuration, ensure that a separate RAID group is used for clone LUNs. Note: Failure to do so will result in degraded performance in the production Exchange server and in the time to complete the Replication Manager jobs. Since the clone is used as a protect methodology, using the same drives for the source and destination defeats the purpose.


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Chapter 3: Server and Network Design


Overview

Introduction to server and network design

This section focuses on the server and network design of this solution. The server design provides details on the physical and logical or virtual severs that were used in this solution. Details on server configuration include the number of processors, network cards, and amount of RAM used. For more information about the hardware specification of the servers, refer to the corresponding Reference Architecture document EMC Backup and Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2007 enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4-120, Replication Manager, and VMware ESX 3.5 using iSCSI - Reference Architecture. The network design section provides an overview and details the best practices for using an iSCSI storage array.


Topic See Page

Server design 17

Network design 19

Best practices for virtual machines 19

Best practices for iSCSI 20


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Server design

Overview of server design

This solution was created with two Active Directory servers, one physical server and one virtual server. A physical server was also used for the VMware vCenter Server on Windows Server 2003. The following describes the configuration of each component used.

Configuration of components

VMware ESX Server was configured in a VMware High Availability cluster, each server with 64 GB RAM. Guests were separated onto each server to maximize the usage of these servers.

VMware ESX Server 1 • Microsoft Active Directory server • Exchange 2007 Mailbox role • Exchange Hub/CAS roles

VMware ESX Server 2 • EMC Replication Manager mount host • EMC Replication Manager Server The virtual machine (VM) guests were configured as follows:

Microsoft Exchange Mailbox Server • 4 processors • 16 GB RAM • 3 network cards

Microsoft Active Directory Server • 2 processors • 2 GB RAM • 1 network card

Microsoft Exchange Hub/CAS Server • 2 processors • 8 GB RAM • 1 network card

EMC Replication Manager mount host • 2 processors • 8 GB RAM • 3 network cards

EMC Replication Manager Server • 4 processors • 2 GB RAM • 1 network card


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Note: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is required for EMC’s Replication Manager Server, which is not currently supported to run on Microsoft Windows Server 2008. Once Replication Manager is supported, it will be possible to have the Replication Manager Server and the mount host as part of the same virtual server. For this solution, the mount host had to be separate, as the mount host must run the same operating system as the production Exchange server. The solution in total requires four licenses for Microsoft Windows Server.

Quantity Description

1 Windows Server 2008 Enterprise* (VMware ESX Server, which allows for up to four guest licenses)

2 Microsoft Windows 2008 Standard Edition Physical Domain Controller Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager

1 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition for the virtual Replication Manager Server.

* Microsoft’s Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise License allows the use of up to four instances of the server software in virtual environments (for details, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx). When possible, it is recommended to spread the Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) files across the CLARiiON service processors to prevent performance issues if there is a very active VM. VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) can be used to monitor the virtual server and ensure that no single server overwhelms the host machine or uses all the resources affecting other virtual machines. A recommended configuration with the service processors on a CLARiiON array is:

Service Processor A • Microsoft Active Directory Server • Exchange 2007 Mailbox role • Exchange Hub/CAS roles

Service Processor B • EMC Replication Manager mount host • EMC Replication Manager Server


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http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx


Network design

Overview of network design

In this configuration, the Exchange Mailbox Server and Replication Manager mount host were configured using guest OS/OS iSCSI dedicated network cards. Two physical 1 Gb/s Ethernet network switches were used for this solution: one for production network traffic and the other for iSCSI (through VLAN) traffic to the array. Dedicated virtual networks were created to match the physical network and iSCSI networks. Guests requiring access to iSCSI were given additional network connections for array connectivity.

Best practices for virtual machines

Overview of best practices for virtual machines

The following best practices are recommended for a guest operating system to run at top performance by improving on the network, iSCSI, guest operating system, hard drive space, and memory usage.

Disable hibernation on Windows Server 2008

Hibernation is on by default in Windows Server 2008. This feature consumes additional processor power and storage space and is not needed for Exchange and Active Directory servers, which have built-in features to handle power loss. To disable hibernation on Windows Server 2008:

1. Run the following command from the command line on all virtual machine servers. powercfg -Hibernate OFF

2. Run the following command to confirm that hibernation is off. Dir /ah

3. Reboot the server.

Registry change

Changing the registry specifies whether the user-mode or kernel-mode drivers and kernel–mode system code can be paged to disk when not in use. Disabling this in a guest OS prevents unnecessary caching in the guest and host. A reboot of the system is needed for this change to take effect. To change the registry, add the following registry key to all virtual machines. Note: Do not do this on a physical server. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management] • DisablePagingExecutive=dword:00000001


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Best practices for iSCSI

Best practices The following are some iSCSI best practices for connectivity to EMC CLARiiON

storage arrays using iSCSI connectivity. These recommendations are intended to provide a high performance and stable solution. This section does not include all possible iSCSI best practices. • Use dedicated switches for production and iSCSI networks. If this is not possible,

ensure that VLANs can be created on the switch used to guarantee that the iSCSI traffic from the server to the array is separated from all other network traffic. Although not used in this solution, the best recommended practice is to have two physical NICs on the ESX server for redundancy.

• Ensure that all ports on the switch are set to auto-negotiate 1000. Note: It is not possible to disable auto-negotiation on ports on the Dell PowerConnect 5324 switches. While the GUI/CMD line allows the change, the port will become disabled and non-functional.

• Disable power management on the NICs on the server. • Disable each of the following in advanced settings on the NICs Jumbo packet:

− IPv4 Checksum offload − TCP Checksum Offload (IPv4) − TCP Large send Offload (IPv4) − UDP Checksum Offload (IPv4)

• On the iSCSI NICs on the Exchange servers, clear the checkboxes for Client for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks.

• Modify the registry with the following changes on the Exchange servers to optimize iSCSI performance: − HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TCPIP\Parame

ters KeepAliveTime=Dword:300000 (Decimal)

For more details, visit: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324270. − HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TCPIP\Parame

ters\Interfaces{1CDF670F-6155-4652-A317-118489577A22} TcpAckFrequency=Dword:1 (Decimal)

For more details, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890. For more details on these best practices, see EMC Solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 CLARiiON CX3 Series iSCSI - Best Practices Planning. This document is available on EMC’s Powerlink website.


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http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324270

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328890

Chapter 4: Installation and Configuration


Overview

Introduction to installation and configuration

This chapter provides the procedures and guidelines for configuring the components that make up the validated solution scenario. For more information about the background to this solution, see ESRP Storage Program - EMC CLARiiON CX3-20c (600 User) iSCSI Storage Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. The configuration instructions presented in this chapter apply to the specific revision levels of components used during the development of this solution. Before attempting to implement any real-world solution based on this validated scenario, gather the appropriate installation and configuration documentation for the revision levels of the hardware and software components in the solution. Version-specific release notes are especially important. EMC Replication Manager software is used for the creation of VSS cloned images and snapshots of the Exchange database and log file LUNs. While the software is capable of backup and restore using this technology, this paper focuses on the backup technology and comparative times when running sequential or parallel jobs. With Replication Manager, it is possible to configure clone jobs to run in order, sequentially where database and log file LUNs are cloned or snapped one at a time or in parallel where two jobs can run simultaneously. Backing up and check-summing the databases using eseutil /K would complete faster.


Topic See Page

Navisphere CLI scripts configuration 22

Disk management scripts 23


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Navisphere CLI scripts configuration

Background Several options are available when configuring a CLARiiON CX4-120 storage array.

One option is to use the Navisphere user interface; another is to use the CLARiiON Navisphere Secure Command Line Interface (naviseccli). This solution provides details on using the command line interface. This method is recommended as a best practice because it is faster and gives the ability to document the array configuration while creating the array storage. This information can then be used in a disaster recovery document to quickly re-create the exact configuration.

Overview The CLI commands used to create this solution are provided in the Supporting

Information section. These steps assume that planning has already taken place on how the entire array is configured, including decisions on the RAID group configuration, RAID type, number of LUNs, size of LUNs, and so on. Note: All lines for each section can be copied and pasted into a Windows command window. Copying and pasting lines of scripts automates the use of the commands without requiring additional user input. All CLI commands provided in this document are specific to this configuration. Details such as RAID types, LUN numbers, names, sizes, and volume labels can be modified to suit the implementation. They are provided here as an example of exactly what was completed to configure this specific solution.

Prerequisites The following are the prerequisites for a successful configuration:

• Prior to configuration Navisphere Agent and Navisphere CLI must be installed. • Connectivity and registration must be set up prior to running the following scripts.

The scripts can be run from any server with Navisphere CLI installed. • Hosts should be set up and configured but they are not required for LUN creation.

Hosts are required for host addition to the storage groups but not for the storage groups themselves.

Steps for naviseccli configuration

The following are the steps for naviseccli configuration: • Create storage groups • Create RAID groups • Bind LUNs • Create reserved LUN pool LUNs • Add LUNs to the reserved LUN pool • Add hosts to CLARiiON storage groups • Add LUNs to clone private LUNs


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Disk management scripts

Overview

Once the LUNs and hosts have been assigned to the storage group, they are available on the server. Rescan the disk drives in the Device Manager and all of the LUNs will appear. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 places new volumes in an offline state by default. Disks must be brought online before partitions can be created. Diskpart can be used to configure each disk completely. Using scripts here simplifies and speeds up the process for configuring the volumes. Planning is required to ensure the scripts are correct.

Make volumes accessible to the host for data

Before the database and log volumes can be configured, the mount points must first be configured. To do this, follow the steps below:

• Type diskpart at the command prompt. The following commands can be selected together, copied and pasted into diskpart to run automatically without any prompting. Note: This is the configuration for this solution. Disk numbers may differ during implementation. The following is an example of the two script files used with diskpart to create the S: drive (drive 10 mount point root), and then assign a drive to the mount point directories. The following assumes that drives 10 and 11 are the mount point drives for S: and T:. Note: With Windows Server 2008, diskpart does not require the alignment of a partition to 64. Note: This is only required when using Diskpart. The GUI configuration does this automatically. assigning letters for mp root drives -------mountpoint.txt select disk 10 online disk attributes disk clear readonly create partition primary select partition 1 assign letter s: select disk 11 online disk attributes disk clear readonly create partition primary select partition 1 assign letter t: -------


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-------mounts.bat format S:\ /fs:NTFS /v:MOUNT_S /a:64K /q /y format T:\ /fs:NTFS /v:MOUNT_T /a:64K /q /y Md s:\sg1db Md t:\sg2db Md t:\sg1lg Md s:\sg2db ------- -------mountdrives.txt select disk 21 online disk attributes disk clear readonly create partition primary select partition 1 assign mount s:\sg1db ----- -------fmtdrives.bat format S:\sg1db /fs:NTFS /v:sg1db /a:64K /q /y format t:\sg2db /fs:NTFS /v:sg2db /a:64K /q /y format t:\sg1lg /fs:NTFS /v:sg1lg /a:64K /q /y format S:\sg2lg /fs:NTFS /v:sg2lg /a:64K /q /y To use these types of files, confirm the drives for the mount points, and then copy the disk 21 commands for each of the drives required for all storage groups. Run the following commands to quickly create the partitions and mount the partitions to the mount points. From the Windows command prompt, enter: C:\Diskpart /s mountpoint.txt C:\mounts.bat C:\diskpart /s mountdrives.txt C:\fmtdrives.bat Using these scripts as an example, it is possible to quickly mount, partition, and format all the presented drives. It is recommended to use a file for recording all the actions.


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Chapter 5: Testing and Validation


Overview

Introduction to testing and validation

Storage design is an important element to ensure the successful development of EMC’s backup and recovery solution for Microsoft Exchange 2007 enabled by CLARiiON CX4-120, Replication Manager, and VMware ESX 3.5 and 4.0 using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator. This chapter provides details on the components tested in this solution and a summary of the test results.


Topic See Page

Tested components 26

Section A: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 3.5 test results

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Section B: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 4.0 test results

34


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Tested components

Overview of the tested components

The following section details the components that were tested for this solution.

Replication Manager

For Replication Manager, the tests that were completed were as follows: • Validate the functionality of Replication Manager with the VMware ESX Server 3.5

Update 2 and 4.0 environment • Validate the performance of Replication Manager without LoadGen running • Validate the performance of Replication Manager with clone jobs running in

sequential operation • Validate the performance of Replication Manager with clone jobs running in parallel

operation


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Section A: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 3.5 test results

Overview

Introduction The following section details the high-level Replication Manager with VMware ESX

Server 3.5 test results.

Test results summary

Summary of high-level Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 3.5 test results

Functionality testing was carried out to determine the ability of Replication Manager to run in different modes in comparison to baseline testing. Baseline LoadGen testing was done prior to the cloning process for comparison of data on the impact of cloning on the Exchange Server and CLARiiON CX4 array. Performance testing was completed in this solution using Microsoft’s LoadGen tool to simulate Exchange I/O. Running Replication Manager jobs with LoadGen also running is intended to simulate running clone jobs during the peak hours of the production day. These tests indicate the worst-case scenario. Baseline testing and testing with Replication Manager running were both completed. As expected, running Replication Manager clone jobs during the production day has an impact both on the array and on Exchange 2007.

Comparison of baseline LoadGen 95th percentile results

The following LoadGen charts detail a number of LoadGen tasks during each LoadGen test. Their purpose is to demonstrate that there is a slight increase in latencies during certain tasks while Replication Manager is taking clones. However, in major tasks like login and logout these latencies are negligible. Note: Perfmon data was not available for these tests, therefore LoadGen details have been included to show the difference between the baseline and when clones are being taken.


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EMC Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Enabled by EMC CLARiiON CX4, EMC Replication Manager,

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0

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Baseline Parallel % Difference Sequential % DifferenceTask Name 95th Percentile Latency 95th Percentile Latency baseline to parallel 95th Percentile Latency baseline to sequentialBrowseCalendar 53 74 39.62264151 73 37.73584906BrowseContacts 92 123 33.69565217 113 22.82608696BrowsePublicFolder 0 0 0 0 0BrowseTasks 0 0 0 0 0CreateContact 155 174 12.25806452 132 -14.83870968CreateFolder 0 0 0 0 0CreateTask 91 154 69.23076923 133 46.15384615DeleteMail 0 0 0 0 0DownloadOab 0 0 0 0 0EditRules 0 0 0 0 0EditSmartFolders 0 0 0 0ExportMail 0 0 0 0InitializeMailbox 0 0 0 0 0Logoff 2 2 0 2Logon 313657 315505 0.589178625 319704 1.927902135MakeAppointment 665 656 -1.353383459 712 7.067669173ModuleInit 227 131 -42.2907489 95 -58.14977974ModuleTerm 0 0 0 0 0MoveMail 0 0 0 0PostFreeBusy 0 0 0 0 0PublicFolderPost 0 0 0 0 0ReadAndProcessMessages 184 184 0 184 0RequestMeeting 1365 1520 11.35531136 1613 18.16849817Search 0 0 0 0SendMail 214 214 0 233 8.878504673SynchronizeFolders 0 0 0 0 0UserInit 0 0 0 0UserTerm 0 0 0 0

Baseline LoadGen results

The following diagram illustrates the Navisphere results with no clone jobs running. The SPs on average are no greater than 5 percent while supporting 600 users.

and VMware vSphere 4 using iSCSI Proven Solution Guide

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LoadGen results

The following table provides details of the LoadGen results.

Task Name Count Actual

Distribution (%)Configured Distribution (%)

Average Latency

95th Percentile Latency

BrowseCalendar 7237 14 14 31 124

BrowseContacts 6026 11 12 65 194

BrowsePublicFolder 0 0 0 0 0

BrowseTasks 0 0 0 0 0

CreateContact 1182 2 1 64 223

CreateFolder 0 0 0 0 0

CreateTask 609 1 1 55 202

DeleteMail 0 0 0 0 0

DownloadOab 609 1 1 0 0

EditRules 0 0 0 0 0

EditSmartFolders 0 0 0 0 0

ExportMail 0 0 0 0 0

InitializeMailbox 0 0 0 0 0

Logoff 1795 3 3 3 13

Logon 600 1 0 20590 307118

MakeAppointment 569 1 2 326 995

ModuleInit 2 0 0 2307 2704

ModuleTerm 0 0 0 0 0

MoveMail 0 0 0 0 0

PostFreeBusy 2506 4 4 9 0

PublicFolderPost 0 0 0 0 0

ReadAndProcessMessages

23858 47 48 97 333

RequestMeeting 589 1 1 775 1673

Search 0 0 0 0 0

SendMail 4795 9 9 120 374

SynchronizeFolders 0 0 0 0 0

UserInit 0 0 0 0 0


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Task Name Count Actual Distribution (%)

Configured Distribution (%)

Average Latency


UserTerm 0 0 0 0 0

Sequential jobs The following diagram illustrates the Navisphere results with clone jobs running in

sequential operation. As can be seen, each job was run in order, with both jobs completing in 30 minutes and the total job taking approximately one hour to complete. Up to 60k was tested without issues.



Distribution (%) Configured Distribution (%)

Average Latency











EditRules 0 0 0 0 0


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Task Name Count Actual Distribution (%)

Configured Distribution (%)

Average Latency





Logoff 1840 3 3 2 2

Logon 600 1 0 27965 315505


ModuleInit 2 0 0 91 131


MoveMail 0 0 0 0 0




24003 47 48 49 184


Search 0 0 0 0 0

SendMail 4775 9 9 78 214


UserInit 0 0 0 0 0

UserTerm 0 0 0 0 0


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Parallel jobs The following diagram illustrates the Navisphere results with clone jobs running in

parallel operation. As can be seen, each job ran at the same time and was completed in 30 minutes.



distribution (%) Configured distribution (%)

Average latency

95th percentile latency










EditRules 0 0 0 0 0





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Task Name Count Actual distribution (%)

Configured distribution (%)

Average latency

95th percentile latency

Logoff 1712 3 3 3 2

Logon 600 1 0 29121 319704


ModuleInit 2 0 0 87 95


MoveMail 0 0 0 0 0




23854 47 48 50 184


Search 0 0 0 0 0

SendMail 4779 9 9 85 233


UserInit 0 0 0 0 0

UserTerm 0 0 0 0 0


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Section B: Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 4.0 test results

Overview

Introduction The following section details the high-level Replication Manager with VMware ESX

Server 4.0 test results.

Test result summary

Summary of high-level Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 4.0 test results

The primary purpose of this testing was to validate the functionality of Replication Manager with VMware ESX Server 4.0. Two sets of Replication Manager tests were completed:

• Running Replication Manager jobs separately • Running multiple Replication Manager jobs at the same time

Running LoadGen while also running Replication Manager was tested. This was to simulate how Exchange would respond while running Replication Manager during the production day.

Test results The following tables and diagrams illustrate the results from performance testing

completed using VMware ESX Server 4.0. All other hardware and software components in the solution are the same as those used for testing with ESX Server 3.5. Before running any tests with EMC Replicaiton Manager, LoadGen was first used to ensure a valid baseline could be achieved. There are a number of performance counters that are used when analyzing results to determine whether the specific configuration is valid, and that the required throughputs and response times are achieved. For comparison purposes all results are placed in the one table, as shown below.


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Logical Disk

Rec. MS value – disk read

Avg. Disk sec/read – baseline

Avg. Disk sec/read – mixed

Avg. Disk sec/read – separate

Rec. MS value – disk write

Avg. Disk sec/write – baseline

Avg. Disk sec/write – mixed

Avg. Disk sec/write – separate

Database (S:SG1DB)

<0.020

0.006 0.008 0.009 <0.020

0.005 0.008 0.008

Database (S:SG2DB)

<0.020

0.006 0.007 0.009 <0.020

0.005 0.008 0.009

Database (T:SG3DB)

<0.020

0.005 0.007 0.008 <0.020

0.005 0.008 0.008

Database (T:SG4DB)

<0.020

0.006 0.008 0.009 <0.020

0.005 0.008 0.008

Log (T:SG1Logs)

n/a 0.000 0.002 0.001 <0.010

0.002 0.002 0.002

Log (T:SG2Logs)

n/a 0.000 0.002 0.001 <0.010

0.001 0.002 0.002

Log (S:SG3Logs)

n/a 0.000 0.002 0.001 <0.010

0.002 0.002 0.002

Log (S:SG4Logs)

n/a 0.000 0.002 0.001 <0.010

0.002 0.002 0.002

Navisphere results with no clone jobs running

The following diagram illustrates the Navisphere results with no clone jobs running. On average, the SPs’ utilization is no greater than 6 percent while supporting 600 users.


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SP utilization on the CLARiiON during separate and parallel RM jobs

The following diagram shows the SP utilization on the CLARiiON during the separate RM jobs.

The following diagram shows the Navisphere results with clone jobs running in parallel operation.

It is also useful to gather performance statistics from the servers to determine the server impact and how the application itself responds. As can be seen in the following table, the Exchange values are all well within the recommended thresholds.


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This indicates that the clients will not experience performance problems with this configuration. Latencies increase a little while the Replication Manager jobs are running. This increase is not enough to cause any performance problems on the servers or the clients.

Performance counter

Microsoft rec. value

Value baseline

Value mixed clone

Value separate clone

Details of counter

Disk Transfers /Sec

n/a 55.717 71.100 74.604 The rate of read and write operations on the disk.

Database

Database Page Fault Stalls/Sec

0 0 0 0 Shows the rate at which the database file page requests require the database cache manager to allocate a new page from the database cache.

Log Record Stalls/Sec

<10 (max<100) 0 0 0 Shows the number of log records that cannot be added to the log buffers per second (because the log buffers are full or a log buffer is a bottleneck).

Log Threads Waiting

<10 on average

0 0 0 Regular spikes concurrent with log record stall spikes indicate the log disks are a bottleneck.

MSExchangeIS

Client: RPCs failed:Server Too Busy

0 0.000 0.000 0.000 Shows client-reported rate of failed RPCs since the store was started.

RPC Averaged Latency

Should not be higher than 25 ms on average

5.815 8.073 8.217 Information about how clients are affected when the overall sever RPC averaged latencies increase.

RPC number of slow packets

<1 on average <3 at all times

0.338 0.475 0.506 Shows the number of RPC packets in the past 1,024 packets that have latencies longer than two seconds.

RPC Requests <70 at all times 0.239 0.351 0.428 Indicates the overall requests that are currently executing within the information store process.

MSExchangeIS Mailbox

Messages Delivered/Sec

n/a 9 11 12 Shows the number of messages delivered per second.

Messages Submitted/Sec

n/a 2.81 3.66 3.99 Shows the number of messages submitted per second.


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Performance counter

Microsoft rec. value

Value baseline

Value mixed clone

Value separate clone

Details of counter

Messages Queued for Submission

<50 at all times and not sustained for more than 15 minutes

3.90 4.69 3.84 Shows the current number of messages that are not yet processed by the transport layer.

Processor

% Processor Time

n/a 8.296 11.090 12.162 Shows the percentage of processor time.

Memory

Available MBs >100 3661.743 3757.527

3677.326 Shows the amount of physical memory, in megabytes (MB), immediately available for allocation to a process or for system use.

Free System Page Table Entries

n/a 33,559,166.941

33,559,210.212

33,559,590.023

The number of page table entries not currently in used by the system.

Pool Non-paged Bytes

n/a 64,147,289.946

63,121,423.815

63,294,277.818

Consists of system virtual addresses that are guaranteed to be resident in physical memory at all times and can thus be accessed from any address space without incurring paging input/output (I/O).

Pool Paged Bytes

n/a 131,982,954.090

133,113,935.073

133,837,570.116

Shows the portion of shared system memory that can be paged to the disk paging file.


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Chapter 6: Conclusion


Overview This solution contains all components required to run a messaging infrastructure, which includes protection, at a relatively low cost. The solution provides many benefits to customers on a number of levels: • Virtualization • Protection • Simplified mailbox design

Virtualization With EMC’s continued partnership with VMware, this solution illustrates the many

benefits of a virtualized platform for Exchange 2007. The main benefits are server consolidation and the ability of Exchange and Replication Manager to run within a virtualized platform. EMC can help to accelerate the assessment, design, implementation, and management of creating a virtualized Exchange 2007 environment while lowering the implementation risk and cost.

Protection Replication Manager is ideal for backup automation and acceleration in creating a

“Gold Copy” of the production data for instant restore should corruption occur. Replication Manager is an easy-to-use point-and-click application to manage and automate data protection at the array level.

Simplified mailbox design

By using the building block method, Exchange deployments result in predictable performance for all mailbox servers. The building block method removes any assumptions or guesswork when sizing the servers and storage.

Objectives and results

The following table details the objectives of this use case and the results achieved.

Objective Result

Confirm the functionality of Replication Manager in a virtualized environment using two different methods for running the jobs.

Replication Manager jobs were run both sequentially and in parallel. Two “gold” clones could be created and the sequential and parallel jobs worked without issue, as expected.

Determine if running Replication Manager jobs would have an impact if run during the production day.

Results from LoadGen and Navisphere Analyzer confirmed that running Replication Manager jobs during the production day does have an impact on Exchange 2007 performance. While the increase in latencies is low, it is still recommended to run the clone jobs during non-production or off-peak hours.


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Conclusion The powerful combination of EMC CLARiiON CX4-120, Replication Manager and

VMware ESX Server, as tested, provides an integrated backup solution that is ideal for the midsize customer. IT infrastructure management is becoming increasingly complex, and so are the needs for constant information availability and detailed management and reporting capabilities. The growth of data is driving longer backup and recovery windows, and core business processes, such as generating copies of data and establishing recovery processes to meet your business service level agreements, are taking longer to complete. With the decreasing cost of disk storage, replication technologies are now more cost-effective for enabling realtime backup and recovery in parallel or sequential environments. With this EMC solution and the advanced features of EMC Replication Manager, the discovery of the environment is automated, allowing customers to easily schedule replications in their backup environment. It places their Microsoft application in the proper state for application-consistent replicas, which accelerates backups and provides instant restore capabilities for their test/development environment or production tiered storage environment. Application images can instantly be transferred between servers or between sites to meet the customer’s business needs. This EMC solution, deployed in a virtual environment based on VMware ESX Server, contributes to improving operational efficiency, so customers can deploy fewer resources for completing the operational tasks of detailed management reporting and deploying replication-based backup processes. Testing verified that using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1, with local data replication, allows for fast data replication in the event of database loss or corruption. The storage layout for this solution is based on a design that utilizes a building block approach, which repeatedly builds upon itself as the customer’s requirements grow and additional space and fault tolerance are required. Testing confirmed that at the smallest building block level all components worked in a single system, as expected, and within Microsoft Exchange database latencies, while running local data replication.


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Supporting Information


Overview

Introduction to supporting information

This chapter contains supporting information on configuring Navisphere CLI scripts.

Navisphere CLI scripts configuration

Scripts for naviseccli configuration

The following are the scripts for naviseccli configuration. -h 200.0.80.100 as seen in the following CLI examples should be replaced with either the SPa or SPb management IP addresses.

Creating storage groups

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname EXCH

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname ESX Datastor

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname F81RMMH01

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname “EMC Replication Storage”

Creating RAID groups

Creating RAIDGroup 10 for Logs and ESX (Disk 0,1,2,3) ..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 CreateRG 10 0_1_0 0_1_1 0_1_2 0_1_3 -rm yes -pri High

Creating RAIDGroup 11 for Databases (Disk 10,11,12,13) ..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 CreateRG 11 0_1_10 0_1_11 0_1_12 0_1_13 -rm yes -pri High

Creating RAIDGroup 12 for Hotspare (Disk14)..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 CreateRG 12 0_1_14 -rm yes -pri High

Creating RAIDGroup 13 for RMLUNS and RLP (Disk 5,6,7,8,9)..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 CreateRG 13 0_1_5 0_1_6 0_1_7 0_1_8 0_1_9 -rm yes -pri High

Binding LUNs

Binding 12GB LUN for Q2RM_SG1LG ..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r1_0 104 -rg 10 -sq bc -cap 25165824 -sp b

naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 104 -name Q2RM_SG1LG


NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r1_0 105 -rg 10 -sq bc -cap


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25165824 -sp b



NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r1_0 106 -rg 10 -sq bc -cap 25165824 -sp a





Binding 1GB LUN for S ..


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 115 -name Q2RM_S

Binding 1GB LUN for T ..


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 116 -name Q2RM_T

Binding 175GB LUN for shared esx location


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 120 -name esx-v01

Binding 175GB LUN for shared esx location


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 121 -name esx-v02

Binding 120GB LUN for Q2RM_SG1DB ..


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 108 -name Q2RM_SG1DB










Adding Disk 14 as hotspare ..

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind hs 112 -rg 12


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Binding 8X120GB LUN for RMDB

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r5 130 -rg 13 -sq bc -cap 251658240 -sp a




NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r5 134 -rg 13 -sq bc -cap 251658240 -sp b




Binding 8X12GB LUN for RMLG









Binding 1GB LUN for S on RMMountHost ..


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 146 -name Q2RM_S_RMMH01

Binding 1GB LUN for T on RMMountHost ..


naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 chglun -l 147 -name Q2RM_T_RMMH01


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Creating reserved LUN pool LUNs

Binding LUN for Reserved Lun 150

NavisecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r5 150 -rg 13 -sq bc -cap 2097152 -sp a


NavisecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r5 151 -rg 13 -sq bc -cap 2097152 -sp b


























NavisecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 bind r5 164 -rg 13 -sq bc -cap


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2097152 -sp a



Adding LUNs to the reserved LUN pool

NaviSecCLI -h 200.0.81.100 reserved -lunpool -addlun 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname EXCH

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname ESX DATASTOR

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname F81RMMH01

naviseccli –h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup –create –gname “EMC Replication Storage”

Adding hosts to CLARiiON storage groups

naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup -connecthost –host F81VEX01 -gname EXCH

naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup -connecthost –host F81esx01 -gname ESX DATASTOR

naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup -connecthost –host F81es021 -gname ESX DATASTOR

naviseccli -h 200.0.81.100 storagegroup -connecthost –host F81VRMMH01 -gname F81RMmH01


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Adding LUNs to clone private LUNs

To enable EMC’s Replication Manager to create clones, two LUNs must be assigned as clone private LUNs on the array. These can be two 1 GB LUNs. To assign these LUNs: • Right-click on the array, navigate to SnapView™ and select Clone Feature

Properties. Result: The Clone Features Properties window is displayed as illustrated.

• Select the two 1 GB LUNs to be added and select Allow Protected Restore. • Click OK.

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