Exchange Architecture & Sizing

14 September 2016

OGD ICT Services

Dave Stork

Exchange Architecture & Sizing

2016

Dave Stork

Solution Architect at OGD ICT services

I am an MCT and and Office Server and Services MVP

I tweet from @dmstork

I blog at https://dirteam.com/dave

I am also one of the Contributors of The UC Architects Podcast @theucarchitects / www.theucarchitects.com

Email me [email protected]

#GWAVACon

https://dirteam.com/dave

http://www.theucarchitects.com/

2016

TITLE

HERE

• Fundamentals

• Preferred Architecture

• Sizing

• Virtualization

CONTENTS

#GWAVACon

Fundamentals

TipEigenaardigheid met opsommingenHet maken van ongenummerde opsommingen in de OGDPowerPoint niet zoals je zou verwachten. Wil je een ongenummerde opsomming maken, gebruik dan niet de opsommingsknop in het Lint, maar de knoppen Lijstniveau verhogen en Lijstniveau verlagen (zie onderstaande afbeelding). Genummerde opsommingen werken wel zoals je verwacht.

Fundamentals

Which version?Exchange 2007 & 2010

– Extended Support until 2017 & 2020

– Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2000 & 2003

Exchange 2013

– Mainstream support until 2018

– Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2007

Exchange 2016

– Mainstream support until 2020

– Lowest coexistence with Exchange 2010


Fundamentals

What is necessary to run Exchange?Active Directory Topology

Certificates

Windows Server

– Use highest supported version

– Enterprise or Standard?

Server resources

– CPU & Memory

– Storage

– Network


Fundamentals

What might be necessary?Load Balancer

– When more than one (Client Access) server

Reverse Proxy

– Extra security layer

– Pre-authentication

Office Web App / Office Online Server

Others from business requirements

Outer DMZpublic IP adressing

Inner DMZprivate IP adressing Datacenter Zone

Users (Outlook, Mobile, OWA)

Exchange DAG

Reverse Proxy (TMG)

Load balancer

File share Witness

Office Web App

(Optional)

Users (Outlook, Mobile, OWA)

IP-PBX(Optional)

Lync (Optional)

SharePoint (Optional)

Anti Malware


Fundamentals

Exchange 2010 RolesClient Access– HTTPS: OWA Rendering, ActiveSync etc.

Hub Transport– SMTP transport and handling

Mailbox

Unified Messaging– Voicemail and Auto-Attendant

Best practice: Multi role (CAS, HUB, MBX)

Edge Transport– Perimeter network SMTP cleaning

– Non-domain joined


Fundamentals

Exchange 2013 RolesClient Access

– “Just a proxy”

Mailbox

– Alle business logic; SMTP, HTTP, UM, Database

Best practice: Multi role

Edge Transport

– Perimeter network SMTP cleaning



Fundamentals

Exchange 2016 RolesThere is just one role

– However, the concept of Client Access Proxy is still present in Exchange 2016.

– Consider 2016 an automatic 2013 multi-role

Edge Transport

– Perimeter network SMTP cleaning


Fully on-premises

(documents stored in SharePoint 2016)

On-premises

Exchange Server

2016

Office Web Apps

Server

2016

Hybrid

(documents stored in Office 365)

On-premises

Exchange Server

2016

Office 365

Office Web Apps

Server

2016

OneDrive

for Business

SharePoint Server

2016


Infrastructure

Database Availability Group (DAG)“Clustering” for High Availability and Disaster Recovery

There is always one Active Copy

There can be multiple Passive Copies of a database

Max 16 (Mailbox) servers in a DAG

– Theoretically max 16 copies of DB (including Active)

Lagged DB

Recommended max 2TB per DB in DAG

– I prefer smaller database sizes even in a DAG (~300GB)

File Share Witness

– Tie breaker: the majority of votes of interconnected servers wins

Preferred Architecture


Preferred Architecture

What is the Preferred Architecture (PA)?“The PA is the Exchange Engineering Team’s prescriptive approach to what we believe is the optimum deployment architecture for Exchange 2013, and one that is very similar to what we deploy in Office 365”

There are two versions, one for 2013 and one for 2016

My advice: stay as close as possible to PA with your design. Describe any deviations and why this deviation is required.

DAG design

Sizing


Sizing

Design and validate your Exchange environment according to business requirements and usage.

What information do you need?User activity

Business requirements

– High available and disaster recovery? RTO/RPO

– Growth and lifecycle of environment

– Physical or virtual?


Sizing

What steps are involved?Gather user statistics

– Generate-MessageProfile.ps1

Have a general design idea including server resources

– Find SPECInt 2006 rate of the CPU of your choice

Use the Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator

– Note: version and update specific

– Input user statistics

– CPU information

– Other

Server Configuration/ Primary Datacenter Server

(Single Failure)

Recommended RAM Configuration 24 GB

Number of Processor Cores Utilized 2

Server CPU Utilization 18%

Server CPU Megacycle Requirements 4821

Server Total Available Adjusted Megacycles 26430

Possible Storage Architecture RAID

Recommended Transport Database Location System Disk

Host IO and Throughput Requirements / Database / Server / DAG

Total Database Required IOPS 1 66 133

Total Log Required IOPS 0 15 29

Database Read I/O Percentage 60% -- --

Background Database Maintenance Throughput Requirements 1.0 MB/s 58 MB/s 116 MB/s


Sizing

What steps are involved?Adjust your design

– Other processor (or server)

– More Exchange servers

– Different quota’s

– Etc.

Use the sizing calculator again

– Evaluate, repeat, evaluate, repeat…

– Choose your optimal supported sizing


Sizing

And then?Build your servers up until installing Exchange

– including all patches/updates, Exchange requirements, antivirus, back-up agent etc..

Validate your storage with Jetstress

– This can take several days

Resolve any issues

Remove Jetstress and install Exchange

Monitor


Sizing

Virtualization


Virtualization

What to consider when virtualizing?Design as if physical, but…

Hypervisor is validated in SVVP

No dynamically expanding disks

– Exception VHDX on Hyper-V

No dynamic memory

No overcommit of memory on host

Maximum CPU overcommit ratio of 1:2 of host

– Every 1 physical core is assigned 2 times max


Virtualization

Hyper Threading doesn’t count

Loosened heartbeat

– If there is a requirement for migration of the host while running etc.

Anti affinity rules

– Don’t put Exchange servers and supporting infrastructure on the same host

No save state moves

No snapshot back-up (Only VSS)


Virtualization

Take NUMA boundary into account

– non-uniform memory access (NUMA)

– Fastest complex of processing unit and memory

Sometimes more smaller servers is a better fit with virtualization

– This is also true when physical. Find your acceptable optimal point.


Virtualization

Don’t deploy more Exchange VMs than Hypervisor hosts

Consider capacity management for your virtualization environment

– I’ve seen a lot of issues when CPU ratio was higher than 1:2

Consider physical deployment

– Total cost of ownership/operation could be lower than with virtual

Questions?

2016

Dave Stork

OGD ICT ServicesSolution Architect

Thank You!

Twitter: @dmstorkBlog: https://dirteam.com/davePodcast: @theucarchitects / www.theucarchitects.comMail: [email protected]

Other sessions 14 September (tomorrow):9:00 - Exchange 2016 Architecture and Sizing (Zurich)9:50 - Current State of Exchange On-Prem Overview, Updates and Future (London)

https://dirteam.com/dave

http://www.theucarchitects.com/


Microsoft Ignite 2015 sessions

Meet Exchange Server 2016

Exchange Server Preferred Architecture

Deploying Exchange Server 2016

Exchange on IaaS: Concerns, Tradeoffs, and Best Practices

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/FND2204

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3197



Exchange Architecture & Sizing

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Transcript of Exchange Architecture & Sizing