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02-12-2008 Chat Log
Virtualization - Exchange 2007 on VMware
| DELL-ToddM | Hello Everybody |
| Mark_Overbeck | Hola |
| DELL-ScottH | Hola |
| DELL-ToddM | Let's wait for a few more minutes to let others join |
| bradys joined. | |
| DELL-ToddM | Hello bradys |
| bradys | Good afternoon |
| DELL-ToddM | While are waiting to for others to join - do you have any specific questions / topics that you want to cover today? |
| bradys | mainly interested to hear about recent developments in virtualization that Dell is seeing; no specific questions at this time |
| DELL-ToddM | I had planned to talk about running Exchange in Vms - but we can talk more generally |
| DELL-ScottH | which company are you with ? what are you doing with virtualization on dell today ? |
| bradys | I was involved in a Vmware project two years back but it's been awhile; am interested in watching from the sidelines and soaking it all in at this stage. |
| DELL-ToddM | I have done some testing with Exchange 2007 on Vmware Esx Server to measure two things: |
| DELL-ToddM | 1) What is the performance of Exchange server within a Vm? Can it handle a reasonable number of users? Does it provide good response time? |
| DELL-ToddM | 2) Can you use the virtualization features of Esx with an Exchange Server Vm and experience no ill effects? Does Vmotion work well with Exchange Vms? What abou Vmware High Availability? |
| DELL-ToddM | In terms of performance I tested 500, 1000, and 2000 users cases. |
| DELL-ToddM | In order to size the Vms - that is decide how much Ram and disks to use - I used the physical server sizer |
| DELL-ToddM | It is located at http://www.dell.com/exchange |
| DELL-ToddM | In testing I found that performance across all three sizes was good, with response times for users remaining below 1 second in most cases. |
| DELL-ToddM | While the response times for an Exchange server running on a physical server are lower than what was observed with the Vms, the difference is not by an amount that is noticeable |
| DELL-ToddM | The performance of the 500 and 1000 user Vms was slightly better, when using 1vcpu and 2vcpu, respectively |
| DELL-ToddM | Some one conclusion was that to optimize performance - you should only use the amount of processors that are really needed. |
| DELL-ToddM | Complete whitepaper with all details on performance is located on the wiki at: http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/exchange+and+vmware |
| DELL-ScottH | bradys, if you are looking to catch back up from the sidelines, I'd recommend checking out our papers -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+whitepapers and the demos we do -- http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+demos |
| DELL-ScottH | that should help get you back up to speed, and of course we are always here to help ! |
| bradys | that's great...thanks very much Scott! |
| bradys | and Todd! |
| DELL-ToddM | In terms of using Vmotion and Vmware - I did a second whitepaper on that - located on the same wiki page. |
| DELL-ToddM | Basically found that when doing Vmotion to move a Vm from one server to another or Vmware High Availability to quickly recover Vms when a server goes down - |
| DELL-ToddM | That smaller Vms are better |
| DELL-ToddM | Becuase they can be moved and recovered faster. |
| DELL-ToddM | All in all - you can run Exchange 2007 in a Vm with good performance while taking advantage of Vmotion and Ha features |
| DELL-ToddM | Now the big question that I always get is - Is it supported? |
| DELL-ToddM | And the answer today is - No, not offically. |
| DELL-ToddM | Microsoft does not offically support it - although they will provide best effort, but may require any issue to be reproduced on physical servers |
| DELL-ScottH | I'm going to ask an opinion question .... do you think Microsoft is more apt to support it once Hyper-v comes out ? |
| DELL-ScottH | Todd just hit me in the side of the head :-) |
| DELL-ToddM | I haven't heard what Microsoft is going to do in terms of support, but I would guess that they will provide more support for their apps on Hyper-v - when it comes out. |
| DELL-ToddM | I don't know when / if that will include Exchange 2007 |
| DELL-ToddM | I also don't know when / if they will support it on Vmware |
| DELL-ToddM | I have talked to many customers who are running Exchange 2007 in Vms |
| DELL-ToddM | Typically it is in smaller sized deployments - under 1000 users |
| DELL-ToddM | They have told me that they employ the don't ask, don't tell policy when calling into Microsoft for support |
| DELL-ToddM | They don't say they are running it in a Vm, if Microsoft doesn't ask |
| DELL-ScottH | bradys, any general questions on any topic you'd like to bring up ? |
| DELL-ToddM | Thanks for comming to the Tech Tues Chat! |
| DELL-ToddM | For next week's chat we will be returning to Openmanage! |
todd_muirhead |
Latest page update: made by todd_muirhead
, Feb 13 2008, 3:53 PM EST
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