Running Exchange 2007 SP1 on Windows 2008 with Hyper-V.

I recently just finished a production 500 user POC for a customer where we are now running live users on Exchange 2007 SP1.

 

Microsoft’s Exchange Virtualisation Support Policy is published at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=124624 but effectively Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1 is supported on:

 

·         Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V

·         Hyper-V Server 2008

·         On any 64-bit hypervisor that has been validated under and is a participant in the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) see  http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp

 

Exchange Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or later is supported, however it is only supported on the following environments:

 

·         Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or later version of Virtual Server

·         No other virtualisation platforms are supported

·         No other versions of Exchange Server are supported in a hardware virtualisation environment

 

 

 

 

 Host Design

The hardware configuration for the standalone server hosting the virtual environment is detailed as follows:

 

Component

Features

Processors

4x Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, Model 8354, 2.2 GHz

RAM

32GB

Drives

2x 146GB 10K RPM SAS

RAID

SmartArray E200i

Operating System

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise

HBA

Qlogic 2300 Dual Channel 4Gb Optical Fiber Channel HBA, PCIe

Network

1x embedded NC326i Dual Port Gigabit Server Adapter and  2x embedded NC373i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapters

Guest Design

The Guest configuration for hosting the Exchange 2007 SP1 virtual environment is detailed as follows:

 

 

Guest Role

 

Cores

RAM

 

RAM Overhead

Storage

Disk Type

Mailbox Server (500 users)

4

8 GB

88 MB

·     Operating System - 50GB

·     Exchange Binaries - 10GB

·     Exchange Database[1] - 50GB

·     Transaction Logs[2] - 15GB

·     Maintenance – 110GB

Fixed

Fixed

Pass-Through

Pass-Through

Pass-Through

Hub/Transport Server (500 users)

4

4 GB

56 MB

·     Operating System - 50GB

·     Exchange Binaries - 10GB

·     Transport Queue - 10GB

Fixed

Fixed

Pass-Through

Optional - CAS

4

4 GB

56 MB

·     Operating System - 50GB

·     Exchange Binaries - 10GB

Fixed

Fixed

 

Optional - Hub/Transport Server/CAS (500 users)

4

8 GB

88 MB

·     Operating System - 50GB

·     Exchange Binaries - 10GB

·     Transport Queue - 10GB

Fixed

Fixed

Pass-Through


[1] 250 users per storage group

[2] 250 users per storage group

Note – Outlook User profiles and corresponding usage patterns were defined as average, see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb125019(EXCHG.65).aspx for further details.

Physical Design

The physical virtualisation architecture is depicted in the figure below:

 

 

 

 

Patrick Lownds

Published 31 December 2008 18:23 by Patrick
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