Exchange 2010 and virtualizing.. any tips, thoughts, all in one vm, split up?
Our existing hyper-v setup is basically two dual quad core xeon 5xxx series cpu's, raid6 arrays for the vhds (they are sataII drives not sas, but i get very good read speeds up near 600MB/sec or higher over say 5-7 discs).. this works well for our 40 users, we have 10 vm's on each box currently. I think currently our mailbox size is around 37GB (it was expanded for some reason, awhile ago, so this isnt the real size of all mailboxes, yet). It sounds as if i would want to split the exchange 2010 setup into 2 vms though? (and have a dedicated dmz). Or would just one VM work in our case? We have one exchange 2007 box right now... I'm puzzled if this would all work smoothly on r2 2008 hyper-v.. ie: right now, on all 10 vm's, each one is set to use 1 cpu core as it stands... It is my understanding that i should set the exchange vm or vms to have access to up to 4 cores? Would this tank our other vm's in setting 3-4 of them this way, though i think i'd split them over my two host servers.. Also.. we dont have a dedicated dmz here as of yet, i just open ports on our sonicwall firewall as needed.. I was thinking of setting one up.. its my understanding that on the hyper-v host server, i would dedicate one port to an external ip address.. then in the vm, which sits in the dmz (edge), i would have a single nic with an external ip address on it as well (using a gateway that is an external public ip from the block of ips that i'm assigned by my isp).. I'd need to setup up policies in the sonicwal to create the "link" between this public ip segment and the internal network. I'd also join the dmz exchange vms to the domain and allow AD ports to flow? So for VM's i'd have: VSExchangeUMCASHUB VSExchangeMBX ? **Is it possible to virtualize the UM role? I heard its not, or just not recommended? If not, i may have to wait till everything is migrated off the old exchange 2007 physical box and then create a dedicated role for the UM on that old box? Thanks for any tips
January 28th, 2010 12:32am

Hi Mark,Unified Server Role & Virtualization:All Exchange 2010 server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, are supported in a virtualization environment. This is due to the real-time response requirements associated with voice communications with the Unified Messaging server role.Exchange 2010 and Virtuzlization: Microsoft supports Exchange 2010 in production on hardware virtualization software only when all the following conditions are true: The hardware virtualization software is running: Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V technology Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Any third-party hypervisor that has been validated under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program. Ref to:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx -> Navigate to Hardware Virtualization All the Best :) Sathish Kumar Elango | MCSE 2003 & MCSA Messaging | http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com
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January 28th, 2010 3:47am

Hi Mark, Unified Server Role & Virtualization: All Exchange 2010 server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, are supported in a virtualization environment. This is due to the real-time response requirements associated with voice communications with the Unified Messaging server role. Exchange 2010 and Virtuzlization: Microsoft supports Exchange 2010 in production on hardware virtualization software only when all the following conditions are true: The hardware virtualization software is running: Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V technology Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Any third-party hypervisor that has been validated under the Windows Server Virtualization Validation Program . Ref to: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx -> Navigate to Hardware Virtualization All the Best :) Sathish Kumar Elango | MCSE 2003 & MCSA Messaging | http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com Thanks, this helps a little.. from the sounds of it, on an 8 total core system, you shouldnt set the combined usage of virtual processors on ALL guests to be more than 16.. so an average of 1.6 per virtual machine. In our case we already have 10 vm's on each host.. What is still unclear, despite reading these guides, is how much memory i should allocate to the exchange 2010 vm(s).. and in conjunction if a company of 40 users should have multiple virtual servers running different roles or pairings of roles and whether some of these should really be in a dmz and joined to the domain? Can anyone assist on this part? I think once i figure out whether i will need multiple vm's and/or a dmz setup, this would make it easier to figure out how many virtual processors and ram ill need to assign to each one (and whether this will be too taxing on our other guests on that host, which as one big array in raid6 of sataII drives, with guest vhds on the array, ie: not multiple spindles as of now, as i've always figured having a larger count array would be faster read wise than two spindles with less drives.. but maybe this is wrong).
January 28th, 2010 7:41pm

Anyone have any thoughts on this?
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February 1st, 2010 10:37pm

Hi Mark, Please check this about DMZ Configuration in Hyper-v. Ref to: DMZ isolation of VMs with Hyper-V http://itproctology.blogspot.com/2008/06/dmz-isolation-of-vms-with-hyper-v.html About Virtual Processor and Ram , You should stick with the regular Microsoft Recommendation. Ref to: Exchange 2010 Prerequisites, System Requirements & Recommendation http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/exchange-2010-prerequisites-system-requirements-recommendation/ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx -> Navigate to Hardware Virtualization -> Exchange Server Storage Requirements All the Best :) Sathish Kumar Elango | MCSE 2003 & MCSA Messaging | http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com
February 8th, 2010 11:16pm

Hi Mark, Please check this about DMZ Configuration in Hyper-v. Ref to: DMZ isolation of VMs with Hyper-V http://itproctology.blogspot.com/2008/06/dmz-isolation-of-vms-with-hyper-v.html About Virtual Processor and Ram , You should stick with the regular Microsoft Recommendation. Ref to: Exchange 2010 Prerequisites, System Requirements & Recommendation http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/exchange-2010-prerequisites-system-requirements-recommendation/ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx -> Navigate to Hardware Virtualization -> Exchange Server Storage Requirements All the Best :) Sathish Kumar Elango | MCSE 2003 & MCSA Messaging | http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com This is great.. confirming what i had decided to do.. I'm going to split my exchange 2010 into two.. cas/hub and mailbox servers .. 8GB total was the excel sheet calculation I got for a box with all roles on it (for 40 users).. so ill divide up 8GB appropriately.. add more if need be.. On the dmz.. i was using a vlan for the dmz.. taking the sonicwall "dmz" output to the vlan.. then from the vlan to the hyperv dedicated nic port.. two questions.... i would think it would be considered isolated enough to have both lan and dmz on the same host box.. just either two different virtual switches via two different ports or physically two different cards? If it is ok.. is it better with two separate nic cards, or are just two ports from the same card sufficient? One port goes to LAN virtual network switch for vm's on the lan.. the other is for any dmz vms .. both coming from their own Vlan off the switch.
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February 9th, 2010 1:17am

Hi Mark, Thank you. I guess two separate NIC cards ( VLAN, DNZ LAN) will be optimal. Sathish Kumar Elango | MCSE 2003 & MCSA Messaging | http://msexchangehelp.wordpress.com
February 9th, 2010 7:23am

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