Looking for guidance in deploying a new Exchange 2010 Server on VMWare
I am looking to setup a new VMWare Server that will host Exchange 2010. My plans are to have 3 virtual servers installed onto the server. 1 server will be a DC and the other 2 will be for exchange (just to split up roles). Right now I have a new server with 48 gig ram, dual 6 core processors, and 10k drives all configured under Raid 10...but I can easily change this now. Questions... Will a single Raid 10 array work or should I split up into Raid 1 for part and Raid 5 or 10 for the rest? On a traditional server I would have setup seperate raid arrays for OS, Log, and Database but I was told for a VM that a single Raid 10 array would easily work. Thougths? What is a suggested way to handle hard drive setup? I am using a 4 meg block size but should I use 1 VM Datastore or multiple? Any other disk recomendations? Any other suggestions or notes? We will have 250 users on this server. Any comments are always appreciated. Thank You
August 13th, 2011 10:40am

The fact that you are using VMWARE doesn't change anything when it comes to the storage configuration. Therefore you still need to have separate arrays for the database and logs. For that number of users I would certainly be looking to separate the drives out to individual arrays. What was the reason for wanting to split up the roles? 250 users I would struggle to justify it. Personally if there is the budget for multiple Exchange licences I would prefer to have two physical servers with an Exchange server on each in a DAG, with all three roles on both servers. Otherwise just a domain controller and a single Exchange server would be sufficient. Simon.Simon Butler, Exchange MVP Blog | Exchange Resources | In the UK? Hire Me.
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August 13th, 2011 11:42am

Just a short comment: You are putting all your eggs in one basket, while e-mail is considered mission-critical these days. I would have added one more server with VMware. Each one should hold one DC/GC/DNS, one Exchange server with all three roles (Mailbox, CAS, Hub), add two virtual KEMP LoadMaster devices. Then you should implement a DAG. If you have a good network connection to another geographical location, place one of the servers there. Define those two geographical locations as one site in terms of AD. That's the easiest way to achieve site resiliency with automatic failover. For the DC/GC 4 GB RAM should suffice, for Exchange 16 GB, for KEMP 1 GB. Add TMG for Exchange access from the Internet. I have not been involved with the disk layout, so others should answer here. That's about how the Exchange 2010 deployment I'm most involved with works, on VMware vSphere. About 200 mailbox users. MCTS: Messaging | MCSE: S+M
August 13th, 2011 4:01pm

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