Microsoft Hyper-V: Dos and Don'ts for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and Exchange - PowerPoint Presentation

Microsoft Hyper-V: Dos and Don'ts for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and Exchange Server 2010 Scott Schnoll Principal Technical Writer Microsoft Corporation VIR308

Agenda Hyper-V Overview Exchange Virtualization Support Policy Performance Overview System Design and Configuration High Availability and Disaster Recovery Scenarios and Recommendations Exchange 2010 Support Policy Analyst View on Virtualization

Hyper-V Overview

Hyper-V Overview Hyper-V technology is available in four forms: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V Full Windows Server product with Hyper-V Role Available in Server Core and Full Installation Supports up to 1 TB of memory (Enterprise/Datacenter) Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 Standalone server virtualization product Micro- kernelized hypervisor with no third party devices Supports up to 32 GB of memory Free, and no CALs required ( Guest OSes must be licensed and need CALs)

Hyper-V Server / Windows 2008 Capabilities Microsoft Hyper-V Server Windows Server 2008 Standard Windows Server 2008 Enterprise / Datacenter Processor Architecture - 64 bit only Yes Yes Yes Hypervisor-based Yes Yes Yes Product Type Standalone product Operating System Operating System Number of Sockets Up to 4 Up to 4 Up to 8 = EE | Up to 64 = DC Number of Logical Processors Up to 24 ( 4 proc/6 core) Up to 24 ( 4 proc/6 core) Up to 24 Memory Up to 32 GB Up to 32 GB Up to 1 TB memory VM Migration None None Quick Migration (EE & DC) Administrative UI Command Line & remote management Command Line, remote management, and Hyper-V Manager MMC Management System Center Virtual Machine Manager & existing Windows management tools (example: WMI, Powershell , System Center, etc.) Virtualization Rights for Windows Server 2008 guests 0 1 VM EE = 4 VM DC Edition = unl . VM per proc Number of running VM Guests Up to 128, or as many as physical resources allow Storage Direct Attached Storage (DAS): SATA, eSATA , PATA, SAS, SCSI, USB, Firewire Storage Area Networks (SANs): iSCSI , Fiber Channel, SAS Network Attached Storage (NAS) Guest OS support Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows 2000 Server, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Windows Vista SP1 & Windows XP SP3/SP2 Guest VM: Max Cores & RAM per VM 4 Cores, 31 GB RAM 4 Cores, 31 GB RAM 4 Cores, 64 GB RAM

Hyper-V RTM v. Hyper-V R2

Hyper-V Overview Hyper-V Root (Parent) Instance of Windows 2008 running on physical server with Hyper-V role installed or Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Hyper-V Guest (Child) Virtual machine running a supported operating system, using resources provided by Hyper-V root Passthrough Disk A disk defined in the Root which is made available to a single Guest as a SCSI or IDE disk Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) A file hosted on an disk in the Root which appears as a disk inside the Guest machine, used to install a supported operating system or store data

Hyper-V Overview Virtual Machine State File (VSV) File hosted on the Root file system used to save Virtual Machine state during save operation or Quick Migration planned fail over Differencing VHD’s Linked to Fixed or Dynamic VHD disk, changes to the linked disk are written to the differencing file instead of the file for the linked disk so that system can be rolled back to a previous state – used with Snapshots (For Testing/Demo Only) Temp Memory Storage (BIN) Equal in size to the memory allocated to the VM, this file on the Root file system is used to dump memory during a system save or a Quick Migration and loaded into the new node Fixed/Dynamic VHD’s Fixed disk is configured to a preset size and blocks are pre-allocated on Root file system Dynamic disk configured to a preset size but blocks are allocated on Root file system as the file grows – uses less disk, but creates performance hit

Exchange Virtualization Support Policy

Exchange Virtualization Support Policy Published at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=124624 See also Microsoft press release - http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-19EasyPathPR.mspx Volume Licensing Brief from WWLP - http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/volbrief.mspx Support policy for Microsoft software running in non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=3052&kbid=897615 Support partners for non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=3052&kbid=944987 Microsoft server software and supported virtualization environments - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=3052&kbid=957006

Exchange Virtualization Support Policy Exchange Server 2007 with Service Pack 1 is supported: On Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V On Microsoft 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) – http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp Exchange Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 or later is supported: On Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 or later version of Virtual Server No other virtualization platforms supported No other versions of Exchange Server are supported in a hardware virtualization environment

Performance Overview

Performance Overview Test results show that performance of Exchange 2007 SP1 on Hyper-V is quite good Scales well from 1 to 4 processors (per VM) Storage and network design require consideration of CPU impact to the Root All guest I/O requests are serviced by the Root More pieces to monitor Performance in the Root Perform in the Exchange VM

Disk Performance Root System Configuration: Guest System Configuration: Network Configuration: Disk Configuration: 2 x 2GHz Quad Core (8 LP), 16 GB RAM 4 x 2GHz (4 VP), 4 GB RAM, Passthrough SCSI Disks Single NIC in Root on Hyper-V Switch, no Jumbo Frames Dedicated LUN/Volume for DB and LOG, iSCSI - 72 x 134 GB FC Disks in multiple RAID Sets

Client Access Performance Root System Configuration: Guest System Configuration: Network Configuration: 2 x 2GHz Quad Core (8 LP), 16 GB RAM 4 x 2GHz (4 VP), 4 GB RAM Single NIC in Root on Hyper-V Switch

Hub Transport Performance Root System Configuration: Guest System Configuration: Network Configuration: Hyper-V Disk Configuration: Native Disk Configuration: 2 x 2GHz Quad Core (8 LP), 16 GB RAM 4 x 2GHz (4 VP), 4 GB RAM Single NIC in Root on Hyper-V Switch Fixed VHD Disks via Direct Attached Storage (DAS) Direct Attached Storage (DAS)

Performance Analysis Accuracy of performance counters in guest might be a concern for monitoring CPU cycles in a VM are relative to the CPU slices provided from the virtualization layer May skew results Comprehensive comparison of physical resources and application consumption is difficult to achieve Application counters are only available in the guest Root only provides view of resources it owns and Hyper-V performance counters

System Design and Configuration

Deployment Recommendations Virtualization isn’t free Hypervisor adds overhead, must account for this when sizing Workload costs rise as well, though this is more difficult to characterize Working on additional guidance here over the next few months Hyper-V doesn’t change Exchange design requirements from an application perspective Design for Performance, Reliability and Capacity (MBX/Hub/Edge) Design for Usage Profiles (CAS/MBX) Design for Message Profiles (Hub/Edge)

Installing Exchange On Hyper-V Setup experience is the same as physical servers Sizing guidance is the same as physical servers CPU and Memory rules of thumb apply Build out virtual machine configuration prior to installing Exchange

Root Configuration Separate LUN’s/Arrays for Root operating system, Guest operating system VHD’s and guest data storage LUN’s should use RAID to provide data protection and performance Snapshot creation and differencing disks for guest VMs are not supported for production Exchange systems Oversubscribing CPU’s greater than 2:1 (virtual processors-to-physical cores) is not supported for Exchange Only management applications running on Root (anti-virus, backup, remote tools, etc.)

Guest Configuration Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008 Fixed VHD’s for guest machine operating system Need to account for page file consumption in addition to operating system requirements 15 GB + VM Memory Size = Minimum VHD size Must include space on root for each guest machine’s BIN file CAS = OS VHD Size + (VM Memory Size) HUB = OS VHD Size + (VM Memory Size) + Queues MBX = OS VHD Size + (VM Memory Size) + DB’s + Logs

Network Configuration For Exchange guest machines deployed without HA, we recommend you follow guidelines provided by your hypervisor vendor For Exchange guest machines deployed with HA, we recommend at least two NICs in each root One NIC dedicated to hypervisor One NIC dedicated to guest machines Additional NICs for iSCSI Configure at least two virtual NICs for each Exchange guest that will be HA (e.g., CCR or SCC)

Exchange Storage Configuration Exchange storage should be on spindles separate from Guest VHD physical storage Exchange storage must be Fixed VHD, SCSI pass-through or iSCSI Preference is to use SCSI passthrough for Transport and Mailbox server databases and log files All disks should honor I/O stream segregation the same as physical (separate database and Log LUNs) FC/SCSI HBA’s must be configured to Root and LUN’s presented to VM’s as passthrough or VHDs

Hyper-V and Exchange Disk Storage

Using iSCSI Storage iSCSI best performance occurs when initiator is configured to the Root and disks are presented to Guest as passthrough Separate iSCSI gigabit network recommended Dedicated NIC with Jumbo frame and no Virtual Network Switch bound has better performance Limits portability of VMs iSCSI in Guest is supported Performance hit for using the guest network stack Useful for SCC Benefit: greater portability of VMs

Backup for Virtualized Exchange No integration between Exchange VSS Writer and Hyper-V VSS Writer You must backup from within the guest

Scenarios and Recommendations

Scenario: Small or Remote Office Hyper-V is a good fit when Exchange servers in branch offices cannot be consolidated to a central data center (due to bandwidth/connectivity issues) and for small or remote branch offices that need high availability Hyper-V enables 50% reduction of physical server count in branch scenarios where high availability is required

Scenario: Disaster Recovery Standby servers and clusters can be created in a Hyper-V environment in the production site and/or in a warm standby site Provide as near to the same level of functionality as possible in the event of the loss of the production site

Scenario: Mobile LAN For situations that require complete network infrastructure that can be deployed to a specific location at a moment’s notice. A Hyper-V server can be used to host Exchange as well as file server services and domain infrastructure services in a compact form factor

Scenario: Server Consolidation In some environments, consolidating Active Directory, Client Access and Hub Transport roles on Hyper-V provides benefits, but: You need to consider the overall impact to availability of the role and to performance of the Root You are not supporting fewer operating system instances Balance virtual machines/roles across physical machines to reduce single point of failure risk

Scenario: Mailbox Consolidation Mailbox consolidation to a single resource is not an optimal deployment scenario Increases overall risk due to “all eggs in one basket approach” for a critical resource Exchange servers tend to be highly utilized and have few resources available for sharing with other workloads from Exchange servers Requires additional network interfaces and complexity, especially with iSCSI

Exchange 2007 Testing Power study White Paper: Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments http://tinyurl.com/mpqcvm Joint testing with HP at MSFT Enterprise Engineering Center (EEC)

Exchange 2007 Testing Power study Workload 16,000 active mailboxes simulated with Loadgen 75% MAPI (Outlook 2007 Online, Heavy profile) 25% ActiveSync (ActiveSync v12 DirectPush default script) 25% OWA (2007 Enterprise default script) SMTP messages injected at 7 msg/sec Conclusions 50% reduction in server power utilization, potentially saving 8,582 kWh/year 34-37% reduction in overall solution power utilization (including storage)

Not Supported Unified Messaging server role Hardware-based VSS/VDS VHD Disks > 2040 GB

Exchange Server 2010 Support Supported Hypervisors: Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 Any 64-bit hypervisor that has been validated under and is a participant in the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) – http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/svvp

Exchange Server 2010 Support Not supported: Hypervisor-provided clustering, migration or portability solutions (i.e. quick/live migration) used in tandem with Exchange HA (DAG, mailbox database copies) Unified Messaging server role Hardware-based VSS/VDS VHD Disks > 2040 GB

Supportability Quick Reference Exchange 2007 Supported Root: Hyper-V or SVVP Guest: Exchange 2007 SP1+ Windows 2008 Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport, Edge roles Meets basic Exchange system requirements Storage is fixed VHD, SCSI pass through, or iSCSI Not Supported Combination of Exchange Mailbox HA and hypervisor-based clustering or migration technologies Snapshots, differencing/delta disksVSS backup of root for passthrough disks or iSCSI disks connected to initiator in guestUnified Messaging roleVirtual/logical proc ratio greater than 2:1Applications running in root partition

Supportability Quick Reference Exchange 2010 (planned) Supported Root: Hyper-V or SVVP Guest: Exchange 2010 Windows 2008 SP2 or R2 Mailbox, Client Access, Hub Transport, Edge roles Meets basic Exchange system requirements Storage is fixed VHD, SCSI pass through, or iSCSI Not Supported Combination of Exchange Mailbox HA and hypervisor-based clustering or migration technologiesSnapshots, differencing/delta disksVSS backup of root for passthrough disks or iSCSI disks connected to initiator in guestUnified Messaging roleVirtual/logical proc ratio greater than 2:1Applications running in root partition

What should I virtualize? – Exchange Team’s View Should You Virtualize Your Exchange 2007 SP1 Environment? http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/01/22/450463.aspx Leverages the Microsoft HyperGreen Tool to calculate potential savings in terms of cooling, power, and hardware, as well as CO2 emission reductions per year Includes technical checklists to help you evaluate your current hardware utilization footprint to see if your existing Exchange 2007 environment is a potential candidate for moving to a hardware virtualization environment

What should I virtualize? – Analysts View “A virtualized server application or workload can yield many advantages — increased utilization of hardware, simplified management and flexibility of deployment.” “Virtualization technology is not ideally suited to every x86 server workload or application. Some are a poor fit and will yield little to no business benefit if virtualized.” “Mission- and safety-critical applications are often poor candidates for virtualization — the potential cost/efficiency benefits of virtualization can be easily outweighed by the risks introduced by the process of virtualization.” Source: Gartner Inc., “Server Workloads: What Not to Virtualize,” by Brian Gammage and Philip Dawson, March 26, 2008

Key Takeaways Exchange on Hyper-V performance looks good Exchange on Hyper-V is a good fit for certain branch office scenarios Fully assess the risks/benefits before deploying Exchange on Hyper-V Exchange is a business critical application directly affecting broad base of users every day Virtualization can add complexity and risk to your environment Sharing infrastructure is a bad thing Define clear goals for virtualization and assess ability of Exchange on Hyper-V to achieve those goals before proceeding

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Related Content Breakout Sessions (session codes and titles) UNC308 - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Architecture UNC310 - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Transition and Deployment UNC312 - Storage in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 UNC301 - High Availability in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 UNC311 - Unified Messaging in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 UNC309 - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Management Tools UNC307 - Archiving and Retention in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Interactive Theater Sessions (session codes and titles) UNC12H - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 High Availability and Storage Scenarios UNC13H - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Server Management Tools UNC14H - Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Setup and Deployment Whiteboard Sessions (session codes and titles) WTB304 - Designing Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 High Availability Solutions Required Slide Speakers, please list the Breakout Sessions, TLC Interactive Theaters and Labs that are related to your session.

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