Question on Hardware for Exchange 2007

[rye8261]

I'm going to moving up to Exchange 2007 soon and am going to be getting new hardware. I've been trying to find an answer for this but have not found one yet.

What would you suggest for the server hardware, a Quad core or a Dual core server? Memory suggestions? I was looking to get 4GB.

 

[Zelandakh]

For that number of users, a dual core server will be enough.

Hardware is scaleable to your size of organisation - number of users, size of mailbox, server roles, other load, throughput of emails.

Don't bother with 4GB, start at 8GB even if you only have 20 users - you'll be grateful in a year.

 

[rye8261]

I probably didn't give enough info, the number of users is around 150 and may go to 250 soon. We will be using the voicemail to email options also.

Still stick with dual core?

 

[Zelandakh]

2 dual core processors will *probably* not be your bottleneck. With that size of org (though you don't detail throughput or other info), you'd probably want 8GB or 16GB of RAM, plenty of spindles and a real handle on how you are doing the unified messaging - separate box or same box?

 

[rye8261]

The unified messaging would be on the same box for now unless we noticed a problem then I can see if they'd give me another server to move it off to. Does the unified messaging part impact the server that much? This is something pretty new to me.

 

[Zelandakh]

You'll need a gateway of some description to come from your phone server. Read my FAQ in this forum on UM - it ain't much, but it is there.

 

[58sniper]

I'd suggest a separate box for UM, one for Edge Transport, and one for HT/CA/MB (although I'd think seriously about a long term plan to have a separate CA box).

Zelandakh is right with the memory. 8GB to start. Since your box will be 64bit, take advantage of the fact that it can address more than 4GB of RAM for Exchange.

You don't mention how big your stores are now (or what your DR requirements are), so we can't give you any more info about spindles, etc.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[rye8261]

My DR requirements will be handled with LCR so that's not an issue. Our current Exchange store is around 40GB right now.

 

[Zelandakh]

LCR is MPR (minor problem recovery). What happens if the motherboard fails, AD goes south, the server room burns down, the server room air con fails at 6pm on as Friday the the room heats up and the server just stops?

 

[rye8261]

Well I was planning on having the LCR place the log files on a share that's offsite through a VPN connection. From everything I've read I can do that.

As for the server problems, I'd have to rely on our 4 hours support with Dell.

I'm also looking to implement CCR a little down the road, don't want to sticker shock our CEO with the price of it all just yet. From what I've read on that is a true Exchange cluster won't be an option until Longhorn is released so that's what I'm waiting for to do the CCR.

I know this all might not be best practices, but the budged isn't huge so I'm trying to do the best I can with it.

 

[58sniper]

Well, pushing log files through a T1 is fine, as long as you're only getting a few messages a day. Once those log files start accumulating at a fair pace, you're going to outpace that connection, and be S.O.L.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[Zelandakh]

LCR is local continuous replication and plays the logs into a database on the same server. How are you going to log ship to a remote share?

 

[rye8261]

From what I've read other places you can place the log files on a remote server with LCR.

It's also specified on this article that you can use a remote share so that's the way I was going for now.

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Demystifying-Local-Continuous-Replication-LCR.html

 

[58sniper]

I don't see anywhere in Henrik's article where he talks about a server in a remote location. I believe he's referring to another local server, which would be "remote" compared to the server running LCR.

Knowing Henrick, I can't see him recommending pushing that kind of traffic through a T1 connection. And you certainly don't want to fail over to a database on the other side of that connection.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[Zelandakh]

OK. So here is what I think you are trying to do.

Server A has an Exchange database and transaction logs.

LCR is going to be used. This is NOT log shipping, but log transferral and play forward into a running Exchange server. You are proposeing to map a drive on Server A to a share on Server B that is located across a T1 link. Server A (not Server B) will be running the mirrored copy of the Exchange database but the EDB and the .log files will be on the remote server.

Choices are CCR, Litespeed, PowerControls or just a decent DR plan.