Exchange 2003 Scale-Out Performance On A Dell Poweredge High Availability Cluster

Exchange 2003 Scale-Out Performance on a Dell PowerEdge High Availability Cluster

Product Group - Enterprise

Dell White Paper

By

Arrian Mehis

Ananda Sankaran

Scott Stanford

Contents

Executive Summary 3

Introduction 4

FE 400 Cluster Architecture: Modular and Scalable Building Blocks 5

The Microsoft Exchange Server Benchmark Simulation and MMB3 Environment 11

Exchange Server 2003 Virtual Server: Scaling and Performance 15

Conclusion 22

Appendix A 23

The Test Environment 23

Section 1

Executive Summary

Dell PowerEdgeв„Ñž clusters built with industry standard components such as Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell/EMC storage and WindowsÐ'® Server 2003, Enterprise Edition provide scaleable high availability by minimizing downtime through application failovers. The MAPI Messaging Benchmark Version 3 (MMB3) is an industry standard benchmark which simulates enterprise level messaging workloads in the Exchange 2003 Server environment. The MMB3 workload places demands on processor, memory, network, and disk subsystem. The LoadSim 2003 tool configured with (MMB3) profile was used to simulate MAPI based workloads on a Dell cluster running Exchange 2003 Server in a 3+1 active/passive configuration. This paper discusses Dell PowerEdge Cluster FE400 architecture, the LoadSim 2003 and MMB3 test environment, and some key findings from tests that show how Dell PowerEdge Cluster clusters scale well while running enterprise level applications like Exchange 2003.

Key points:

• Dell High Availability Clusters use industry standard components

• Dell High Availability Clusters are designed and tested to ensure that single points of failure do not exist

• Dell High Availability Clusters are natural building blocks for scalable enterprise computing initiatives

• Dell High Availability Clusters provide scalability and enhance reliability for key mission critical applications like Microsoft Exchange 2003 Server

Section 2

Introduction

Scaleable hardware that can meet increasing user and application demands while providing solid performance and reliability is a crucial component for today’s business operations. Scalability can be achieved in two ways вЂ" scale-up and scale-out. Scale-up involves adding more system resources (CPUs, memory, etc.) to an existing server to meet increasing requirements. Scale-out involves adding more servers to satisfy the increasing application requirements. In the former approach the application workload is concentrated on a single high-performance server and in the latter approach the workload is distributed across two or more smaller servers. Currently the computer industry focus is shifting towards techniques that help to achieve scale-out. Dell believes that the approach of adding two- and four-processor servers in small increments to meet increasing demands is cost effective and flexible.

A cluster is a collection of servers grouped together to achieve a common purpose. High availability clusters are utilized for minimizing downtime of applications by performing failovers. Downtime may be either planned (maintenance) or unplanned (server hardware, operating system, or application failures) and failover helps ensure continuous availability of application services/data. Windows 2003 Server clusters provide support for up to eight server nodes and up to seven active Exchange virtual servers. This renders Dell PowerEdge high availability clusters a suitable platform for scaling out and supporting highly available Exchange workloads.

This report provides an overview of scale-out performance for Exchange Server 2003 running on a Dell PowerEdge Cluster FE400 in a 3+1 active/passive configuration. A performance baseline is established for Exchange 2003 on one virtual server of the cluster. Then the performance aspects of scaling out the Exchange 2003 deployment up to 3 virtual servers on the cluster are elaborated. First the architecture of Dell PowerEdge Fibre channel clusters, and LoadSim 2003 and the MMB3 benchmark are discussed.

Section 3

PowerEdge Cluster FE 400 Cluster Architecture: Modular and Scaleable Building Blocks

The primary benefits of high availability clustering are Availability, Scalability and Manageability. Availability of business critical applications is provided by the cluster through fail-over. If a server in the cluster has failed, the applications running on it are failed over to the remaining server(s) in the cluster. This helps ensure continuous availability of applications and data and minimizes downtime. A server may fail and stop functioning because of failures in the hardware, operating system or applications. High availability clusters are also referred to as fail-over clusters. Scalability in the cluster can be achieved by incrementally adding additional nodes to the cluster. Windows 2003 server cluster provides support for up to 8 server nodes. Whenever the application load exceeds current capacity, or more applications need to be deployed, additional nodes can be added to the cluster to achieve scale-out. Manageability is brought about by the ability to perform maintenance tasks on the server nodes in the cluster without incurring downtime. In a rolling upgrade, the cluster continues to provide application service while software or hardware is being upgraded on each node until all nodes have been upgraded. The cluster provides a single consistent view of all the server nodes for management purposes

Windows 2003 Cluster Service

Windows 2003 Server Cluster, also referred to as Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) provides support for eight server nodes. The cluster service on each node manages cluster resources that are required for providing application service. Cluster