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Exchange 2003 Clustered Server Design and Migration
Exchange 2003 Clustered Server Design and Migration
All the new servers Exchange 2003 Server Migration Consultant purchased to host Exchange 2003 mailbox servers were set up as clusters and equipped with Xeon Processor MP microprocessors.
Through a combination of Exchange Server 2003, Windows Server 2003, third party SAN technology, and faster servers, Exchange 2003 Server Migration Consultant decided to create a clustered server design that offers greater operational reliability and a reduction in administrative overhead. Their design choice allowed them to achieve the following specific benefits:
* Reduced service outages by having active node mailbox servers automatically failover to passive node servers.
* Clustered Exchange Virtual Server (EVS) failover performance of just two minutes was achieved, regardless of the amount of the mailbox data contained within the SAN attached to the failed node.
* Increased the number of EVSs as well as the number of supported SGs per EVS within the cluster. Each SG was configured to use three LUNs. Volume Mount Points were used with these LUNs to minimize the number of drive letters used.
* Enabled server consolidation by hosting many more mailboxes per server.
* Reduction in administration and maintenance overhead by consolidating more than 113 mailbox servers in 75 locations into 38 servers in seven locations.
* Reduced potential server outage impact to users (previously six hours or more per user) from a database restoration.
* Improved backup and restore times to less than one hour.
* Achieved server availability of 99.9 percent with a fiscal year 2004 SLA goal of achieving 99.99 percent.
* Enabled the implementation of rolling upgrades to minimize the impact of service outages while speeding up server operating system and application upgrades and patching.
* Doubled the user mailbox limit (to 200 MB)
Exchange 2003 Server Migration Consultant design goal was to support 8,000 mailboxes per SAN, with 200 MB mailbox limits, 99.99 percent cluster server availability, and less than one hour per database backup and restore time. The scaling of the data center EVS in the Main corporate forest was designed to reach 4,000 mailboxes.
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