Satisfy Microsoft's Best Practices for Exchange Storage Configurations While Using Next Generation Storage Systems
Best practices for configuring storage systems in enterprise Microsoft Exchange environments requires that they look beyond Microsoft's basic guidelines for how to configure their storage systems. While these guidelines may be sufficient when deploying Exchange in smaller shops where direct attached storage (DAS) or traditional array-based storage systems are the norm, enterprise organizations need to know when to look beyond these guidelines and tweak them when deploying Exchange on a next generation storage system like the 3PAR InServ Storage Server. The key to making these tweaks, however, is to satisfy Microsoft's best practices without negating the inherent benefits that storage systems like 3PAR provide.
As previously explained, one of 3PAR's key benefits is that it can disperse data throughout its entire storage system using its wide striping technology. In most cases, organizations will achieve even better performance metrics than what they saw when following Microsoft's recommendations for configuring storage. However because 3PAR Storage Servers use this wide striping technique (Marc Farley nicely illustrates how wide striping works on this blog post), organizations also should take advantage of 3PAR's template feature so they can concurrently use wide striping and still satisfy Microsoft's best practices for Exchange.
Bill Plein, a storage architect on 3PAR's Strategic Accounts Engineering Team, explained that there are different kinds of templates on a 3PAR storage system. One type of template is the volume template that can describe in great detail the layout of the proposed volume and even allows administrators to potentially lock down certain variables so they can't modify the template or change certain values. The value of these templates is that they only need to be created once and can then be re-used multiple times.
In the case of Exchange, organizations need to segregate the volumes on which they put their Exchange data and logs. So for example if an organization needs a 9:1 ratio between its Exchange data and logs, administrators can simply choose magazines or disks 0 - 8 from every tray or shelf of disks and assign those disks to the "Exchange Data" template and then choose magazine or disk 9 and put that disk into the "Exchange Log" template.
Configuring the 3PAR system this way enables organizations to then follow and implement best practices for Exchange storage configurations such as aligning volumes using the Windows 'diskpart' command or segregating data and log files on the storage system. Equally important, templates enables organizations to keep 3PAR's wide striping feature in effect since it stripes data across all of the disks in that template pool.
3PAR's autonomic provisioning feature also remains in play when templates are used. When Exchange needs more storage, administrators only have to instruct the 3PAR system to create a log or a data volume. When that request is submitted, 3PAR assigns the volume to the appropriate template and then the data is appropriately striped over these resources. Plein says, "At this point, organizations are automatically following Microsoft's best practices for Exchange since the policies are embedded into the templates that are part of the 3PAR storage system."
Just because enterprise organizations are placing their Exchange application on next generation storage systems does not mean that they have to sacrifice best practices, ease of administration or performance - they can still achieve all three of these objectives. Granted, to satisfy all of these requirements you can't just back up the truck, unload the 3PAR InServ Storage System, connect it to Exchange and expect it to be in compliance but neither is it an exceptionally arduous, ongoing task that it can become on other systems. A little upfront planning and work should enable enterprise organizations to satisfy Microsoft's best practices for Exchange storage configurations while still keeping their enterprise storage system supremely easy to configure and manage.
As previously explained, one of 3PAR's key benefits is that it can disperse data throughout its entire storage system using its wide striping technology. In most cases, organizations will achieve even better performance metrics than what they saw when following Microsoft's recommendations for configuring storage. However because 3PAR Storage Servers use this wide striping technique (Marc Farley nicely illustrates how wide striping works on this blog post), organizations also should take advantage of 3PAR's template feature so they can concurrently use wide striping and still satisfy Microsoft's best practices for Exchange.
Bill Plein, a storage architect on 3PAR's Strategic Accounts Engineering Team, explained that there are different kinds of templates on a 3PAR storage system. One type of template is the volume template that can describe in great detail the layout of the proposed volume and even allows administrators to potentially lock down certain variables so they can't modify the template or change certain values. The value of these templates is that they only need to be created once and can then be re-used multiple times.
In the case of Exchange, organizations need to segregate the volumes on which they put their Exchange data and logs. So for example if an organization needs a 9:1 ratio between its Exchange data and logs, administrators can simply choose magazines or disks 0 - 8 from every tray or shelf of disks and assign those disks to the "Exchange Data" template and then choose magazine or disk 9 and put that disk into the "Exchange Log" template.
Configuring the 3PAR system this way enables organizations to then follow and implement best practices for Exchange storage configurations such as aligning volumes using the Windows 'diskpart' command or segregating data and log files on the storage system. Equally important, templates enables organizations to keep 3PAR's wide striping feature in effect since it stripes data across all of the disks in that template pool.
3PAR's autonomic provisioning feature also remains in play when templates are used. When Exchange needs more storage, administrators only have to instruct the 3PAR system to create a log or a data volume. When that request is submitted, 3PAR assigns the volume to the appropriate template and then the data is appropriately striped over these resources. Plein says, "At this point, organizations are automatically following Microsoft's best practices for Exchange since the policies are embedded into the templates that are part of the 3PAR storage system."
Just because enterprise organizations are placing their Exchange application on next generation storage systems does not mean that they have to sacrifice best practices, ease of administration or performance - they can still achieve all three of these objectives. Granted, to satisfy all of these requirements you can't just back up the truck, unload the 3PAR InServ Storage System, connect it to Exchange and expect it to be in compliance but neither is it an exceptionally arduous, ongoing task that it can become on other systems. A little upfront planning and work should enable enterprise organizations to satisfy Microsoft's best practices for Exchange storage configurations while still keeping their enterprise storage system supremely easy to configure and manage.
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