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VMware server sizing for EmailXtend 4.8 SP1
Hi, VMware Geeks,
I met a Customer running into performance issues with server environment - Win2k3 Server R2, 3.4GHz Xeon and 4GB of RAM.
They now would like to re-host the app on a bigger Server preferrably a VM. The Ex documentation provides very minimal server information and no details as to how to size for a vm.
Do you have any suggestions on physical - vmware environment migration sizing guide? BTW. Any recommendations for Ex on VM server requirement?
Thanks,
Lu
broy_ici
18 Posts
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February 17th, 2012 04:00
Hi Lu,
Let's start by saying EmailXtender is supported on VM. EmailXtender is coming end of life March 31, 2011. Is the customer considering moving to SourceOne? There is an internal document at EMC for SourceOne in a VM.
What performance issues is the customer seeing? Is it disk or CPU? Is SQL installed on the server or is it separate? SQL can cause many bottlenecks.
SourceOne has a sizing tool when used can provide the correct sizing for their environment. Many factors are taking into consideration. For example # of users, mailbox size, avg. # of messages per user per day, avg. message size, etc. The advantage of SourceOne is that it is scalable. You can add additional worker servers if performance issues are seen or the customer is just growing. EmailXtender caps off and you have to build a complete new server.
If the customer were to go to VM I would suggest at a minimum that they use 1-2 vCPU and between 4-8GB RAM. Choosing the correct disks and RAID groups is vital to the performance more than anything. The message center should be RAID 5, the indexes RAID 10, and containers RAID 5 or 10 depending on the customer use of the product. The indexes should be on a minimum 15k drives and even FAST CACHE if they really desire high performance.
My real recommendation is to move the customer to SourceOne. There are 2 types of migrations available for SourceOne. One is you migrate all the data from EmailXtedner to SourceOne using the TransVault Migration tool. The tool is only authorized to be run by authorized partners and EMC. I work for International Computerware which is an authorized partner. The 2nd choice is an in place migration. This will be available when SourceOne 6.8 is released later this year. This will just point everything to SourceOne. This is generally intended for customers with larger environments. Option 1 allows you to decommission the server and recover the hardware.
I hope this helps. I know there are more questions than answers but it will prompt a good discussion with the customer.
Jingyi1
199 Posts
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February 19th, 2012 17:00
Lu, I'd suggest let customer collect their performance data using perfmon or perftool to identify where the bottleneck lies on. We need to know if it's CPU or memory or disk issue first, then we can size the right configuration VM. Don't forget to get current spec score and keep in mind VMware VM will have 10-20% performance lost comparing to physical server.
LouisLu
161 Posts
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February 19th, 2012 23:00
Thanks for both your answer. I have inquire if them had bottleneck of disks or CPU.
Could you share internal document at EMC for SourceOne in VM? And any links for EmailExtend in VMwrare either?
Regards,
Jingyi1
199 Posts
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February 20th, 2012 19:00
You can get more information of VMware Convert from VMware website
http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/resources.html
or read VMware vCenter Converter Standalone User's Guide at
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/convsa_50_guide.pdf
Jingyi1
199 Posts
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February 20th, 2012 19:00
There is another methodology can be used for this customer. VMware provided VMware converter which fully supports P2V migration of Windows 2003 host. Customer can first migrates this system to VMware, then monitor to determine the bottleneck. Because memory, CPU, disk is easy to add on ESX, VM configuration can be tuned according to the the observation. The advantage of this method is VMware monitor tool can also be used to find out the performance bottleneck along with Windows performance monitor.