Exchange 2010 - Volumes and LUNs

[it_7]

Hiya,

I'm im the process of migrating Exchange 2007 physical to Exchange 2010 virtual (Hyper-V). I am undecided how to provision the storage for the Exchange DBs and log files for the virtual machine:

1) Direct iSCSI connections to the LUNs at the VM level or;

2) iSCSI connection at the host level, with VHD files provisioned to the virtual machine

Then I'm not sure how many volumes and LUNs we need. I know the recommendation is to have 1 LUN per database and log file set, but it doesn't say whether the DB LUNs should be in seperate volumes to the log file LUNs. As we only have a requirement for 2 databases (and limited space on the filer), I was planning something like this:

Vol1/LUN1: Exchange DB files

Vol1/LUN2: Exchange log files

so that I can take a snapshot of the entire volume for recovery purposes. Or I could do this:

Vol1/LUN1: Exchange DB files

Vol2/LUN2: Exchange log files

but then a snapshot of both volumes would need to be taken.

Thoughts please.

Thanks

[pratt]

Hello,

My typical configuration is the following:

Vol1/LUN1: Exchange DB files

Vol2/LUN2: Exchange log files

Also, keep in mind if you will be using SME to manage backups and restores on one of the copies in the DAG, you will need to consider SnapInfo.

[it_7]

Yeah that' the way i've done it. How do you then provision these to the Exchange VM? iSCSI initiator on the guest or VHD files?

Also, it is my understanding from reading TR-3578 that it's best practice to have Exchange log files and Snapinfo on the same LUN. Is that correct?

[thomas_glodde]

Hi there,

not sure about iSCSI Path-Through disks on MS Hyper-V, i dont think they are supported. So you have to stick with MS iSCSI Software Initiator inside the VM to map drives. You should definately call Netapp Support to see whats supported!!

Usualy you seperate the more or less constant change rate of the db from the logfiles as logfiles may show a rapidly different change rate depending on your users. A default layout would be

Vol1 / Exchange Mailbox DB

Vol2 / Exchange Mailbox DB Logs & SnapInfo

Vol3 / Exchange Public Folder DB

Vol4 / Exchange Public Folder DB Logs & SnapInfo

If you keep SnapInfo on the same disk, SME can use NTFS hardlinks to move truncated logfiles, makes the backup & restore a lot quicker.