1] that doesn't apply if you continue to take regular backups.
2] you can do this with delegated discovery search in Exchange 2010.
3] add up the sizes of all the individual mailboxes ('cuz when reporting
individual mailbox size, SIS isn't taken into account). Compare that to the
actual physical size of EDB + STM. THAT is your real SIS ratio. It likely isn't
as high as you think (regardless of what perfmon says).
Not trying to change your mind - just trying to properly edumacate. ;-)
From: Richard Stovall [mailto:rich...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 4:15 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: Re: 2003 to 2010 planning
Thanks for the response.
For several very particular reasons, actually. It could be that my thinking
isn't consistent with what Exchange 2010 brings to the table (or that I'm just
flat wrong), but here they are:
1) We have a couple of mailboxes that routinely receive very large amounts of
data in the form of attachments each month. I don't have exact numbers, but
growth of 1GB / month or more is not unheard of at times. We are expected to
maintain all of the messages and correspondence within the context of e-mail
for long periods of time. Up to years for some customers. It just goes
against conventional wisdom to store all of this in live mailboxes. Perhaps
with Exchange 2010's optimization for cheap, giant SATA disks this is just old
school thinking. (Note: I do remember reading that RAID is required for 2
server DAGs instead of JBOD. This does raise the cost a bit, but not too much.
http://www.slideshare.net/harold.wong/exchange-2010-high-availability-and-storage slides
16 and 20)
2) Availability of historical messaging information to appropriate persons not
involved in the original conversation. This is a pure archive function as I
see it. E.g., a departmental manager needs to easily, and without IT
intervention, find an e-mail thread between a valued customer and a former
employee.
3) My Single Instance Ratio is very high compared to what I understand the
average to be. I know it's not entirely accurate, but a back of the envelope
calculation might put my off-the-bat Exchange 2010 storage requirements to >1TB
without doing something to prune old messages from the existing 2003 database.
I certainly didn't mean to imply that archive should be used for anything other
than archive.
Again, all comments, thoughts, and education are appreciated.
Thanks,
RS
On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:43 PM, Michael B. Smith <mich...@smithcons.com> wrote:
In addition to Neil's comments, I ask WHY you think that storage is better
served in an archiving system than in an Exchange mailbox?
From: Richard Stovall [mailto:rich...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 1:49 PM
To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues
Subject: 2003 to 2010 planning
Good afternoon one and all, and please forgive the long post.
I'm thinking about proposing the upgrade from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010
this year. We're currently running a single monolithic server that has (knock
on wood) been extremely reliable for going on 5 years. We've got ~100
mailboxes now, and I don't see us ever growing past 200. The information store
is currently 110GB, and the perfmon-reported Single Instance Ratio is pretty
large at 22. We have ~10 remote users who use Outlook Anywhere, ~10 PDA users,
~10 Mac (Entourage) users, and OWA is available to most everyone. AD is a
single domain forest, is at 2003 Domain and Forest Functional Levels, and all
DCs are 2003 SP2. We have a single physical site, and only one site in AD.
Before rolling out 2010, I intend to deploy an e-mail archiving solution of
some sort. My hope is that, in addition to the obvious retention and search
benefits this will provide, it will also take some of the pressure off of
Exchange 2010's storage requirements by allowing me to finally enforce mailbox
size restrictions without reducing the availability of older messages.
I've been poking around the interweb, looking for information that will help me
determine how to design and deploy Exchange 2010 in a manner appropriate for
our environment. The most promising thing I've come up with is a simple
statement on the Microsoft page that describes Exchange 2010 Mailbox Resiliency
(http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/Mailbox-Resiliency.aspx). It
says, " For smaller sites, you can deploy a simple two-server configuration
that provides full redundancy of mailbox data along with Client Access and Hub
Transport roles. These changes put high availability within the reach of
organizations that once considered it impractical." That sounds like exactly
like what I'm after - a simple-to-maintain, two server solution where all the
inside roles are redundant.
Does this configuration sound appropriate for an organization of the size and
characteristics described above? Does anyone have any pointers to more
in-depth discussion of this two server configuration? (Is there a particular
name for this configuration?)
Lastly, from what I can gather, this can be accomplished with Exchange Server
2010 Standard and Standard CALs. For an organization the size of ours, I don't
think I need the added benefits of the Enterprise CAL at this point. Message
hygiene is handled by the Barracuda and Sunbelt's VPE product, and I believe
mailbox resiliency is available in the standard server regardless of CAL type.
Any thoughts or comments are most welcome.
Thanks,
RS
