Dell R740xd2 User Manual

Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019

Solution

Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage

July 2020

H18409

Design Guide

Abstract

This design guide provides design guidance and validation that is required to implement Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC

PowerEdge R740xd2 servers.

Dell Technologies Solutions

Copyright

The information in this publication is provided as is. Dell Inc. makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Use, copying, and distribution of any software described in this publication requires an applicable software license.

Copyright © 2020 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell Technologies, Dell, EMC, Dell EMC and other trademarks are trademarks of Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. Intel, the Intel logo, the Intel Inside logo and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners. Published in the USA 07/20 White Paper H18409.

Dell Inc. believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.

2Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019 Solution

Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide

	Contents
Contents
Executive summary.......................................................................................................................	4
Solution overview..........................................................................................................................	6
Solution components..................................................................................................................	10
Design principles ........................................................................................................................	14
Comprehensive solution design ................................................................................................	15
Solution sizing.............................................................................................................................	19
Sample implementation ..............................................................................................................	20
Verification...................................................................................................................................	21
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................	23
Additional resources...................................................................................................................	23
References...................................................................................................................................	23

Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019 Solution

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Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide

Executive summary

Executive summary

	Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 is a leading enterprise messaging system that delivers
	email, calendar, and contacts to users on various devices through the Outlook client.
	Exchange Server 2019 provides reliable, scalable, enterprise-class email with compliance
	and e-discovery features integrated with Microsoft SharePoint and Skype for Business.
	Exchange Server 2019 supports people and organizations as their work habits evolve
	from communicating to collaborating. The Exchange 2019 database design reduces
	storage I/O requirements, optimizing Exchange for cost-effective, low-speed storage. An
	Exchange deployment must be correctly sized to meet not only specific message profile
	requirements, but also growth and high availability (HA) requirements.
	Exchange Server is a messaging platform that provides email, scheduling, and tools for
	custom collaboration and messaging service applications. Exchange Server 2019 brings a
	new set of technologies, features, and services to Exchange Server. The Dell
	Technologies Global Solutions Engineering team has developed a pre-architected and
	validated solution for Exchange Server 2019 to help customers simplify implementation.
	We based our design on best practices obtained from the experience Microsoft and Dell
	Technologies gained by supporting hundreds of customers worldwide. This solution
	balances performance and cost, provides faster time to value, and increases return on
	investment.
Solution	The pre-architected Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019 solution uses the Dell
introduction	EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 server as a building block, which meets the requirements of
	the Microsoft Exchange Preferred Architecture (PA).
	HA and site resilience are essential to ensure business continuity. Business growth also
	requires an easily scalable solution. We account for these requirements in our design for
	this solution.
	The implementation that we describe addresses the following client requirements:
	• 50,000 10 GB mailboxes
	• 100 KB average message size
	• 100 messages sent or received per day
	The high-level goal is to implement these requirements within a single Database
	Availability Group (DAG) to offer a cost-effective design while keeping administration to a
	minimum. If larger implementations are required—such as more mailboxes, larger
	mailboxes, larger message size—you can scale up and scale out by deploying additional
	DAGs. However, to implement a more complex solution, Dell Technologies recommends
	that you engage with your Dell Technologies Consulting Services sales representative
	and provide the specific email requirements that your company needs.
	We validated and verified the design by using the Microsoft Exchange Jetstress tool.
Document	This guide describes design principles and components for the Dell Technologies
purpose	Exchange 2019 Solution, which is suited for mediumto large-scale deployments. If your

4Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019 Solution

Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide

Executive summary

requirements differ, contact your Dell Technologies sales representative. Exchange presales engineers can assist you in sizing your environment correctly.

The following sections in this white paper include:

• Solution overview—Provides a brief overview of the Dell Technologies Exchange 2019 solution

• Solution components—Introduces the Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 system components and the solution architecture

• Design principles—Explains the design principles including HA, application performance, and best practices

• Comprehensive solution design—Explains the comprehensive solution design and describes the core components of the solution

	• Solution sizing—Describes solution sizing and important considerations
	• Sample implementation—Describes a sample implementation and provides proof
	points from the Microsoft Exchange Jetstress verification of the reference
	implementation
	• Verification—Provides an overview of the verification that ensures that the solution
	meets the design requirements
Audience	This guide is intended for IT managers, messaging administrators, and consultants
	interested in designing and deploying a mediumto large-scale Exchange 2019 solution
	on PowerEdge R740xd2 servers for various user profiles. Users are expected to have
	sufficient understanding and knowledge of Exchange 2019.
We value your	Dell Technologies and the authors of this document welcome your feedback on the
feedback	solution and the solution documentation. Contact the Dell Technologies Solutions team by
	email or provide your comments by completing our documentation survey.
	Author: Ajith Suresh Babu
	Contributors: Douglas Collimore, Robert F. Sonders
	Note: For links to additional documentation for this solution, see the PowerEdge R740xd2
	Documentation.

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Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide

Solution overview

Solution overview

The first step in any solution is to discover and document the requirements. This step offers a road map that ensures that you remain focused on the result. Introducing features that are not within the scope of the requirements, while nice to have, might be detrimental to the result.

During this phase, start on the design path and document your requirements, as listed in the following table:

Table 1.		High-level Exchange requirements
	Items		Requirements1
	Version		2019
	Total number of mailboxes in the environment		50,000 active mailboxes (with 0% additional
			growth)
	Mailbox size and I/O requirement		Tier 1 – cached 10 GB mailbox and 0.07
			IOPS per user
	Mailbox User profile – Sent/Received		Tier 1–100 messages per day
	Target average message size		Tier 1–100 KB
	Number of Exchange mailbox servers per		8 primary mailbox servers
	DAG		8 secondary mailbox servers
	Number of active mailboxes per server		6,250 active mailboxes per Exchange Server
	Site resiliency model		Active/active
	Number of copies		4
	HA requirements		1 DAG
	Disaster Recovery (DR) requirements		2 copies using DAG replication
	Deleted items retention window (“dumpster”)		30 days
	Lagged database copies (passive)		None
	Logs protection buffer		5 days
	24 x 7 BDM configuration		Enabled
	Other information		None

When you determine the high-level requirements, add these values to the Exchange Server Role Requirement Calculator. As of the publication of this guide, the latest version of the calculator for Exchange 2019 is v10.4. It is only available through Microsoft on Cumulative Update #5 as an .iso image file.

1 The requirements column shows the values that we used for our sample implementation.

6Dell Technologies Microsoft Exchange 2019 Solution

Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide

Solution overview

This calculator provides the required information to size the solution correctly for the PowerEdge R740xd2 server in this sample implementation. The following figure shows a portion of the calculator:

Figure 1. Exchange Server Role Requirements Calculator

Using the output from the calculator, the solution uses the PowerEdge R740xd2 server as the mailbox server. Each server comes with 26 drives installed, as shown in the following table:

Table 2.		Installed drives
	Description		Notes
	20 x 7200 RPM 3.5-inch NL-SAS		Installed in the front drive bays in RAID 0 configuration
	hard drives		and used for storing the 190 TB of capacity necessary for
			the Exchange databases and transaction logs
	2 x 2.5-inch 1.92 TB 6 Gb/s SSDs		Installed in the rear drive bays in RAID 1 configuration
			and used for installing the operating system, binaries,
			and other applications.
	1 hard drive		Marked as Restore LUN
	1 hard drive		Marked as Auto Reseed volume
	2 drives		Unused and are available as spare disks

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Implementing Microsoft Exchange Server 2019 on Dell EMC PowerEdge R740xd2 Servers and Storage Design Guide