Exchange design with SAN
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Exchange design with SAN

 
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Lazo Basic
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Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2005 8:01 pm    Post subject: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

Im thinking of having 4 mail stores in the same attached SAN disk, what do
you think I should do with the Tlogs.

This is my plan.


HP servers DL380 X 2 clustered with REID 5 in each for the OS and Exchange
2003

100 Gb of SAN disk for the 4 mail stores 25gb each

Seperate SAN disk 20GB for Tlogs


Is there a point of creating a seperate drive for Tlogs on SAN disk. Its a
HDS SAN.


PleaseHelp

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Magik
Guest





Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 7:55 pm    Post subject: Re: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

If you want to use certain snap tools you will have to have the logs on
another SAN disk. We have an EMC SAN and had to have them separate if
we wanted to make a BCV snapshot and backup that snapshot instead of
the live data.

Magik
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Lazo Basic
Guest





Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 8:04 pm    Post subject: Re: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

Phisucaly its all one disk I can create diferent drives. Can you think of
any other risens for apart from backup.
"Magik" <rickglover@paulhastings.com> wrote in message
news:1114095304.701007.44700@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Quote:
If you want to use certain snap tools you will have to have the logs on
another SAN disk. We have an EMC SAN and had to have them separate if
we wanted to make a BCV snapshot and backup that snapshot instead of
the live data.

Magik


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Al Mulnick
Guest





Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 6:14 pm    Post subject: Re: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

The two main reasons you want to separate LOG files: = Performance and
recoverability. In terms of performance, even a mighty san has to worry
about the rotational latencies of a physical spindle no matter how much
cache you throw at it. For what it's worth, log files typically are a
sequential write operation (something like 90-99% of the time excluding
backup times depending) meaning that cache can help here if you have it in
the SAN. Just keep in mind that when cache fills, it has to go somewhere
else stop the writes until it flushes. That indicates that it will stop or
severely slow your user population on the server in many cases.

For recoverability, log files are far more important than the db itself in
most DR scenarios. You want to protect those as much as possible.

I am curious why you would put the OS and Exchange binaries (presumably the
temp and swap files as well) on a RAID 5 partition. That seems a bit odd in
that configuration to me when you could be using RAID 1 for much of that.

Al





"Lazo Basic" <l_basic.Nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23sN8VOoRFHA.3076@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
Quote:
Phisucaly its all one disk I can create diferent drives. Can you think of
any other risens for apart from backup.
"Magik" <rickglover@paulhastings.com> wrote in message
news:1114095304.701007.44700@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
If you want to use certain snap tools you will have to have the logs on
another SAN disk. We have an EMC SAN and had to have them separate if
we wanted to make a BCV snapshot and backup that snapshot instead of
the live data.

Magik


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Lazo Basic
Guest





Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2005 12:39 pm    Post subject: Re: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

Thanks for your advice Al.

What configuration do you recomend for the two DL380 with 3*36GB HDD for OS
and Exchange including the swap & temp file

"Al Mulnick" <amulnick_No_SPAM@ncDOTrr.com> wrote in message
news:O5Hf40zRFHA.3972@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
Quote:
The two main reasons you want to separate LOG files: = Performance and
recoverability. In terms of performance, even a mighty san has to worry
about the rotational latencies of a physical spindle no matter how much
cache you throw at it. For what it's worth, log files typically are a
sequential write operation (something like 90-99% of the time excluding
backup times depending) meaning that cache can help here if you have it in
the SAN. Just keep in mind that when cache fills, it has to go somewhere
else stop the writes until it flushes. That indicates that it will stop
or
severely slow your user population on the server in many cases.

For recoverability, log files are far more important than the db itself in
most DR scenarios. You want to protect those as much as possible.

I am curious why you would put the OS and Exchange binaries (presumably
the
temp and swap files as well) on a RAID 5 partition. That seems a bit odd
in
that configuration to me when you could be using RAID 1 for much of that.

Al





"Lazo Basic" <l_basic.Nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23sN8VOoRFHA.3076@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
Phisucaly its all one disk I can create diferent drives. Can you think
of
any other risens for apart from backup.
"Magik" <rickglover@paulhastings.com> wrote in message
news:1114095304.701007.44700@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
If you want to use certain snap tools you will have to have the logs on
another SAN disk. We have an EMC SAN and had to have them separate if
we wanted to make a BCV snapshot and backup that snapshot instead of
the live data.

Magik




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Al Mulnick
Guest





Posted: Sat May 07, 2005 12:43 am    Post subject: Re: Exchange design with SAN Reply with quote

Recommend?
What are the choices there? You can pretty much just create a mirror,
raid5, or raid0 configuration out of that. Raid5 would be silly because of
the write penalty associated with the parity checking. Raid0 might work,
but then, what would be the point? Space? Mirror would be the likely
choice because of the speed/protection benefits. Space would be limited and
because it's a 380, you're likely not interested in scalability either.
Swap/Temp files aren't going to impact as much as a larger system.

Since it's a 380, my preference would be add some more spindles in many
situations. That way I can off-set some of the risks of disk loss and
maintain some of the performance benefits of multiple spindles.

Al


"Lazo Basic" <l_basic.Nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%235MZjoWSFHA.3076@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
Quote:
Thanks for your advice Al.

What configuration do you recomend for the two DL380 with 3*36GB HDD for
OS
and Exchange including the swap & temp file

"Al Mulnick" <amulnick_No_SPAM@ncDOTrr.com> wrote in message
news:O5Hf40zRFHA.3972@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
The two main reasons you want to separate LOG files: = Performance and
recoverability. In terms of performance, even a mighty san has to worry
about the rotational latencies of a physical spindle no matter how much
cache you throw at it. For what it's worth, log files typically are a
sequential write operation (something like 90-99% of the time excluding
backup times depending) meaning that cache can help here if you have it
in
the SAN. Just keep in mind that when cache fills, it has to go somewhere
else stop the writes until it flushes. That indicates that it will stop
or
severely slow your user population on the server in many cases.

For recoverability, log files are far more important than the db itself
in
most DR scenarios. You want to protect those as much as possible.

I am curious why you would put the OS and Exchange binaries (presumably
the
temp and swap files as well) on a RAID 5 partition. That seems a bit odd
in
that configuration to me when you could be using RAID 1 for much of that.

Al





"Lazo Basic" <l_basic.Nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23sN8VOoRFHA.3076@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
Phisucaly its all one disk I can create diferent drives. Can you think
of
any other risens for apart from backup.
"Magik" <rickglover@paulhastings.com> wrote in message
news:1114095304.701007.44700@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
If you want to use certain snap tools you will have to have the logs
on
another SAN disk. We have an EMC SAN and had to have them separate if
we wanted to make a BCV snapshot and backup that snapshot instead of
the live data.

Magik






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