Forefront Protection 2010 Capacity Planning Tool

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

The folks at Microsoft released version 1.0 of the Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server capacity planning tool. This tool is to aid you in planning and sizing your FPE configuration.

The tool starts with the question if you want to evaluate your current setup or are planning for a new environment. After that you need to select the required architecture, Standard for small to medium sized organizations or Enterprise for large organizations (e.g. combined Exchange Server roles). You can define the required level of protection (i.e. number of engines on Edge, Hub Transport and Mailbox Server roles) and see the predicted effect on the hardware requirements. After completing the questionnaire you receive the recommended hardware configuration.

You can also see the predicted performance for different setups, i.e. virtual or non-virtual setup, Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as Exchange level (2007 or 2010).

You can download the FPE capacity planning tool here.

Exchange 2007 Mailbox Role Calculator 17.3

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Exchange 2007? Yes! With all this Exchange 2010 coverage one might forget about Exchange 2007, but not the Exchange team who updated the Exchange 2007 Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator to version 17.3.

The major change in this version compared to version 16.9 (released April, 2009!) is a change in the IOPS calculation. This change is to based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange 2007 Performance Benchmarking Guide which simplifies the IOPS calculation in combination with 3rd party software.

The update also contains some bug fixes which are contained in the release notes. You can download the calculator here; usage instructions can be found here.

Mailbox Server Role Storage Requirements Calculator

Exchange 2010 Mailbox Role Calculator 6.3

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Apparantly and somewhat unnoticed, the Microsoft Exchange Team introduced some fixes in the Exchange Mailbox Role Calculator with the release of version 6.3. This version includes the following fixes since 6.1:

Fixed Secondary datacenter Active and Passive megacycle calculations to take into account the number of activated databases based on the failure mode the secondary datacenter can support;
Fixed the number of Active Databases / Secondary Datacenter Server after a first primary datacenter server failure to not display #VALUE for 2-node site resilient DAG solutions;
Improved the number of Active Databases after double server failure in the primary datacenter site resilient calculation to deal with 3 servers in the primary datacenters, as well as, when there are 2 copies in the primary datacenter.

You can consult the Exchange Team’s changeblog here, download the calculator here. Instructions on usage can be found here.

Exchange 2010 Mailbox Role Calculator 6.1

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Again the Microsoft Exchange Team worked hard to improve the Exchange Mailbox Role Calculator even more with the release of version 6.1, 1 month after the 4.5 update. This version includes the following enhancements since 4.5:

Option to select requested storage design, also to prevent logic issues with the calculator suggesting 0 (zero) disks. You have the option to select the storage design As Calculated, Entirely on RAID or Entirely on JBOD;
Simplified messaging profiles (e.g. “100 messages” instead of “20 sent/80 received”) as it doesn’t influence the IO and capacity calculations;
Some improvements and additions in layout and information displayed (e.g. Environment Configuration, Role Requirements Results).

For an extensive overview of the changes and fixes (e.g. zero disk issue), consult the Exchange Team’s changeblog here.

You can download the calculator here. Instructions on usage can be found here.

Exchange Scalability Limits Worksheet

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Michel de Rooij

Last Friday, the Exchange team published the initial version of an Excel worksheet describing the scalability limits and recommendations of Exchange 2007 SP2 versus Exchange 2010. It shows to which Exchange version the limit applies, the area, the limitation itself, a description of the underlying issue and where possible mitigations to increase (or lower if you want) the (default) limit. Note that it not only describes the Exchange Server software, but also limitations caused by the underlying Operating System, off- and on-premise usage and running in large organizations. Great info for sizing large scale implementations and deployments!

You can download the Exchange Scalability Limits Worksheet here. The Exchange team welcomes comments and feedback.