emc protection for microsoft exchange server 2010

1EMC CONFIDENTIAL—INTERNAL USE ONLY

EMC PROTECTION FOR MICROSOFT EXCHANGE SERVER 2010EMC VNX5700, EMC RecoverPoint, EMC Replication Manager, EMC Data Protection Advisor, VMware vSphere, and VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager

• Fully automated recovery for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010• Unlimited snapshots to protect from logical database corruption• In-depth monitoring and reporting

EMC Solutions Group — Strategic Solutions Engineering


Solution Offering and Options• Full end-to-end Protection for Exchange 2010 environment in a

virtualized infrastructure– Local application protection with Exchange deployed in DAG– Local continuous data protection (CDP) with RecoverPoint

(unlimited snaps)– Remote continuous replication (CRR) with RecoverPoint for

DR– Automated failover and failback with vCenter SRM 5

• Database protection and instant restore with Replication Manager

• In-depth monitoring and reporting with DPA• Flexible deployment options• White paper for this solution is published here:

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8891-emc-protection-fr-microsoft-exchng-servr2010.pdf





Exchange 2010 DR OptionsExchange 2010

DR OptionsReplication

Method Description Reference Material

Cross-site (stretch) DAG

Exchange Continuous Replication (DAG)

Built in to Exchange 2010 for HA and DR

Co-branded White Paper: Business Continuity for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Enabled by EMC Unified Storage, Cisco UCS and Microsoft Hyper-V

Database Portability

RecoverPoint Just the Exchange data is replicated. The users are re-homed at the second site to a different server

White Paper: Exchange 2010 Disaster Recovery Options with Cross-Site Exchange DAG and EMC RecoverPoint

Replication Enabler for Exchange (REE)

RecoverPoint Synchronous solution today. Integrated with Exchange 2010 3rd Party Replication API. Replaces native DAG replication

Co-branded White Paper: Zero Data Loss Disaster Recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2010 Enabled by EMC Unified Storage, EMC Replication Enabler for Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Hyper-V

Server/Site Move

SRDF, RecoverPoint

Both the OS and Exchange data is replicated. Failover includes bringing the servers up, changing IP & updating DNS (automated with SRM 5)

White Paper – SRDF Solution: Virtualized Exchange 2010 DR Enabled by EMC Symmetrix VMAX and VMware vCenter SRMWhite Paper – RecoverPoint Solution: EMC Protection For Microsoft Exchange Server 2010

http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h7337-exchange-unified-cisco-hyper-v-wp.pdf



http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h8104-exchange-cross-site-dag-recoverpoint-wp.pdf



http://www.emc.com/collateral/software/white-papers/h7410-zero-data-loss-exchange-wp.pdf




http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8151-virtual-exchange-vmax-vmware-wp.pdf






Solution Architecture• Two active-active Sites• 10,000 Exchange 2010 users per site (20,000 total)• 1 DAG per site with 2 local copies• 4 Mailbox Server VMs per DAG (each VM configured to run

5,000 users during local switchovers — 2,500 active/2,500 passive)

• Exchange user profile• 2 GB mailbox per user• 0.15 IOPS per user


Data

Site Protection with RecoverPoint and Automated Failover with SRM

RecoverPoint

RecoverPoint

Site A Site B

WAN Link

Data

SRM


Parameters Used to Test and Validate the SolutionParameters Local DAG with RecoverPoint CRR environmentNumber of sites Two active-activeNumber of users per site 10,000 users (20,000 total during site failover)Exchange 2010 user profile 150 messages sent/received/day (0.15 IOPS), 2 GB mailboxDatabase read/write ratio 3:2 in Mailbox Resiliency configuration

Test Environment • 4 mailbox servers per DAG (local site)• 3 copies (2 local with DAG and 1 remote with RecoverPoint)

Connectivity between sites 1 Gbps Ethernet Storage connectivity to physical host FC

Storage design• 1 VNX5700 storage array per site• 2 TB NL-SAS (7.2k rpm) disks for Exchange database and logs (RDM/P)• 2 TB NL-SAS (7.2k rpm) disks for virtual machine OS (VMFS)• 600 GB SAS (10k rpm) disks for RecoverPoint journals

vSphere host design

• 4 Intel-based servers with 4 six-core Xeon X7460 processors @ 2.66 GHz (24 CPUs) and 128 GB RAM. 2 servers per site, each supports 4 Exchange Mailbox Role virtual machines.

• 4 Intel based servers with 4 six-core Xeon X7350 Processors @ 2.93 GHz (16 CPUs) and 64 GB RAM. 2 servers per site, each supports 4 Exchange Client Access and Hub Transport Role virtual machines.

Virtualization Platform vSphere 5.0

Data protection• Daily full backups (hardware VSS)• 24 application-consistent snapshots per day (24 hours)• Unlimited crash-consistent snapshots per day (24 hours)


ESXi Host & VM Design

Exchange 2010 Role CPU MemoryMailbox Server 6 32Client Access and Hub Transport Combo 4 16

NOTE: CPU and memory requirements are based on Microsoft Guidelines. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee712771.aspx for additional details.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee712771.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee712771.aspx


Mailbox Server Role Design


Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server VM DesignESX

Server 1 ESX

Server 2 MBX1 MBX2 MBX3 MBX4DB1 C1 C2 DB2 C1 C2 DB3 C1 C2 DB4 C1 C2 DB5 C1 C2 DB6 C2 C1 DB7 C2 C1 DB8 C2 C1 DB9 C2 C1 DB10 C2 C1 DB11 C1 C2DB12 C1 C2DB13 C1 C2DB14 C1 C2DB15 C1 C2DB16 C2 C1DB17 C2 C1DB18 C2 C1DB19 C2 C1DB20 C2 C1

Design Attributes• 5,000 users during local switchovers

(2500 active/2500 passive)• 10 DBs per server• 500 users per DB• 1.6 TB DB LUNs• 100 GB Log LUNs• VNX pools• Physical isolation of DAG copies

Active Copies Passive Copies

Domains protected against failure• Mailbox server• Hypervisor host• Storage• Network


Mailbox Server Building Block Design

Users per Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine

Disks per Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine

vCPUs per Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine

Memory per Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine

5,000 20 (16 + 4):• 16 x 2 TB NL-SAS disks

in RAID 1/0 for databases

• 4 x 2 TB NL-SAS disks in RAID 1/0 for logs

6 CPUs 32 GB


Storage Design Details for a 5,000-User Mailbox Server Building Block

Attribute Details

Number of users 5,000 (in a switchover condition)

User profile 150 messages sent/received (0.15 IOPS), 2 GB Mailbox

Disk type 2 TB NL-SAS, 7.2k rpm

Storage configuration/RAID type 20 disks per building block for Exchange data:• 16 disks in a RAID 1/0 storage pool for databases• 4 disks in a RAID 1/0 RAID group for logs

Databases per server/users per database 10 databases per server, 500 users per database

LUNs/LUN sizes 21 LUNs per Mailbox server virtual machine:• 10 database LUNs (1.6 TB) (RDM/P)• 10 log LUNs (100 GB) (RDM/P)• 1 LUN for virtual machine OS (200 GB) (VMFS)


ESX/VMs Storage Design


RecoverPoint DesignIn this solution, EMC RecoverPoint provides protection from Exchange logical database corruption and DR protection in the case of a site failure.

• Native Exchange replication does not protect from logical corruption.

• Corruption can potentially replicate to other Exchange database copies within the DAG locally and remotely.

In this solution, RecoverPoint is configured as follows:

• The replication method is Concurrent Local and Remote Replication (CLR) (combines both CDP and CRR).

• Each Mailbox server VM is placed into its own CG with all replicated database and log LUNs, including the LUN containing the guest OS.

• Ensures full consistency across all volumes used by the Mailbox Server Role virtual machines.


Consistency Group (CG) Design for Active/Active Data Centers

• Ensures consistency across production and targets – one Exchange Mailbox server per CG

• Application recovery can be independent from SLAs

• Enables independent replication of various applications

• Utilizes Consistency Groups to organize data

MBX3 CG

MBX1 CGCDP

CRRCDP MBX2 CG

MBX1

MBX2

CRR

CRRMBX3 CDP

MBX4 CG CRRMBX4 CDP

CDP

CDP

MBX1

MBX2

MBX3 CDP

MBX4 CDP

CRR

CRR

CRR

CRR

MBX5 CG

MBX6 CG

MBX7 CG

MBX8 CG

Site A Site B


RecoverPoint Consistency Group Configuration One Consistency Group per Mailbox Server VM 21 Replication Sets per Consistency Group


RecoverPoint Group SetsA Group Set is a set of consistency groups to which the system applies parallel bookmarks at a user-defined frequency. Allows for automatic, periodic bookmarking Provides same RPO for multiple Consistency Groups distributed across multiple RPAs Useful for consistency groups that depend on each other or must work together as a

single unit• Four Mailbox servers in a DAG at each site – combined into one Group Set to meet 15-

minute RPO requirement


RecoverPoint CG Policy Settings for SRM


RecoverPoint Journal Sizing• RecoverPoint journal volumes store consistent point-in-time

snapshots (or bookmarks) to enable point-in-time recovery of Exchange data.

• Journal size will dictate how much protection you will have (how many snaps you can keep).

• For each CG in the RecoverPoint CLR configuration, three journals are set up:• Two at the local site• One at the remote site

• The two most important considerations when sizing storage for journal volumes: • Performance• Protection window


RecoverPoint Journal Sizing (cont.)Formula to calculate journal volume size based on the expected change rate and required rollback time period:

Example• Protection requirements: 3 days (72 hours)• Change rate: 5 Mbps

Journal size = 5 Mbps x 259,200 seconds / 0.8 x 1.05 = 1,701,000 Mb (~213 GB)


RecoverPoint Journal Sizing (cont.) Journals deployed in this solution


RecoverPoint Storage Design Summary

Volume type Site A and B CommentsRepository 3 GB One volume per storage array/RPA cluster per siteJournal 40 x 100 GB

32 x 5 GB• Journal LUNs configured from RAID 1/0 groups.

• 500 GB journal per consistency group: 5 x 100 GB volumes for each local and remote copy.

• 20 GB journal per consistency group: 4 x 5 GB volumes for each production copy.

Replication 80 x 1.6 TB for database volumes80 x 100 GB for log volumes

• RAID 1/0 pools• Replication volume sizes must be equal or larger

than production volumes


RecoverPoint Integration with Replication Manager RM leverages RP replication technology to automate and

schedule VSS copies of Exchange, both locally and remotely RM automates Exchange 2010 tasks such as:

• Create Exchange database application sets• Create and manage multiple-site, application-consistent replicas of

Exchange databases• Run a full Exchange job to create a VSS bookmark, run the Microsoft

Exchange utility eseutil, and then truncate the Exchange logs• Run an Exchange copy job that creates a VSS bookmark• Start an on-demand mount and dismount of an Exchange database• Restore Exchange databases from either local or remote bookmarks

to the production Exchange server in seconds


How this solution uses RMRM automates RecoverPoint application-consistent replicas and performs Exchange log truncation 24 application-consistent (VSS) snapshots in a 24-hour cycle

• In addition to maintaining hourly application-consistent snapshots initiated by RM, RP journal maintains many more crash-consistent snapshots from which Exchange databases can easily be recovered

RM application set is created for each Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine.

Application set includes all ten databases configured on the server• This design aligns with the RP CG design, where each consistency

group contains all of the Exchange databases and logs for a specific Mailbox server


Replication Manager Design RM Application Set

configuration– Created for each Mailbox VM– Includes 10 DB’s per

Mailbox Server– Design aligned with

RecoverPoint


Special Environment Variable for RM In this solution each RecoverPoint consistency group is configured

with an additional replication set for the Mailbox server OS LUN that resides on the VMware VMFS datastore volume

• This configuration creates a potential conflict between Replication Manager and RecoverPoint, because the Microsoft VSS framework does not support VMFS data stores

• To resolve this conflict, environment variable is created on each Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine with Replication Manager Agent installed:

ERM_RP_EXTRA_DEVS_ALLOWED=1 With this environment setting in place

• RecoverPoint continues to provide crash-consistent replicas of all LUNs attached to the Exchange Mailbox server virtual machine (including the OS VMFS volume)

• Replication Manager continues to provide application-consistent replicas of all Exchange RDM volumes


RM Replication options In this solution, RM jobs are configured with two Replica Type

options to protect the Exchange Server 2010 databases:– Online Full– Online Copy

Online Full jobs are set up for daily backups Online Copy jobs are set up to run at hourly intervals during

business hours to provide application-consistent recovery (24 snapshots per 24 hours)


Replication Manager server thaws application

RecoverPoint + RM = Integrated Local/Remote Protection

Local CDP Copy

Exchange Production

Exchange Mount

Host

Local CDP Journal

Production LUN

Replication Manager Server

Replication Manager server freezes application Replication Manager server requests VSS-compliant bookmark

RemoteCRRJournal

WANRecoverPoint RecoverPoint

SANSAN

RemoteCRRCopy

LUNLUN

BOOKMARK

BOOKMARK


Site Recovery Manager Core Capabilities

Virtual Center

Virtual Machines

ESXServer

ESXServer

ESXServer

ESXServer

Servers

Storage

Site Recovery Manager

Centralized management for DR• Create, test, update and execute recovery

plans from a single point of management• Seamless integration with Virtual Center

Disaster recovery automation• Build recovery process in advance• Automate testing of recovery plans• Automate execution of recovery process

Simplified setup and integration• Allocate and manage recovery resources• Easy integration with leading vendors’

storage replication systems

29© Copyright 2010 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

Key SRM ComponentsProtected site

VC Server 1

SRM Server 1

StorageReplicationAdapter

SRM 1 DB

VC 1 DB

RecoverPoint replication

Recovery siteVC Server 2

SRM Server 2

StorageReplicationAdapter

SRM 2 DB

VC 2 DB

RecoverPoint replication

Array 1 Array 2


vCenter SRM RequirementsSRM requirements for the vSphere configuration at each site:

• Each site must include a vCenter server containing at least one vSphere data center.

• The recovery site must support array‐based replication with the protected site, and the recovery site must have hardware and network resources that can support the same virtual machines and workloads as the protected site.

• At least one virtual machine must be located on a data store that is replicated by RecoverPoint at the protected site.

• The protected and recovery sites must be connected by a reliable IP network. Storage arrays may have additional network requirements.

• The recovery site must have access to the same public and private networks as the protected site, although the recovery site does not necessarily require access to the same range of network addresses.

• VMware tools must be installed on all virtual machines.


SRM Configuration Steps1. Install and configure SRM with the RecoverPoint SRA adapter.2. Configure the connection between the protected and recovery

sites.3. Configure RecoverPoint array managers.4. Configure resource inventory mappings.5. Configure protection groups.6. Create the recovery plan.7. Customize virtual machine recovery options, including IP

customization.


SRM Protection Groups• An SRM protection group is a

collection of virtual machines that all use the same datastore group (the same set of replicated LUNs) and that all fail over together.

• For this solution, an SRM protection group is created for each Exchange Mailbox VM.


SRM Protection Groups (cont.)• After a protection group is created, shadow VMs are automatically

created in the recovery site vCenter inventory.• They act as placeholders for the virtual machines that can be failed

over with SRM.• The shadow VMs cannot be started independently from SRM and are

removed if their protection group is deleted.


SRM Configuration — Recovery Plans


SRM 5 Features for Multi-subnet Data Centers• Recovery and

Reprotect options

• IP customization

• Power-on priority and dependencies


Changing the DAG IP address at the Recovery SiteSet-DatabaseAvailabilityGroup -Identity <DAG Name>-DatabaseAvailabilityGroupIPAddresses <new DAG IP-address at recovery site>


Testing an SRM Recovery Plan• Recovery plans can be tested at any time without

interrupting replication or the business’s RPO.

• Predict how much time the recovery of the virtual environment is likely to take.

• Administrators can quickly access a replica of the entire protected environment for testing purposes.

• Automatically generated summary reports can be used to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements.

SRM Recovery Plan Time elapsed (minutes) RTO Met?Single Mailbox server 17 YesFour Mailbox servers in a DAG 25 Yes


Testing an SRM Recovery Plan (cont.)


SRM Site Failover Test Results

• Failover of all Mailbox Servers from Site A to Site B

• Results include DNS name change and IP changes

SRM recovery plan Time elapsed (min) RTO met?

Four Mailbox servers in a DAG 38 Yes


Site Failback with SRM• SRM 5 provides automatic failback functionality

• RecoverPoint SRA version 2.0 integrates with SRM 5• This functionality enables you to perform an automated failback

operation after a planned or unplanned failover


SRM Failback Process1. Verify all network communications between the recovery site and the

original protected site.2. Verify connectivity between vCenter servers.3. Ensure all resource mappings are in place. 4. Ensure no changes need to be made to SRM protection groups or

protected virtual machines.5. Modify the recovery plan to update any custom scripts.

• For example, update Exchange DAG IP addresses that have changed. Also update CAS array IP addresses if the CAS array was previously replicated.

6. To perform failback:• Incrementally—Use the RecoverPoint or Unisphere management console to replicate

data and resynchronize configuration settings from the recovery site back to the originally protected site.

• Automatically—Initiate “Reprotect” from the SRM management interface. 7. When failback process completed, ensure that all Microsoft Exchange

services are started and the databases are mounted.8. Verify email flow and user access.


Recovery with Replication Manager


RecoverPoint Journal Usage With Exchange Server 2010 Under Load

Test timeline Journal usage (GB) Journal usage per user (MB)

Journal usage (percentage)*

Start 0.20 ---- 0.054 hrs. (day time) 113 23 MB 30.18 hrs. (day time) 174 36 MB 46.412 hrs. (night time) 184 38 MB 49.016 hrs. (night time) 228 47 MB 60.820 hrs. (day time) 279 57 MB 74.424 hrs. (day time) 345 71 MB 92.0

• LoadGen workload for 5,000 users per server with 150 sent/received messages per user• Hourly application-consistent (VSS) bookmarks for a RecoverPoint consistency group with

all of the LUNs for a single Mailbox server with 10 databases• Automatic crash-consistent (VSS) bookmarks for a RecoverPoint consistency group with

all of the LUNs for a single Mailbox server with 10 databases• Nightly scheduled backup job initiated by Replication Manager

*Percentages are based on a 375 GB usable journal space (500 GB minus 25 percent reserved by RecoverPoint) provisioned for each consistency group and 13.6 TB of replicated Exchange data (80 percent of 17 TB provisioned storage).


DPA Reporting — RP Journal Utilization


Summary

Rapid• Automate disaster recovery process• Eliminate complexities of traditional recovery

Reliable• Ensure proper execution of recovery plans• Enable easier, more frequent tests

Manageable• Centrally manage recovery plans• Make plans dynamic to match environment

Affordable• Utilize recovery site infrastructure• Reduce management costs

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager and EMC RecoverPoint make Exchange 2010 Disaster Recovery…

White paper for this solution is published here:http://www.emc.com/collateral/hardware/white-papers/h8891-emc-protection-fr-microsoft-exchng-servr2010.pdf

emc protection for microsoft exchange server 2010

Documents

exchange data

microsoft exchange server

virtualized exchange

emc vnx5700

leverages emc

emc replication manager

emc replication enabler

crosssite exchange dag