White PapersManagement of an enterprise-level Exchange 2003 infrastructure can consume vast amounts of time, expertise, and resources. This paper demonstrates the advantages of employing HP management software in your Exchange 2003 environment by showing numerous activities including software and hardware discovery, inventory, software deployment, and interoperation techniques specific to Exchange 2003 and Active Directory. These items are important as they can significantly decrease the overall administration tasks for Active Directory, Exchange 2003 and HP EVA storage arrays. Three management software suites were selected to accomplish these goals:
• HP OpenView Operations for Windows—A special service-driven operations management offering designed to fit the needs of medium sized environments with up to 30 nodes. This easy-to-use and reliable solution designed for a single management server environment provides everything you need to get your adaptive enterprise started: sophisticated event and performance management from Windows, out-of the box management capabilities for essential Microsoft Windows applications (by way of Smart Plug-ins), and seamless HP OpenView integration. Operations for Windows provides a centralized point of control for the network, servers, operating systems, applications, and services for correlating and managing all the IT infrastructure components of a business service.
Managing your Microsoft Exchange 2003 environment withHP management software white paper Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2 Target audience .................................................................................................................................. 2 Overview............................................................................................................................................ 2 Existing scenario.............................................................................................................................. 3 Benefits........................................................................................................................................... 3 Key findings .................................................................................................................................... 3 Objectives .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Configuration...................................................................................................................................... 4 General configuration....................................................................................................................... 4 Exchange 2003 Cluster .................................................................................................................... 4 SAN............................................................................................................................................... 6 Testing ............................................................................................................................................... 7 Tests performed ............................................................................................................................... 7 Data captured ................................................................................................................................. 7 HP OpenView Operations for Windows................................................................................................. 9 Operations for Windows performance data reports ........................................................................... 13 HP Systems Insight Manager ........................................................................................................... 32 HP Systems Insight Manager Storage Essentials plug-in data................................................................. 50 Results.............................................................................................................................................. 65 Best practices.................................................................................................................................... 65 Conclusion........................................................................................................................................ 65 Appendix A: Known issues ................................................................................................................. 66 Appendix B: Reference Bill of Materials................................................................................................ 66 Appendix C: Array layout................................................................................................................... 68 Appendix D: LoadSim data................................................................................................................. 69 For more information.......................................................................................................................... 70 Untitled Document2 Executive summary As organizations and technology continue to grow at a rapid pace, administrators for Microsoft Active Directory and Microsoft Exchange 2003 are finding it increasingly more challenging to effectively manage their enterprises. HP has a suite of management software products that effectively perform enterprise management with no impact to the production environment. Now administrators can easily and effectively manage, deploy, and monitor the hardware and software within their enterprise by utilizing HP management products such as HP OpenView Operations for Windows, HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), and HP Storage Essentials. Target audience This white paper is directed at Active Directory, Exchange 2003, and HP storage area network (SAN) and Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) administrators. Familiarity with the HP EVA, SANs, Active Directory, Microsoft Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition, Microsoft Exchange 2003 SP2 Clusters, Microsoft SQL Server 2005, MSDE 2005, HP OpenView Operations for Windows, HP Systems Insight Manager, HP Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP), HP Storage Essentials, and HP SAN technology in conjunction with an HP StorageWorks 8000 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA8000) is assumed. Overview Management of an enterprise-level Exchange 2003 infrastructure can consume vast amounts of time, expertise, and resources. This paper demonstrates the advantages of employing HP management software in your Exchange 2003 environment by showing numerous activities including software and hardware discovery, inventory, software deployment, and interoperation techniques specific to Exchange 2003 and Active Directory. These items are important as they can significantly decrease the overall administration tasks for Active Directory, Exchange 2003 and HP EVA storage arrays. Three management software suites were selected to accomplish these goals: " HP OpenView Operations for Windows A special service-driven operations management offering designed to fit the needs of medium sized environments with up to 30 nodes. This easy-to-use and reliable solution designed for a single management server environment provides everything you need to get your adaptive enterprise started: sophisticated event and performance management from Windows, out-of the box management capabilities for essential Microsoft Windows applications (by way of Smart Plug-ins), and seamless HP OpenView integration. Operations for Windows provides a centralized point of control for the network, servers, operating systems, applications, and services for correlating and managing all the IT infrastructure components of a business service. For more information on Operations for Windows, visit: http://h20229.www2.hp.com/solutions/winm/index.html" HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM) The first unified server and storage management platform. From a single management console, administrators can manage their complete HP server and storage environment with a feature rich, extensible, and secure management tool set. HP SIM also serves as a central access point for HP ProLiant Essentials, Integrity Essentials, and Storage Essentials software options that deliver targeted functionality for these platforms. For more information on HP SIM, visit: http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USENUntitled Document3 " HP Storage Essentials HP Storage Essentials integrates with HP SIM to provide advanced storage management, while integration with HP OpenView software by way of Smart Plug-ins delivers integrated IT services management. Quick automation, topology visualization, improved capacity utilization, customized reporting, and simplification of tasks delivered by the Storage Essentials suite increase administrator efficiency to manage and reduce the costs of storage growth. Application infrastructure monitoring and the ability to align storage tiers with user needs improve the overall quality of storage service. For more information on HP Storage Essentials, visit: http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/e-suite/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USENExisting scenario In the absence of management software, monitoring of the Exchange 2003 enterprise in conjunction with a SAN requires an administrator to utilize numerous existing tools and interfaces to obtain the status of servers, networks, and storage. This becomes very costly and time consuming for the administrator and could possibly degrade the operation of the enterprise in the event of catastrophe since the administrator must access multiple software and hardware components to determine the specific cause of outages. Benefits By implementing HP management software such as Operations for Windows, HP SIM, and HP Storage Essentials, the administrator has a single point of reference and interoperation for all management tasks related to Exchange 2003, Active Directory, and the SAN. For this solution, the aforementioned software suites were installed and operated on a single HP ProLiant DL580 G2 server with the Exchange 2003 enterprise resident on HP ProLiant BL45p servers and an HP EVA8000 storage array. Key findings Testing provided the following results: " All three management software suites were able to seamlessly coexist within the enterprise. " Interoperability between the suites existed as prescribed by each individual software suite. " Used in conjunction with each other, all three proved invaluable for monitoring the entire enterprise. " Exchange 2003 administrators can centralize the necessary tasks of monitoring CPU, memory, network, and storage by utilizing these tools. Additionally, implementation of any or all of these management products allows the administrator to easily accomplish: mounting and dismounting of storage groups; vulnerability and patch management; capacity management of SAN-attached storage; and Active Directory and Exchange topology health and management. " Through deployment, discovery, and monitoring, the Exchange 2003 server as well as the Active Directory servers saw no performance impact from utilization of all three products. Untitled Document4 Objectives The objectives of this project were to: " Evaluate the necessary suite of management products for a complete SAN-based Exchange deployment. " Verify seamless interoperability and coexistence within a single ProLiant server. " Determine if any degradation of processor memory or network occurred during discovery, deployment of agents, deployment of software, or inventory tasks. " Demonstrate the seamless interoperability of the HP servers and storage deployed in this project with Active Directory, Exchange 2003, and each other. Configuration General configuration The environment was composed of a four-node HP ProLiant BL45p Exchange 2003 Server cluster with SAN-attached storage resident on an EVA8000 array. The Active Directory forest was installed on an HP ProLiant DL380 G4 server as a primary and an HP ProLiant BL30p server as an additional domain controller within the forest. HP SIM and Operations for Windows (server) were installed on a ProLiant DL580 G2 server with a single instance of SQL Server 2005. HP Storage Essentials and the Oracle DB to host Storage Essentials was installed on a ProLiant DL580 G2 server and the Storage Essentials to HP SIM connector installed. HP StorageWorks Command View EVA was installed on a ProLiant DL380 G4 server. All 15 Exchange 2003 Load Simulator (LoadSim) clients were composed of ProLiant BL30p servers, which additionally had the Operations for Windows agents installed (see Figure 1). For a complete Bill of Materials, see Appendix B.). Note: Exchange Server LoadSim is a benchmarking and deployment verification tool designed to test how a server responds to mail load. Exchange 2003 Cluster A four-node Exchange 2003 SP1 Cluster was created in an active/passive configuration with one Exchange Virtual Server instance supporting 3,000 users. The cluster nodes consisted of HP ProLiant BL45p blade servers running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Service Pack 1 and Exchange Server 2003 SP2. Each server was configured with two Fibre Channel blade mezzanine ports. The Fibre Channel ports were based on QLogic adapters and were installed using the HP host bus adapter (HBA) Smart Component drivers. The HBA drivers used were the Microsoft MPIO drivers. Untitled Document Figure 1. Network configuration diagram 5 Untitled DocumentSAN The SAN consisted of two HP StorageWorks SAN Switch 4/32 and a single EVA8000. All storage for the Exchange 2003 Cluster resided on the SAN and was presented to the ProLiant BL45p servers (see Figure 2). The EVA8000 storage array was set up in a 2C12D configuration with 48 146-GB 15K high-performance Fibre Channel disk drives used to store the Exchange database and log disks. For a complete Exchange configuration, see Appendix C. Figure 2. SAN configuration diagram 6 Untitled Document7 Testing Testing consisted of first installing all management software suites on the respective servers identified in the configuration portion of this document. During installation of these software components, performance impacts were measured on Active Directory and Exchange by way of the performance monitor built into Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition. Next, the management software suites were utilized in the discovery, monitoring, patching, and repair of the enterprise. During this phase CPU, Memory, Network, and Disk counters were monitored on the Active Directory servers as well as the active node of the Exchange 2003 Cluster to determine any performance impact. Microsoft LoadSIM was run on the Exchange clients to simulate a normal mail client load within the enterprise. The LoadSIM environment consisted of 15 LoadSIM clients computers with 3,000 users evenly distributed across the servers. An MMB3 workload was run in the configuration of LoadSIM to simulate a standard enterprise class client. Tests performed Test procedures include: 1. Install identified components on a single ProLiant server for interoperability. 2. Operate identified components (as designed). 3. Identify all enhancements for administration and operation for all installed components. 4. Operate identified components in conjunction with LoadSim and Exchange 2003 Server. 5. Utilize identified components to signal and assist in server and storage operations and failures (see Table 1). Data captured Management software screen captures, as well as reports and graphs created by these components (as they apply to management of the Active Directory and Exchange 2003 enterprise), were gathered during the management and operation phases of testing. Performance Monitor was utilized to capture CPU, memory, and disk utilization on Active Directory and Exchange 2003 servers. Table 1 represents the series of tests conducted within the environment. The data following the table is representative of each specific management software suite, its performance impact (if any) on the Exchange Server, and subsequent reports or graphs of data acquired within the enterprise during testing. The performance graphs in the following section represent the performance counters on the Exchange Server. The vertical line in each graph is representative of the start time for each test executed and exemplified in Table 1. Untitled Document8 Table 1. Test scenario Module Execution time Day 1 Status poll = all systems software HP SIM 8:20-8:28 Status poll = all systems hardware HP SIM-Operations for Windows 8:31-8:32 Data collection Detailed HP SIM 8:34-8:43 Data collection Detailed Operations for Windows 10:07 Exchange Configuration All Operations for Windows 9:17-9:28 Operations for Windows Exchange SPI Deployment Operations for Windows 12:57-13:10 Day 2 Refresh Topology Data Operations for Windows 11:26 Refresh General Operations for Windows 11:35 Hardware Status HP SIM 11:36-11:37 Software Status HP SIM 11:38-11:42 Subnet Discovery HP Storage Essentials 15:00-15:21 Data Collection HP Storage Essentials 15:22 Data Collection HP Storage Essentials 15:27-15:40 Data Collection - Append Data HP SIM 15:52-15:58 Day 3 Deploy Exchange Tools Operations for Windows 7:50 Dismount EVS Operations for Windows 8:14 Mount EVS Operations for Windows 12:36-12:37 Deploy IS Tools Operations for Windows 11:30 Untitled Document9 Day 4 Event Monitoring Scan HP SIM-Operations for Windows 9:09 Patch Scan HP SIM 9:11 VPM Acquire Update HP SIM 9:13 Support Pack Check Installation Clients HP SIM 9:24 Support Pack Install HP SIM 9:26 Cluster Failover WIN 10:13 Disk Threshold HP Storage Essentials 13:33-13:34 Discovery of EVS HP SIM HP Storage Essentials 13:36 Get Details Discovery HP Storage Essentials 15:27 Day 5 Patch Manager VPM Agent Detect HP SIM 12:00 VPM Deploy HP SIM 13:09 RDP Image of Exchange Passive node SIM-RDP 13:50-14:10 Day 6 Check ADS Operations for Windows 10:22 Entire Subnet Discovery HP SIM 10:28 Discover Clients HP Storage Essentials 10:40 Auto Discovery of all systems HP SIM 12:42 Performance Collector HP SIM 13:23 Full Data Collection HP Storage Essentials 13:58 HP OpenView Operations for Windows HP OpenView Operations for Windows can be utilized to significantly decrease the amount of time and number of tasks the Exchange 2003 administrator must employ for the administration of the Exchange enterprise. This is accomplished by Operations for Windows s ability to centralize necessary data, as well as operations for the Exchange administrator. The Exchange 2003 administrator can discover Exchange enterprises as well as servers; monitor Information Stores and storage groups (to include mounting and dismounting storage groups); and monitor disk, memory, network, and CPU utilization and capacity from a single Operations for Windows console. As exemplified in the following diagrams, status monitoring as well as day-to-day Exchange operations can be conducted within Operations for Windows. Untitled Document Figure 3. Operations for Windows Discovery data 10 Untitled DocumentPerformance counters on the Exchange Server during Operations for Windows System Discovery (noted previously) indicate no significant increase in CPU or memory utilization on the Exchange Server. Note in the 24-hour graph (Figure 4), the LoadSIM run started at 09:10 AM and the discovery was run at 11:26 (as indicated on Day 2 of testing, specifically General Refresh and Refresh Topology listed in Table 1). Figure 4. 11 Untitled DocumentFollowing are the performance characteristics for an Operations for Windows operation to gather Exchange 2003 Configurations (all). Note that the cursor position is representative of the test in Table 1, Day1, Exchange Config All. In this chart there is an expected performance impact on the Exchange Server due to Operations for Windows polling the active Exchange 2003 node for all pertinent information relative to the Exchange enterprise (that is Mailboxes, Users, Server information, Cluster information, and so on). Figure 5. Notice that there is an increase in %Privileged Processor time during the 11-minute poll from Operations for Windows. The Pool Nonpaged Allocs is the number of calls to allocate space in the nonpaged pool. The nonpaged pool is an area of system memory area for objects that cannot be written to disk, and must remain in physical memory as long as they are allocated. It is measured in the numbers of calls to allocate space, regardless of the amount of space allocated in each call. This counter displays the last observed value only; it is not an average that depicts a more accurate representation on memory load during the Operations for Windows operation. 12 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows performance data reports In Figure 6, CPU cycles for all critical servers are available in the Operations for Windows report view. Figure 6. In this diagram, DL580-TOP and DL580-BTM show the highest amount of CPU utilization during the reporting interval. Third in utilization is the active Exchange Server BL45P-3. Notice that although all servers are reporting significantly more utilization than the Exchange clients; none of these systems is utilizing a significant amount of CPU cycles. 13 Untitled DocumentIn Figure 7, BL45P-3 (the active Exchange Server) shows a significant amount of disk usage due to Exchange Client traffic during a LoadSIM run. Figure 7. 14 Untitled DocumentFigure 8 shows which systems consumed the highest percent of their file space during the reporting interval of 6/07/2006 12:00 AM to 6/13/2006 11:00 PM. Notice that DL580-BTM, an Oracle Server for Storage Essentials; BL45P-3, an Exchange 2003 Server; and DL580-TOP, the SQL server for HP SIM, have consumed the highest percentage of file system space. Figure 8. 15 Untitled DocumentAgain, the Exchange Server BL45P-3 is the top consumer of memory during the reporting interval due to LoadSIM client traffic. Figure 9. 16 Untitled DocumentAs with the CPU and memory, it is expected that the Exchange Server BL45P-3 would also have a significant amount of client traffic over the network for Exchange clients. Figure 10. 17 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows Active Directory discovery and report data can also be gathered by either the Operations for Windows administrator or accessed by the Exchange 2003 for informational purposes. This information could be vital to the Exchange administrator in the event of forest or domain issues with DNS, Domain Controllers, or other critical servers. Figure 11. This view depicts the HP OpenView Topology Viewer for both Exchange 2003 as well as the Active Directory enterprise. 18 Untitled DocumentFigure 12 depicts the minimum, maximum, and average daily usage on the DNS server in Pages/Second performance from the Memory object. The spikes indicate higher than average memory utilization for the DNS server for DNS queries. Figure 12. 19 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows Active Directory Sysvol and system up time report indicates the weekly summary of the Sysvol (system volume shared directory on the Domain Controller) disk space information for the specified domain controller BOT-BL30-16. Figure 13. 20 Untitled DocumentFigure 14 shows a report from Operations for Windows on the total system up time for all servers. Notice that BL45P-3 Exchange Server has had 100% up time during the reporting interval. Figure 14. 21 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows was utilized to monitor and maintain the Exchange 2003 Server. The next series of data represents the utilization of the Exchange Smart Plug in (ExSPI) to recover failed Exchange 2003 transaction logs due to insufficient allocation of disk space on the EVA array. This condition was intentionally imposed to demonstrate the capabilities of Operations for Windows. The Exchange administrator is alerted by the Operations for Windows Console with a red X on the Exchange Server in the node tree of Operations for Windows. When the administrator selects the Exchange Server and subsequently selects the error, a message is displayed that the Exchange transaction log disk is below 10% remaining capacity. Figure 15. Figure 15 shows a critical flag presented to the Exchange 2003 administrator that indicates the transaction log file disk for SG1 is within 10% of total capacity (almost full). 22 Untitled DocumentSelection of the next critical error message informs the administrator that the Exchange Information Store is offline. Figure 16. 23 Untitled DocumentThe next series of data is representative of the steps taken to resolve the insufficient disk space issue on the transaction log disks. The administrator is notified by the Operations for Windows Console that the Exchange Server is offline. The next step is to access Command View EVA and increase the number of disks within the Transaction Log disk group. By doing so, and a subsequent rescan of the disks on the Exchange Server, the additional disk space is shown within Disk Manager. The administrator then utilizes the DISKPART utility within Windows 2003 Server and extends the existing partition to include the newly allocated disk space. When complete, Operations for Windows ExSPI is utilized to mount all dismounted Storage Groups. Command View EVA is utilized to expand the Vdisk. Figure 17. 24 Untitled DocumentThe newly allocated disk space is visible after rescan and DISKPART is used to extend the LUN. Figure 18. 25 Untitled Document Figure 19. 26 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows ExSPI is used to mount Storage Groups and display topology. Figure 20. 27 Untitled Document Figure 21. 28 Untitled DocumentPerformance data from the preceding Operations for Windows ExSPI operation shows the performance impact of mounting the Exchange Storage Group Database on the processors of the Exchange Server. Additionally, the SMTP Queue was increasing until the DB was successfully mounted, then the Queue emptied (as expected). There is also no significant increase in processor time during the Operations for Windows ExSPI interaction with the Exchange Server, which began at 12:36:00. (The data in the following charts is representative of testing conducted on Day 3, Mount EVS in Table 1.) Figure 22. 29 Untitled DocumentOperations for Windows ExSPI provides information on mailboxes and user connections. Figure 23. 30 Untitled Document Figure 24. 31 Untitled DocumentHP Systems Insight Manager HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), like Operations for Windows, can greatly assist the Exchange administrator in day-to-day Exchange tasks and monitoring. Operating system patches, ProLiant Support pack management, and Exchange Server monitoring are just a few of the many tasks that are centralized within HP SIM. The next section shows information, data, and statistics from testing conducted against the HP SIM environment. HP SIM and Operations for Windows have many similar characteristics such as System Discovery, Server Discovery, and Application Discovery as displayed in the following figures. Figure 25. Discovery of all systems (All systems, servers, blades, and clusters) 32 Untitled Document Figure 26. 33 Untitled Document Figure 27. 34 Untitled Document Figure 28. In addition, HP SIM has a report view (similar to Operations for Windows) where specific report data can be specified. The administrator will first select new report from the report menu, then specify the target servers and then the data to collect within the report. 35 Untitled Document Figure 29. New report menu Here the HP SIM administrator can select the specific items of interest for the report, so as not to clutter the report with unnecessary data. 36 Untitled Document Figure 30. 37 Untitled Document Figure 31. Comprehensive report of the Cluster Members identified in the report 38 Untitled DocumentOne of numerous plug-ins within HP SIM is Vulnerability and Patch Management (VPM). VPM provides the administrator the ability to scan for vulnerabilities, and apply both Microsoft as well as HP ProLiant Support Packs. VPM requires an agent that is easily deployed by the HP SIM console to all specified servers, then operation begins. The following are examples of VPM interfaces and capabilities. The subsequent chart represents the test conducted on Day 5, VPM Deploy at 13:09. Figure 32. 39 Untitled DocumentAgent deployment is simple, and the chart (SIM Deploy VPM Agents) shows no performance impact on Exchange 2003 while the VPM agent was deployed. Figure 33. 40 Untitled DocumentHere the HP SIM administrator can determine if licenses for the specific agent are necessary, and if so deploy licenses immediately within the same interface. Figure 34. 41 Untitled DocumentNotice in Figure 34, the systems are not licensed. VPM allows the administrator to apply licenses immediately (no need to exit the screen). All the administrator must do is click the Add Key button and then input the key in the boxes provided. When complete, click OK and the licenses are applied to the selected systems. Figure 35. When the licenses are applied, the agents can be deployed by clicking the Next button. 42 Untitled DocumentFigure 36 depicts almost no visible performance increase to the Exchange Server during agent deployment. Note that LoadSIM was running in the background to simulate an MMB3 workload. Figure 36. Notice that at the VPM Agent Deploy start time of 13:09, there are no significant increases in Cache Faults or %Processor time on the Exchange Server BL45P-3. This is important due to the fact that most Exchange transactions are utilizing processor time and are running in OS cache. Another invaluable module available within the HP SIM console is HP Rapid Deployment Pack (RDP). The RDP server enables the administrator to rapidly deploy OS images and patches, or to create images (or backups) of an entire server for re-deployment or disaster recovery. Similarly to HP SIM and Operations for Windows, RDP conducts an inventory of systems on the Local Area Network (LAN) for operational and maintenance functions. The following are examples of the RDP interface within HP SIM. From the Deploy menu within HP SIM, the administrator selects Rapid Deployment Pack, Launch Web Console. 43 Untitled Document Figure 37. 44 Untitled DocumentWhen selected, the administrator is taken to the RDP console to deploy, image, or maintain. Figure 38. 45 Untitled Document Figure 39. 46 Untitled DocumentIn the Web Console, the administrator selects a passive cluster node and then an image job. Figure 40. When executed, the rest is automatic, and a complete image of the Exchange Passive node is complete. 47 Untitled Document Figure 41. 48 Untitled DocumentFigure 42 depicts the performance impact to the Exchange Server during the RDP job deployment and the imaging process. This is exemplified in the test data Table 1, Day 5, RDP image of Exchange Passive Node 13:50 -14:10. Figure 42. Notice that the %Committed Bytes in memory remain unchanged, and there is no significant increase of processor utilization during the imaging of the passive node. 49 Untitled DocumentHP Systems Insight Manager Storage Essentials plug-in data Storage Essentials enhances the ability of HP SIM for the Exchange Administrator by adding additional functionality in the areas of storage management and SAN management. Since it is a plug-in for HP SIM, Storage Essentials has the ability to display similar data on all discovered systems within HP SIM. But, Storage Essentials goes a step further by enabling the Exchange administrator to monitor storage specific information on the EVA for all Exchange data and transaction log database LUNs. This final section shows information, data, and statistics from testing conducted against the Storage Essentials environment. Storage Essentials as with HP SIM and Operations for Windows has many similar characteristics, such as System Discovery, Server Discovery, and Application Discovery. Notice in the following screens that there are multiple ways to access Storage Essentials within the HP SIM Console. Under the Options tab within HP SIM, the administrator selects discovery. Within the discovery screen, the hosts are selected then the administrator decides whether to conduct an HP SIM discovery or utilize Storage Essentials as displayed under the For Storage Essentials (SE) discoveries section. Figure 43. 50 Untitled DocumentThe administrator can also easily access the Storage Essentials portion of HP SIM by selecting Tools, Storage Essentials, and finally the appropriate Storage Essentials menu desired. In Figure 44, the administrator is accessing the Storage Essentials System Manager interface directly, which is most likely due to the necessity to conduct operations specific to Storage Essentials (such as accessing SAN-, array-, and host-specific data). Figure 44. 51 Untitled DocumentThe System Manager view in Storage Essentials has an overview of the entire enterprise topology. Figure 45. 52 Untitled DocumentIn Figure 46, the Exchange 2003 administrator has selected the active Exchange Server from within the topology view. Notice when selected, the administrator has information about HBAs, volumes, storage, and applications for the specific server. Figure 46. 53 Untitled DocumentThe following charts depict the performance impact on the Exchange Enterprise for the initial Storage Essentials Discovery as depicted in Table 1, Day 2, SE Data Collection. Figure 47. Notice that again, there is no processor impact on the Exchange Server during Storage Essentials discovery. As with the previous measurements (in Operations for Windows) there is a very minimal increase in Memory\Pool Nonpaged Allocs for the same reason. These pages cannot be written to disk and must remain within memory. Regardless, there is only a minimal impact on memory overall. In Figure 47, if a specific host is selected (in this case the active Exchange Server), more detailed information can be displayed specific to the server itself, specifically, as displayed on the following pages, detailed HBA, disk, and storage data specific to the Exchange Server. 54 Untitled DocumentSelection of the storage volume information shows all volumes local and remote. Figure 48. 55 Untitled DocumentSelecting Disk Partitions, Disk Drives shows the location and mapping of all storage volumes. Figure 49. 56 Untitled Document Figure 50. 57 Untitled DocumentAs with Operations for Windows and HP SIM, Storage Essentials also has an integrated Application and Event Manager. Figure 51. 58 Untitled Document Figure 52. 59 Untitled DocumentThe Capacity Manager within Storage Essentials displays cluster-specific information for Exchange 2003. Figure 53. Here the Exchange administrator can view storage-specific data for all disk groups that exist upon the selected EVA, specifically capacity data for database and log disks. 60 Untitled DocumentIn Figure 54, information is displayed against mapped, unmapped, allocated, unallocated, and total capacity available on the EVA. Figure 54. 61 Untitled DocumentBy selecting the scaling 192.168.1 EVA, the administrator can view a chart of the EVA capacity. Figure 55. Notice in this view that the administrator can view the capacity of any system in the enterprise (including switches). By selecting the device and then the chart view (on the lower half of the screen), then the specific device to monitor, the administrator is provided with an immediate and accurate depiction of storage. And as displayed in Figure 56, with a click of the mouse, the administrator can view the storage system topology as it applies to the specified storage system. 62 Untitled Document Figure 56. 63 Untitled DocumentFigure 57 shows HBA LUN ports and their mappings. Figure 57. 64 Untitled Document65 Results Each of these management software applications has its own unique benefits for discovery, monitoring, patching, and repair of the enterprise. Each adds significant enhancements while having minimal to no effect on the Exchange 2003 Server. As displayed in the Memory\Pool Nonpaged Alloc Bytes, there were minimal increases in memory uses, but these increases are systemic to all resident memory applications within the Windows 2003 Server architecture. So, the impact is minimal. Regardless, based on the LoadSim scores presented in Appendix D, there were no significant differences in host performance during the overall testing and users can deploy the applications with confidence. Best practices Operation of select HP management software suites can significantly decrease the overall time, effort, and TCO involved in operating an Exchange 2003 enterprise. Coexistence of all software suites was flawless. For this project, a quad processor an HP ProLiant DL580 G2 server with 10 GB of physical memory (RAM) was utilized as the management server, hosting the various management applications. This configuration was selected because of excellent performance as well as the ability to display all necessary screens and graphs rapidly. The test team found that the Application Programming Interface for all applications began to respond significantly faster after 8 GB of memory were installed. Although not absolutely necessary, as with most applications, increasing RAM will increase overall performance. A single SQL Server 2005 instance was installed on the Management Server. Since all of the management software components require an instance of MSDE, it was easier to manage all SQL instances with SQL Server. Also, the ability to test the application interface portions of the management software would be better stressed by using multiple enterprise class applications. The order in which the application suites were installed on the Management Station was insignificant as long as the administrator paid close attention to all installation instructions provided by each specific software install guide. When installation of the management software servers is accomplished, deployment of specific agents and subnet discovery was accomplished flawlessly. Conclusion Administrators can easily and effectively manage, deploy, and monitor the hardware and software within their Exchange enterprise by utilizing HP management products such as HP OpenView Operations for Windows, HP Systems Insight Manager (HP SIM), and HP Storage Essentials. This is accomplished by the ability of HP to seamlessly integrate all of its software management suites for enterprise management. Each suite can be used for many similar management tasks such as discovery, reporting, and agent deployment. Lastly, each software management component has its own unique interfaces that allow the administrator to select the needed optimum interface. Untitled Document66 Appendix A: Known issues No issues were discovered as a result of this testing. Appendix B: Reference Bill of Materials Quantity Part Number Microsoft Cluster Servers HP ProLiant BL45p server 4 374966-B21 3.5-inch Universal Plug SCSI Disk (300 GB) 2 per server 350964-B22 AMD 2.6-Ghz Opteron Processor 3 per server 390603-B21 HP 1-GB PC3200 DDR Memory (2x512-MB sticks, 8 sticks per server) 16 376638-B21 Dual port Fibre Channel Adapter (2 Gb) for ProLiant BL45p server 4 381881-B21 HP BladeSystem p-Class Server Blade Enclosure with enhanced backplane components and the HP BladeSystem Management Suite 1 380625-B22 ProLiant BL p-Class C-GbE Interconnect Kit (with pair of GbE Interconnect Switches and two QuadT Interconnect Modules)1,4,5 1 249655-B21 BL p-Class F-GbE2 Interconnect with or without optional ProLiant BL p-Class Storage Connectivity Kit (with 16 Fibre Channel connectors, required for BLXXp server blade Fibre Channel connectivity when using the GbE2 Interconnect Switch) 1 (kit) 321745-B21 ProLiant BL p-Class Server Blade Enclosure with enhanced backplane components (includes 8 ProLiant Essentials Rapid Deployment Licenses) 1 281404-B22 1U power enclosure with six power supplies 2 378284-B21 Ethernet cables (3 meter) 16 3rd Party Ethernet cables (2 meter) 16 3rd Party MPIO DSM 4 Software ProLiant Essentials Included w/servers HP StorageWorks Replication Solutions Manager 1.2 1 T3680B HP Systems Insight Manager 5.0 1 Web download HP Storage Essentials Enterprise 1 T4283A Exchange plug-in Storage Essentials 4 T4288AA HP OpenView Operations for Windows LE 1 BA217AA HP Rapid Deployment Pack 1 269817-B21 HP ProLiant Essentials Vulnerability and Patch Management Pack 1 371646-B21 Untitled Document67 HP ProLiant Essentials Performance Management Pack 1 306697-B21 Microsoft Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition 4 Microsoft Exchange 2003 Enterprise Server w/SP2 4 Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 SP1 1 Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 16 Microsoft Office 2003 Professional 16 Storage CTO / FLAG Storage CTO_FLAG 1 258158-888-B23 EVA 2C12D-C 60Hz Graphite 2 AD522A HP StorageWorks 146-GB 15K FC HDD 168 364621-B23 HP VCS V3.0e EVA 8K Media Kit 1 T3588C HP Command View EVA v4.1 Media kit 1 T3724B HP Command View EVA 5000/8000 Unlim use per EVA LTU 2 T3732A HP StorageWorks SAN Switch 4/32 2 A7393A HP Short Wave Optical Transceivers 16 per switch A6515A 50 micron SW Fiber Patch cords 50 Exchange Client Hardware HP ProLiant DL320 G4 server 16 391654-B21 HP ProLiant DL320 P3.2 processor 16 391704-L21 HP 2-GB UB PC2-4200 1x2GB 16 393354-B21 HP 72-GB SAS 15K 32 375870-B21 HP ProLiant DL320 G4 DVD-RW 16 395498-B21 HP ProLiant DL380 G4 server for management host 1 383891-405 Networking HP ProCurve 2724 Gigabit Ethernet switch 4 J4897A Untitled Document68 Appendix C: Array layout Layout of storage groups, LUNs, and so on Disk group Disks Capacity Contents Database DG (1.2-IOPS) 30 4380 GB EVS1 Databases (3000 Users) 3000 total users Log DG 3 438 GB EVS1 Logs Database DG (1.2-IOPS) 50 7300 GB EVS2 Databases (5000 Users) 8000 total users Log DG 5 730 GB EVS2 Logs Database DG (1.2-IOPS) 40 5840 GB EVS3 Databases (4000 Users) 12000+ total users Log DG 4 584 GB EVS3 Logs EVS1 Disk drive letter 3,000 Users Data type Disk group RAID level LUN F:\ Data Mount Database DG 1 11 F:\SMTP SMTP Database DG 1 10 F:\SG1-Databases (mount point) SG1-Data Database DG 1 2 F:\SG2-Databases (mount point) SG2-Data Database DG 1 4 F:\SG3-Databases (mount point) SG3-Data Database DG 1 6 F:\SG4-Databases (mount point) SG4-Data Database DG 1 9 F:\SG1-Logs (mount point) SG1-Log Log DG 1 3 F:\SG2-Logs (mount point) SG2-Log Log DG 1 5 F:\SG3-Logs (mount point) SG3-Log Log DG 1 7 F:\SG4-Logs (mount point) SG4-Log Log DG 1 8 Untitled DocumentAppendix D: LoadSim data Composite score for all 15 LoadSIM clients per day (values less than 1000 are considered acceptable). Figure D-1. 95% LoadSIM Score 276281276277280276050100150200250300123456Test Day 69 Untitled DocumentFor more information " HP Solutions for Exchange 2003 www.hp.com/go/hpcft" HP Storage Essentials http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/e-suite/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN" HP SIM http://h18013.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/hpsim/index.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN" HP OpenView Operations for Windows http://h20229.www2.hp.com/solutions/winm/index.html 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Microsoft and Windows are U.S. registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Oracle is a registered US trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California. 4AA0-7000ENW, August 2006
