Virtualizing Multiple instances of Exchange, advice needed.

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LibertySyclone

[H]ard|Gawd
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Apr 9, 2007
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I was recently tasked with allocating server(s) for testing exchange policies/Mobile Device management against mobile devices.

Usage case would be that anyone or many of the 9 team member have a version of exchange running.

There would never be more than 5-6 "users" per exchange (realistically it would only be one)

My initial thoughts were to run a base of Server 08 and use Hyper-V, only over VMware because I am more familiar with it and I will be managing it.

Have snapshots of each version of exchange ready to run for any user.

So my questions are, is this possible? or am I going about this wrong?

If it is possible, what should I be looking for as far as hardware? We have one server already (waiting for the data center to get back to me with specs)


Budget w/o software is currently $20k

Thanks,

J


FWIW my background is in HPC computing in both WS08R2 HPC as well as RHEL 5. I have managed a exchange server in the past (03 so its been a while)
 
Not sure if I understand correctly, but why would you need multiple exchange servers for 10 users?
 
You will need lots of ram at least 4-6GB per exchange VM but sure I don't see why it wouldn't work on good hardware.
 
Yeah, I guess I don't get it either, you can have multiple policies and just apply them to the user you want to have test that individual policy.
 
i have an old dell 2850 with 2x socket 604 Xeon 3.6Ghz with HT and 8G of ram and 3x Raid 1 arrays with 146G 380pin SCSI drives hosting 80 mail boxes right now... you don't need multiple servers, exchange 2010 is super fast with the new database system that you dont need high end equipment anymore like with 2003 and even 2007.
 
If you already have a VM server of some type, just setup a 2k8 and throw exchange on it. No need for multiple exchange servers.

If you setup a new VM server and go with Hyper-v one thing to be aware of is your CPU's must support Hardware Virtualization to even install Hyper-V. Unlike ESX which can be installed on servers w/o HV, Hyper-v will not work
Also, if you go with Hyper-V don't just install the Hyper-V server on the computer, install full 2k8 r2 and then install the Hyper-V services. Yes you lose some performance, but it makes managing VM's a lot easier.
We use Hyper-V at work and for small and medium sized companies Hyper-V definitely competes with ESX.
 
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Why not just provision a single exchange server for multi tenate setup?
 
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