Sizing for Microsoft Domain Controllers, Exchange, MSSQL, System Center, Forefront and Sharepoint

A good place to start for sizing Microsoft AD, Exchange, MSSQL, System Center, Forefront and Sharepoint, would be the technet.

Windows Server
Exchange Server
MS SQL
System Center
ForeFront
SharePoint

The documentation includes deployment planning, architecture design, h/w sizing, virtualized environment, but you actually have to spend some time to absorb the info, and some imagination to visualize it (there isn't much images to support the documentations)

Hyper-V and System Center Licensing

The below is only discussing Server Management. Client Management (e.g. desktop/laptops) not included in this discussion.


Hyper-V licensing:
1 Windows Server Standard lets you install 1 VM on top of the parent partition.
OR in the case of VMware, you may install 1 VM with Windows Standard License

1 Windows Server Enterprise lets you install 4 VMs. 1 Datacenter (Per Proc) lets you install Unlimited VMs as long as you licensed all Processors on the Host.

Example:
Customer wants to run 6 VMs on two ESX hosts. 4 VMs in Host A and 2 VMs in Host B.

License required:
2 Enterprise. 1 for each Host. Customer can run 2 more VMs on Host B.
OR
1 Enterprise + 2 Std.

When DRS move the VMs around, the licensing does not vary because when you calculate the licensing, it is based on the initial design stage.


The price for 2 Enterprise is similar as 1 Datacenter License. Technically, you can justify in the way that if there are more than 8 VMs on the Host, it might be cheaper to go Datacenter License for a single processor machine.

If it's 2 Processors, then more than 16 Vms should be able to justify.



System Center Licensing:
There are 6 components as to date in the System Center Product Family.
1. System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) - SW/HW Inventory, Patch, Software/App Distribution & Metering, O/S Deployment etc

2. System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) -
Monitor server health, performance and availability

3. System Center Data Protection Manager (SCDPM) -
Backup & Restore of Microsoft applications and servers

4. System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM)-
Manage multiple virtualization hosts, e.g. 2 Hyper-V hosts and 1 VMware host with 5 Virtual Machines in each host.

5. System Center Service Manager (SCSM)-
Service Mgmt system for Incident & Problem Mgmt, Change Mgmt and User Self Service (for software request etc.). Integrates with SCCM and SCOM.

6. Opalis
IT Process Automation, integrates heterogeneous management platforms to allow interoperability, e.g. SCCM <-> BMC Remedy


Each of the products comes with Managing License (ML) for each of the server you wish to manage. The ML also comes in Std and Ent version for different featuers, Ent version lets you monitor the Application (e.g. MSSQL, AD, Exchange)

Example,
Customer has 5 Physical Server, 1 of the Server is running 5 VMs, and wishes to use SCOM to manage the environment.

License required:
10 SCOM Std ML + 1 SCOM Server license



Example,
Customer has 5 Physical Server, 1 of the Server is running 5 VMs, 2 other servers are running MSSQL, and wishes to use SCOM to manage the environment.

License required:
8 SCOM Std ML + 2 SCOM Ent ML (For MSSQL) + 1 SCOM Server license



Only SCOM and SCCM requires server license. For SCDPM and SCVMM, only ML is required, there is no license for the server.

Example,
Customer has 5 Physical Server, 1 of the Server is running 5 VMs, and wishes to use SCDPM to backup the environment.

License required:
10 SCDPM Std ML
OR
4 SCDPM Std ML and 1 SCDPM Enterprise ML for the Host



SCVMM has an Workgroup Suite which lets you manage up to and only 5 Hosts, and all the VMs running on these 5 Hosts.

Example,
Customer has 5 Physical Server, all servers are running VMs, and wishes to use SCVMM to manage the environment.

License required:
1 SCVMM Workgroup License




SMSE and SMSD
SCSM and Opalis are the latest addition into the family. This addition affects the Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) and Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD) packaging and price.

1. Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) Per Device -
Includes Managing License for the 6 Products stated above. Only Managing License. Server license for SCOM and SCCM needs to be purchased seperately. For VMs, Enterprise Suite lets you manage up to 4 VMs.

2. Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD) Per Proc-
Includes Managing License for the 6 Products stated above. Only Managing License. Server license for SCOM and SCCM needs to be purchased seperately. For VMs,
Datacenter Suite lets you manage unlimited VMs on the licensed Host.



System Center Essentials
Targeting Mid Market Bundle, System Center Essentials offers the range of products in limited features. (You can only manage up to 30 Server and 500 Clients using Essentials)

The price for Essentials are much cheaper compared to SMSE and SMSD

Creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster in 2008 R2

Step by step walkthrough on creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster.

Creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster (Part 1)
Creating Hyper-V Failover Cluster (Part 2)

Zimbra - new generation of Email solution (Exchange no more?)

Zimbra used to be on yahoo platform and is now acquired by VMware and sold as a virtual appliance with features like "easy setup", "lower TCO than Exchange", "Support more users with less"...

Below quoted from University of Pennsylvania : Zimbra case study

"Adam says they have found Zimbra takes significantly fewer man-hours to administer. In absolute terms Exchange servers take 33% more effort and require one extra full-time headcount per year — even with 4.4 times more users on the Zimbra servers."

Full story link as below
Zimbra TCO Bests Microsoft Exchange in University of Pennsylvania Case Study
Zimbra case studies

ESX and ESXi - 4.1 version

vSphere 4.1 will be the last version that supports ESX. For future deployments, customers are encouraged to go into ESXi. Main reason is for better security, standardized deployment and keeping the hypervisor layer simple, and keep the complicated stuff in the management layer.

Vmware vSphere 4.1 editions
KB on ESX and ESXi comparison (Detailed)
Tech Support Mode in 4.1
4.1 vCLI
4.1 PowerCLI
Upgrade ESX to ESXi
vSphere Management Assistant (vMA)

VMware vShield Manager 4.1 and vShield Family 1.0 ( vShield Edge, App and Endpoint )

Along with cloud infrastructure stepping into new era, the launching of vCloud Director. VMware also announced new range of security products focusing on enhancing security capabilities within cloud environment.

vShield Products Family : vShield App, vShield Edge and vShield Endpoint

Related documents:
vShield 4.1 Quickstart
vShield 4.1 Administrator Guide


After reading thru vShield 4.1 Quickstart, these are the basic concepts which I've derived.


vShield Manager - Central manager for vShield Products. OVA based image to be imported via vCenter and can be hosted on any ESX host. Need to be able to communicate will all vShield products in the environment.

vShield Edge - Focusing on virtual datacenter and public network and internal network isolation. Based on Portgroups. Installation at standard switch portgroups, vDS portgroups or Cisco Nexus 1000v.

vShield App - Focusing on creating different network segments within a datacenter, possibly trying to replace VLAN function. Allowing users to isolate networks into DMZ, Test, Production etc. Based on apps. Virtual Appliance Installation at every ESX host.

vShield Endpoint - Antivirus at ESX host level. Virtual Appliance installation at every ESX host. Supports windows servers, windows drivers needs to be installed on each VMs based on 32/64bit and OS versions.

Need to go thru administration guide to find out more details.

Storage IO Calculation - Basics

YellowBricks - IOPs?
Calculate IOPS in a storage array
Excellent White Paper explaining resources sizing in VDI environment
Calculating Disk Usage using Diskmon
New !! Open unofficial storage performance thread

Avg IOPs:
7200 RPM - 75
10K RPM - 125
15K RPM - 175

RAID penalty:
Raid 0 : R=1, W=1
Raid 1 and 10 : R=1, W=2
Raid 5 : R=1, W=4
Raid 6 : R=1, W=6


Below quote from Yellow bricks

So how do we factor this penalty in? Well it’s simple for instance for RAID-5 for every single write there are 4 IO’s needed. That’s the penalty which is introduced when selecting a specific RAID type. This also means that although you think you have enough spindles in a single RAID Set you might not due to the introduced penalty and the amount of writes versus reads.

I found a formula and tweaked it a bit so that it fits our needs:

(TOTAL IOps × % READ)+ ((TOTAL IOps × % WRITE) ×RAID Penalty)

So for RAID-5 and for instance a VM which produces 1000 IOps and has 40% reads and 60% writes:

(1000 x 0.4) + ((1000 x 0.6) x 4) = 400 + 2400 = 2800 IO’s

The 1000 IOps this VM produces actually results in 2800 IO’s on the backend of the array, this makes you think doesn’t it?