Virtualizing BES and SQL
 

Hi All

Need some advice and recommendations etc

Currently we are thinking of deploying a BES architecture as follows

4 BES servers each server hosting 500 users
1 SQL server to service only the above environment

my question is

We wish to place this on a single physical server inside a VMware environment and I am wondering:

1) If this is supported

2) What the recommended hardware requirements would be for this environment

Regards

Tony

The current version of BES installed in a virtual machine (VMware ESX 3 as host) is supported. Virtualizing your 4 BES servers is an effective way of taking advantage of a single piece of hardware and lowering your TCO.

While putting SQL in a VM will probably work... I strongly advise against this.
SQL databases should not be running in a virtual environment. Put SQL on dedicated hardware.
With 500 users... you'd likely have some serious performance problems by virtualizing SQL.

The BES documentation (Installation Guide) will explain your hardware requirements in detail.

We have a 2 BES server (roughly 250 users on each) environment working from 1 SQL instance. This is all virtualised, the 2 servers are dual core 3 ghz, with 4 gigs of RAM which is more than enough. I'm not sure about official support for virtualisation, but it seems to work fine.

Normally, I would agree as well with the SQL being separated, however if this is the only thing being housed on this ESX box, I would go with the following recommendation of hardware..

Dual Quad-Core, 3.0Ghz or more, 16GB-24GB RAM,....

You could probably get away with 5 hard drives (2 os, raid1, 3 data raid5) with scsi or sas drives...

Or if you have a SAN that would be even better... 8-)

Normally SQL should be separate, but in this case, I don't believe this box will be throttled ..

4 BES, with 500 users each... that's 2000 users total.
All 4 BES will be hitting the same SQL config database, which is to be virtualized on the same hardware as the 4 BES? Definitely not a good idea.

BES servers act as a "pass through" for exchange with the MAPI connection... utilizing very little cpu process and ram..

With the configuration I recommended, 4 BES Servers would probably utilize %10 of the boxes' resources....

90% would be for your SQL server...


Penquin please review the hardware config I recommended... Normally SQL is the recommended to be on a separate, physical box .. but in this instance, I disagree...

BES Servers just doesn't take up much resources....

I am very familiar with the hardware configurations and requirements.
You're only considering mail flow, and you're oversimplifying what BES is responsible for.

There's more to BES than just mail. You'll have MDS-CS traffic, Logging, Policy Services, Synchronization services, Collaboration services, application push, etc.
Those all take up CPU cycles and RAM as well.

What you're suggesting will likely work, but it's far from ideal.
2000 users is too manyu to have on a virtualized SQL database, especially when that same hardware is being used for 4 other VMs running active BES instances.

... if you must virtualize SQL be smart enough to allocate it enough RAM and think about giving it its own dedicated spindles.

Also, make sure you're using the DBNS; it'll help lighten the sql load.

As a general recommendation I'd never virtualize SQL (unless in a test lab or DR scenario); but to each environment its own.

even it is not really recommended to put the sql on same box. i have a site with three bes and one sql on vm around 1600 users. it works since three years we put on vm ware even RIM was not supporting it at that time. just make sure as hdwag already said to give the sql enough resources.

Thank you for this post. Also take note the scheduled delays that the BES does from time to time - something seemless when downtime happens - I cannot recall what is scheduled auto by BES to be delayed.

Application Deployment? That's about it.

How intensive is the SQL database if is only used for the BES environment , like I said assume eventually 4 BES servers each hosting 500 users that being 2000 users in all.

SQL can be virtualized it all depends on what kind of disk transactions it is undertaking .. you know the I/O stuff?

Is SQL in a BES environment high I/O intensive for disk reads and writes?

The latest version of ESX fully supports SQL (well it did before, but now we have VMware's blessing). We plan on offloading our less intense SQL databases to a virtual SQL server in the future. Our BES only has 25 users though, so it is a pretty light database. With 2000 users you may want to keep it physical. That is going to be a lot of I/Os. I know we are not putting our most intense database (Image Right) in a virtual environment.

If you really are going to go virtual I would keep a physical server on standby just in case.

Actually it's 2000 users.
He wants 4 virtualized BES with 500 users EACH.... plus a virtualized SQL database.

Heh, your quick. I realized and made the edit right after I posted it :razz:.