The focus of this report is performance testing of the core services of an OCS Enterprise Edition Consolidated Configuration and as deployed on an HP BladeSystem and HP StorageWorks solution. One requirement for any solution deploying more than one server in a pool is a hardware load balancer. In this solution a F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is used.
Performance report for Microsoft Office Communications
Server Consolidated Configuration on HP BladeSystem
Introduction......................................................................................................................................... 2 Test methodology................................................................................................................................. 4 Test topology....................................................................................................................................... 5 SQL Server storage subsystem ........................................................................................................... 7 Test results .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 13 For more information.......................................................................................................................... 14 Introduction
Microsoft® Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 is an extensive update to Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005. In addition to the instant messaging and presence features of LCS, OCS provides Enterprise Voice with integrated voice over IP (VoIP) and telephony integration, audio/video conferencing, on premise web conferencing and federation enhancements. OCS servers can host a core set of services including: Instant Messaging (IM) Conferencing Server, Web Conferencing Server, Telephony Conferencing Server, Audio/Video Conferencing server, Internet Information Services (IIS), and the Focus, which helps manage meeting participants. Database services, provided by Microsoft SQL Server, are also required. There is also a set of OCS server roles in addition to those core services to provide incremental functionality such as access for users over the Internet, archiving and call detail reporting, telephony integration, public IM connectivity, and access through a browser based client. These server roles are typically deployed on servers separate from the core services described above. OCS can be deployed in three primary configurations. The base configuration is OCS Standard Edition (SE) which includes all core services and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on a single server. With all functionality on a single server, Standard Edition provides no fault tolerance and is not recommended for deployments over 5000 users. Figure 1 depicts a Standard Edition deployment.
Figure 1. Microsoft Office Communications Server Standard Edition
The second method of deployment is OCS Enterprise Edition (EE) in a Consolidated Configuration. In this configuration a pool of servers is created where all core services are on each of the servers and a hardware load balancer distributes traffic among the members of the pool. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 is on a separate server for back end database services. Figure 2 depicts an Enterprise Edition Consolidated Configuration. Some advantages of a Consolidated Configuration are that the SQL Server can be scaled for performance independently of other roles and can also be clustered for increased availability and maintenance. Another benefit is that the number of OCS servers can be scaled to meet each customer's needs. Multiple OCS servers behind a hardware load balancer provide redundancy for maintenance and high availability. The Consolidated Configuration is the simpler of the two Enterprise Edition configurations and is generally recommended for up to 30,000 users.
2 Figure 2. Microsoft Office Communications Server Enterprise Edition Consolidated Configuration
The third method of deployment is OCS Enterprise Edition in an Expanded Configuration. This configuration breaks out IIS, web conferencing and audio/video conferencing on to separate pools of servers. In this configuration those functions can be scaled separately to meet specific needs. Figure 3 depicts an Enterprise Edition Expanded Configuration. As with a Consolidated Configuration, the SQL Server is separate and can be scaled and clustered to address those needs. By breaking out the server functionality in to separate server pools, each type of functionality can be scaled independently as needed. The Enterprise Edition Expanded ... [download for more]
