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Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, like any mission-critical application, demands a high performance environment to satisfy the application resource requirements and ongoing administrative maintenance to minimize both planned and unplanned downtime. The HP BladeSystem infrastructure transcends the traditional view of individual system resources and provides a design that integrates server, storage, and network resources to reduce hardware and operational costs for an organization's Exchange deployment.
This white paper provides a brief overview of the HP BladeSystem infrastructure and discusses the benefits of deploying Exchange on the HP BladeSystem environment, including:
- Architecture flexibility
- Increased agility
- Centralized management and deployment
- Data center consolidation and cable reduction
- Lower hardware acquisition costs
This white paper also includes the best practice recommendations for Exchange Server 2003 in a BladeSystem environment and specifically points out areas in which the HP BladeSystem architecture can be leveraged to improve operational efficiency and reduce aggregate costs over the lifetime of an Exchange deployment. A 15,000-user Exchange BladeSystem reference architecture is highlighted to provide a foundation for organizations when designing an HP BladeSystem Exchange deployment.
Target audience
This best practices guide is intended for a wide range of audiences from Exchange architects and administrators to business decision makers. Previous knowledge of Exchange Server 2003 and the HP BladeSystem architecture are beneficial.
HP BladeSystem and an Adaptive Enterprise
Today's business environments demand an adaptable IT infrastructure that is capable of adjusting to the changing needs and requirements of the business. The HP vision for this Adaptive Enterprise infrastructure is powered by three interrelated, core capabilities: the ability to establish and maintain continuous and secure operations; the ability to plan, monitor, and control devices in response to changing demands; and the ability to dynamically provision, assign, and share resources whenever needed.
The HP BladeSystem exemplifies how HP technology can enable an Adaptive Enterprise through a modular design that simplifies deployment and maintenance, increases high-availability and high-performance features, and integrates management and security features. HP server blades are commonly viewed as compact and efficient servers that primarily save space and power. However, the full benefits of a blade deployment go beyond the considerations of an individual server. The full story lies in the integration and consolidation of the business infrastructure to provide a complete system of server, storage, power, and network resources managed through a single management framework - HP BladeSystem - that is adaptable and synchronized with the IT demands of an organization.
HP BladeSystem modular architecture
The HP BladeSystem infrastructure is composed of a number of modular components designed to give an organization maximum flexibility when deploying Exchange Server 2003. These components include the server enclosure, server blades, network and storage interconnects, and power enclosures. This document is not intended to provide a detailed description of each of the modular components but will provide a baseline as components pertain to the recommendations for deploying Exchange on the HP BladeSystem.
The HP BladeSystem p-Class enclosure is the main chassis in the environment. The enclosure has 8 slots for server blades, and two slots for network interconnect modules and storage interconnect modules. There are several power enclosure options that can be connected to the p-Class enclosure, depending upon the available power in the data center.
There are three main server types within the HP BladeSystem infrastructure, the HP ProLiant BL2Xp, BL3Xp, and BL4Xp models1. The naming convention is such that models ending in a zero (i.e., where X is zero) are based on Intel CPUs, while model numbers ending in 5 are based on AMD CPUs. The HP ProLiant BL3Xp blade servers are half-height, double-density servers, and two of these servers fit in a single enclosure bay. This provides twice the density over the HP ProLiant BL2Xp servers, with 16 per 6U enclosure versus 8 for the ProLiant BL2Xp models. Both the ProLiant BL2Xp and ProLiant BL3Xp servers contain up to two processors. The HP BL4Xp model is a four-processor server. The HP BL45p server utilizes two enclosure bays with four servers fitting in a single enclosure. The HP BL40p server takes up four enclosure bays for a total of two servers per enclosure.
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