Sizing Guide Exchange Server 2003 - Fujitsu

White Paper Sizing Guide Exchange Server 2003 Version: 4.2, July 2006
System analysis tools
A business-critical application, such as e-mail communication, requires foresighted planning and continuous
performance checks during ongoing operations. For Exchange Server, Microsoft provides a variety of tools
that enable the efficiency of an Exchange Server to be planned, verified and analyzed. The tools can be
distinguished for three phases:
Planning and Design
White Paper
A variety of documents exists for the planning of an Exchange Server environment and the sizing of
the individual Exchange Servers. In addition to this white paper, which deals specifically with the sizing
of PRIMERGY servers, there are numerous Microsoft documents, see Exchange Server 2003
Technical Documentation Library [L10]. The white paper Exchange Server 2003 Performance and
Scalability Guide [L11], which contains essential information about the performance and scaling of
Exchange Server 2003, is particularly worth mentioning here.
System Center Capacity Planner 2006
Microsoft also provides the efficient product System Center Capacity Planner 2006 [L14], which
enables the interactive planning and modeling of Exchange Server 2003 topologies and Operations
Manager 2005 environments.
Prototyping (design verification)
There are two tools from Microsoft used to evaluate the performance of Exchange Server and to verify
whether the planned server hardware has been adequately sized. Both tools are not suited for ongoing
operations and should only be used on non-productive systems.
JetStress
The tool JetStress is used to check the disk I/O performance of an Exchange Server. JetStress
simulates the disk I/O load of Exchange for a definable number of users with regard to the Exchange
databases and their log files. It is not absolutely necessary for Exchange Server 2003 to be installed
for this purpose. However, CPU, memory and network I/O are not simulated by JetStress.
LoadSim
The simulation tool LoadSim has already been presented in detail in chapter Exchange Measurement
Methodology. It simulates the activity of Exchange users and thus puts the Exchange Server under
realistic load, with all the resources (CPU, memory, disk subsystem, network) the Exchange Server
needs being involved.
Both stress tools can be downloaded free of charge from the web site Downloads for Exchange Server
2003 [L9].
Operate
Windows contains a central concept to monitor and analyze the performance of a system at run time.
Events and performance counters are collected and archived on a system-wide basis for this purpose.
This standardized concept is also open to all applications, providing they make use of it. Microsoft
Exchange Server uses it intensively and not only records events available in the event log but also a
variety of Exchange-specific performance counters. To evaluate the events and performance counters
you can either use Event Viewer and Performance Monitor, available as standard in every Windows
system, or also use special tools that evaluate and asses the contents of the event log and the
performance counters under certain application aspects.
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