Reference Architecture Guide
EMC XTREMIO AND MICROSOFT EXCHANGE
DATABASES
Preliminary findings:
 Efficiency of various production samples
 Market overview and adoption of all-flash arrays
 Techniques for estimating efficiency
EMC Solutions
June 2015
Copyright © 2015 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its
publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.
The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no
representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this
publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or
fitness for a particular purpose.
Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this
publication requires an applicable software license.
For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation
Trademarks on EMC.com.
All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.
Part Number H14246
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
2
Table of contents
Reference architecture overview ........................................................................................................... 4
Document purpose .......................................................................................................................... 4
Business challenge .......................................................................................................................... 4
Technology solution ......................................................................................................................... 5
Solution value .................................................................................................................................. 6
Solution architecture ............................................................................................................................ 7
Architecture diagram ........................................................................................................................ 7
Hardware resources ......................................................................................................................... 8
Software resources .......................................................................................................................... 8
Technology overview .......................................................................................................................... 10
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 10
EMC XtremIO .................................................................................................................................. 10
EMC Data Domain .......................................................................................................................... 11
EMC PowerPath/VE ........................................................................................................................ 11
VMware vSphere 5.5 ...................................................................................................................... 11
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 .................................................................................................... 11
Validation testing and results ............................................................................................................ 13
Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 13
Methodology.................................................................................................................................. 13
Results........................................................................................................................................... 13
Analyzing your environment ............................................................................................................... 15
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 17
References.......................................................................................................................................... 18
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
3
Reference architecture overview
Document purpose This reference architecture guide describes the solution that EMC has developed to
demonstrate the efficiency and benefits of storing Microsoft Exchange 2010 and
Exchange 2013 mailbox databases on an EMC® XtremIO™ storage array. The guide
explains key elements of storage efficiency, the status of the all-flash storage array
marketplace, and the position of XtremIO in the storage marketplace for Exchange
and SharePoint Server.
This reference architecture guide documents the methods that EMC used to analyze a
currently installed Exchange 2010 Mailbox server implementation and provides a
summary of the benefits of deploying the XtremIO solution.
The guide also describes how to use a Mitrend analyzer tool to estimate the efficiency
improvements that you can realize by deploying this XtremIO solution on your
Microsoft Exchange databases.
Business
challenge
Customers require reliable storage solutions for Microsoft Exchange that are easy to
acquire, manage, configure, and scale. Microsoft Exchange is often at the center of an
organization’s collaboration tool suite. Customers require Exchange to be operational
and cost-effective. Migration from on-premises systems to off-premises/public cloud
solutions introduces additional complexities and concerns regarding data
sovereignty, service levels, and authentication management. Many customers require
messaging data to remain onsite or under their own control. This desire to lower
costs, complexities, and configuration issues has resulted in a re-evaluation of how
messaging systems are deployed and operated.
Several new technologies are available to assist customers in building a messaging
solution. Customers need to know how to best use these technologies to maximize
their investment, support service-level agreements, and reduce their total cost of
ownership (TCO).
This solution demonstrates potential efficiencies delivered by XtremIO for any
Exchange customer’s messaging environment, and it validates the storage
infrastructure for performance, scalability, and efficiency. By implementing EMC
XtremIO for Microsoft Exchange, as compared to EMC VNX and to Microsoft’s
preferred architecture of direct-attached storage (DAS) (single spindles), customers
will experience:

Reduced overall storage capacity

Better end-user productivity with more consistent performance

Simplified management with the environment contained in their data center or
at a qualified co-location

Better support of service level agreements and compliance initiatives

Lower comparative installation, operational, and maintenance costs
A February 2015 paper from IDC, The Copy Data Problem: Analysis Update, outlined
the issue of retaining primary and backup copies of data within corporate
environments. IDC's advice is simple—"use the most advanced storage array
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
4
technologies that support real-time thin provisioning, de-duplication, compression,
and snapshot capabilities to reduce your overall storage footprint."
IDC also completed an analysis of the all-flash array marketplace in May 2015,
graphically depicted in Figure 1. Its findings were compelling. Although most
organizations deploying all-flash arrays for use in messaging and collaboration
workloads have more than 1,000 users, all-flash arrays have been and will continue
to be deployed across organizations of all sizes.
Figure 1.
Technology
solution
All-flash array marketplace analysis
This solution demonstrates how to use an XtremIO array, in the context of Exchange
mailbox databases, for both primary storage and database copies used in
conjunction with Exchange continuous replication and/or database availability
groups (DAGs).
Planning and designing the storage infrastructure for Exchange on XtremIO becomes
a non-critical step because the shared storage can absorb large bursts of
input/output (I/O) that occur during the course of a day. In typical direct-attached
single-spindle architectures, user demand and index rebuilds, coupled with database
maintenance task and backup operations, can lead to periods of erratic and
unpredictable client/user performance. Users can adapt to slow performance, but
unpredictable performance will quickly frustrate them.
To provide predictable performance in a messaging infrastructure, the storage must
be able to handle the peak I/O load from the clients without resulting in a high
response time. Designing storage for this workload typically involves deploying
advanced storage arrays that use caching algorithms, disks deployed in storage
pools, and/or multitiered storage subsystems to handle brief periods of extreme I/O
pressure, all of which are complex to design and expensive to implement and
maintain.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
5
The XtremIO array circumvents the storage inefficiencies of advanced multitier
storage arrays and the inflexible, underperforming nature of direct-attached singlespindle architectures.
Solution value
XtremIO reduces database and data center footprints and complexity with
unparalleled in-line data reduction capabilities, addressing storage sprawl for
Exchange databases.
The XtremIO array eliminates storage usage in several ways:

Globally deduplicating every redundant 8 KB block that enters the array for
storage

Reducing repeating sequences of data (compression)

Eliminating fully-formatted volumes

Eliminating volume boundaries
Initial findings from our tests show impressive efficiency rates ranging from 2.5:1 to
more than 8:1 depending on the number of mailboxes and the number of DAG copies.
Our tests indicate that the likelihood of duplicated blocks within an Exchange system
increases as the number of mailboxes increases. This is logical since email messages
and email attachments are likely to be sent to multiple mailboxes. And, because
XtremIO globally deduplicates redundant blocks of data, the more copies of
messages that exist in the entire system, the higher the deduplication rate will be.
Furthermore, because XtremIO never writes a previously written block to its flash
drives, redundant copies of Exchange databases created by Exchange continuous
replication/DAG consume no space on the XtremIO array. In the vast majority of
installations, customers typically observe an average reduction of 60 percent in
actual storage usage for the active copy.
Comparing EMC XtremIO to the SATA DAS drives proposed by Microsoft’s costreduction strategy, we find that XtremIO offers efficiencies that SATA DAS does not, as
shown in Table 1.
Table 1.
Comparison of XtremIO and SATA DAS capabilities
Feature
Note:
XtremIO
SATA DAS
Global deduplication

-
Global compression

-
Thin provisioning

-
Elimination of 8 KB blocks containing all
zeros

-
XtremIO uses deduplication to eliminate storage of 8 KB blocks containing all zeros.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
6
Solution architecture
Architecture
diagram
Figure 2 depicts the overall physical architecture of the solution.
Figure 2.
Solution architecture
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
7
Hardware
resources
Table 2 lists the hardware resources used in this solution.
Table 2.
Solution hardware
Equipment
Configuration
Storage system
XtremIO array, single X-Brick™
SAN switches
8 Gb/s Fibre Channel switches
Physical server
Rack server:
 CPU: E7-2870, 2.4 GHz, two sockets with 10 cores per
socket
 Memory: 160 GB
Virtual machines
Six virtual machines, each configured with:
 Four vCPUs
 16 GB memory
Backup equipment
EMC Data Domain® (used to restore Exchange databases)
Software resources Table 3 lists the software resources used in this solution.
Table 3.
Solution software
Resource
Version
Purpose
EMC XtremIO operating
environment
3.0.3
XtremIO operating environment
EMC XtremIO Management
Server (XMS)
3.0.3
XtremIO management software and
graphical user interface
EMC PowerPath®/VE
6.0
Advanced multipathing for ESXi host
Microsoft Exchange Server
2010
Email servers
Microsoft Windows Server
2008
Operating system for Exchange 2010
VMware ESXi
5.5
Hypervisor software
Use XMS to

Configure the XtremIO array

Display information about the array

Run the CLI

Make any configuration changes

Create and size volumes

Map volumes to hosts
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
8
Figure 3 displays the XMS console view of the XtremIO X-Brick in the rack.
Figure 3.
XMS console view of X-Brick in rack
Figure 4 displays the configuration of the XtremIO array, as shown in the XMS
console.
Figure 4.
XtremIO array configuration as viewed in XMS console
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
9
Technology overview
Introduction
EMC XtremIO
This solution includes the following key technology components:

EMC XtremIO

EMC Data Domain

EMC PowerPath Virtual Edition (VE)

VMware vSphere 5.5

Microsoft Exchange Server
The EMC XtremIO storage array is an all-flash system with a scale-out architecture.
The system uses X-Brick building blocks that you can cluster together to scale
performance and capacity as required. This solution uses two X-Brick blocks
clustered together as a single logical storage system.
XtremIO flash storage delivers value across the following main functional areas:

Performance—Regardless of how busy the system is, and regardless of storage
capacity utilization, latency and throughput remain consistent, predictable,
and constant. Latency within the array for an I/O request is typically far less
than one millisecond.

Scalability—Based on a scale-out architecture, a single X-Brick is the XtremIO
building block. You can cluster multiple X-Brick blocks together to provide
increased performance or capacity. Performance scales linearly to ensure that
two X-Brick blocks supply twice the IOPS and four X-Brick blocks supply four
times the IOPS of the single X-Brick configuration. At the same time, the latency
remains consistently low as the system scales out. XtremIO arrays can scale up
for any required performance or capacity level.

In-line data reduction—The core XtremIO engine implements content-based inline data reduction. XtremIO automatically deduplicates and compresses data
as the system processes it. This reduces the amount of data written to flash,
improving longevity of the media and reducing cost. Volumes are always thinprovisioned without any loss of performance, over-provisioning of capacity, or
fragmentation.

Data protection—XtremIO uses a proprietary flash-optimized data protection
algorithm, XtremIO Data Protection (XDP), which provides superior data
protection while enabling performance surpassing that of any existing RAID
algorithms. Optimizations in XDP also result in fewer writes to flash media for
data protection purposes.

Functionality—XtremIO supports high-performance and space-efficient
snapshots, in-line data reduction, thin provisioning, and full VMware vSphere
Storage APIs – Array Integration (VAAI) with support for Fibre Channel (FC) and
iSCSI protocols.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
10

EMC Data Domain
Simplicity—Provisioning storage with XtremIO is as simple as deciding how
large a LUN you want to create. You no longer need to select the RAID type,
create a RAID group, or decide whether or not to enable thin provisioning or
deduplication. These functions are already built into XtremIO.
EMC Data Domain deduplication storage systems continue to revolutionize disk
backup, archiving, and disaster recovery with high-speed, in-line deduplication. Data
Domain systems reduce the amount of disk storage required to retain and protect
data by an average of 10–30x. This makes Data Domain systems a cost-effective
alternative to comparable capacity tape solutions. Data Domain systems provide high
scalability, performance, and efficiency in a single system, which allows customers to
keep data online and onsite for longer retention periods than previously feasible.
EMC PowerPath/VE EMC PowerPath Multipathing is a host-resident software application that intelligently
manages host-to-storage I/O data paths to maximize the performance and availability
of mission-critical applications. It combines automatic load balancing, path failover,
and multiple path I/O capabilities in one integrated package. EMC PowerPath/VE
delivers PowerPath Multipathing features to optimize VMware vSphere and Microsoft
Hyper-V virtual environments.
PowerPath/VE for VMware supports multiple paths between a vSphere host and an
external storage device. Having multiple paths enables the host to access a storage
device, even if a specific path is unavailable. Multiple paths can also share the I/O
traffic to a storage device.
VMware vSphere
5.5
VMware vSphere 5.5 transforms a computer’s physical resources by virtualizing the
CPU, RAM, hard disk, and network controller. This transformation creates fully
functional virtual machines that run isolated and encapsulated operating systems
and applications just like physical computers.
VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides easy-to-use, cost-effective high
availability for applications running in virtual machines. The vSphere vMotion and
vSphere Storage vMotion features of vSphere 5.5 enable seamless migration of
virtual machines and stored files from one vSphere server to another, with minimal or
no performance impact. Coupled with vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
and vSphere Storage DRS, virtual machines have access to the appropriate resources
at any time through load balancing of the compute and storage resources.
Microsoft
Exchange Server
2010
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is an enterprise email and communication system
that enables businesses and customers to collaborate and share information. EMC
enhances Exchange Server 2010 with a selection of storage platforms, software, and
services.
With Exchange 2010, Microsoft presents a new, unified approach to high availability
and disaster recovery by introducing features such as DAG and online mailbox moves.
Mailbox servers can now be implemented in mailbox resiliency configurations with
database-level replication and failover.
Major improvements with the application database structure and I/O reduction
include support for a larger variety of disk and RAID configurations, including high-
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
11
performance flash drives, FC, and serial-attached SCSI (SAS) drives, and slowerperforming SATA and near-line SAS (NL-SAS) drives.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
12
Validation testing and results
Introduction
This section briefly describes the steps we took to analyze the potential storage
capacity reduction of Exchange 2010 databases loaded on an XtremIO storage array,
and the results achieved from the testing.
Note: We tested this solution on a Microsoft 2010 Exchange server configuration, but the
solution will work equally well on a Microsoft 2013 Exchange server.
Methodology
We borrowed unique active (production) databases from EMC IT’s operational email
installation for use during these efficiency tests.

We created six logical volumes (LUNs) on the XtremIO array.

We masked one LUN to each of the six virtual machines.

We initialized each LUN, formatted it using a block allocation unit size of 64 KB,
and assigned it a drive letter.

We sequentially restored EMC IT’s Exchange mailbox databases from the Data
Domain system.

We recorded the status of XtremIO capacity, volume use, compression,
deduplication, and thin provisioning totals for analysis after copying each
database.
This section identifies the capacity savings elicited by XtremIO and reports each
element of XtremIO’s data reduction capabilities through:
Results
EMC XtremIO
testing results

Thin provisioning

Removal of zeroes

Removal of duplicate blocks

Removal of repeating characters within blocks
Table 4 displays how the EMC XtremIO array responded to the migration of six unique
Microsoft Exchange mailbox databases. XtremIO storage efficiency is calculated by
dividing the storage provisioned to all hosts by the actual storage consumed by those
hosts.
Table 4.
Results of Exchange 2010 databases storage efficiency testing on XtremIO
Removal of
repeating
characters
within
blocks
Cumulative
database
capacity of
host
volumes
(TB)
Cumulative
capacity used
(TB)
Cumulative
capacity
savings per
database file
(TB)*
Database
sample
Removal
of zeros
Cumulative
removal of
duplicate
blocks
Database 1
46.67%
23.08%
16.67%
1.3
1.075
0.609
Database 2
42.67%
52.38%
16.67%
2.6
1.579
0.881
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
13
Database 3
33.67%
52.38%
16.67%
3.9
1.979
2.021
Database 4
36.67%
47.37%
16.67%
5.2
2.167
2.924
Database 5
38.67%
47.37%
16.67%
6.5
2.619
3.472
Database 6
27.67%
47.37%
16.67%
7.8
2.9866
4.4734
* Cumulative capacity savings derived from deduplication and compression (ignores
savings from thin provisioning and elimination of zeros)
In our tests, 18 TB of storage was provisioned and 2.9866 TB of storage was
consumed on the XtremIO array. Based on the cumulative storage consumed versus
the cumulative storage provisioned, the EMC IT mailbox infrastructure observed a 6:1
storage efficiency improvement on the primary (active) copy of mailbox databases. All
databases were 1.3 TB in size and contained an average of 230 mailboxes. Each
database was copied onto a separate 3 TB volume (per Microsoft best practice for
provisioning storage volumes), resulting in thin provisioning savings of 56 percent for
each of the volumes.
As shown in Figure 5, excluding the benefits of thin provisioning, six 1.3 TB
databases (totaling 7.8 TB) were copied onto the XtremIO array. The data consumed
2.9866 TB of capacity on the XtremIO flash drives. Not including the benefits of thin
provisioning of the volume, the XtremIO array reduced the capacity necessary to store
7.8 TB of Exchange databases by 4.8 TB or 61.7 percent.
Size (TB)
XtremIO Storage Efficiency Analysis
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Database 1 Database 2 Database 3 Database 4 Database 5 Database 6
Cumulative capacity provisioned (TB)
3
6
9
12
15
18
Cumulative Database Size on Volume
1.3
2.6
3.9
5.2
6.5
7.8
1.075
1.579
1.979
2.167
2.619
2.9866
Cumulative capacity used (TB)
Figure 5.
XtremIO storage efficiency analysis
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
14
Analyzing Your Environment
Use the Mitrend XtremIO Efficiency Analyzer tool to determine what results you might
expect from deploying the XtremIO solution with your own Microsoft Exchange
databases.
The results contained in this reference architecture report on a representative
sampling of EMC IT’s Exchange 2010 mailbox databases. Every Exchange database
has different amounts of duplicated email, attachments, and calendar data. Every
database has varying amounts of empty database pages. And every database has
varying content that responds to compression algorithms differently.
Customers can evaluate database volumes before migrating them to XtremIO by
using the EMC-developed Mitrend XtremIO Efficiency Analyzer tool. With this
evaluation tool, customers can scan individual volumes to predict the effectiveness
of XtremIO data efficiency. Refer to the following website, where you can download
the tool and obtain detailed information on how the XtremIO Efficiency Analyzer
works and how to get dependable results:
https://app.mitrend.com/emc/#instructions/XtremIO_Reduction
Note: If you click the Mitrend link and are asked for credentials that you cannot provide,
contact your EMC Partner, EMC Sales Representative, or EMC Systems Engineer for
assistance.
To avoid running the scan on the production database, simply restore a
representative sampling of the database to an alternate server (non-production
virtual machine) and run the Mitrend tool against those volumes. After you collect the
Mitrend data, ask your EMC Representative to submit your data collection to the
Mitrend site. Mitrend produces a report, like the one shown in Figure 6, that you can
use to make decisions.
Total
Scanned
Zero Data
Deduplication
Compression
Required
120,000
100,000
Capacity (GB)
Introduction
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
Total
Scanned
Savings
Required
Category
Figure 6.
Mitrend sample report
Data reduction analysis measures the data reduction benefits of thin provisioning,
deduplication, and compression of file system data. For best results, scan all of the
data that will be located on the same system to calculate the benefits of global
deduplication. Scanning just one or two file systems will show thin and compression
savings, but will not show the entire benefit of global deduplication.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
15
The Mitrend Data Analyzer works by analyzing the individual blocks of data on each
file system. It computes a small fingerprint of each file system and loads it into a file
named output.mitrend. The individual output.mitrend fingerprints can then be loaded
to a single Mitrend assessment, where they are merged and used to compute the
global deduplication savings.
The Mitrend Data Analyzer can run in raw or file system mode. In raw mode, the entire
raw block device is scanned (including unallocated blocks) and any data found is
analyzed. With the exception of modern systems that use the UNMAP and TRIM SCSI
commands, file systems do not erase data upon file deletion. As a result, a raw scan
can find more data than is actually consumed by the file system.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
16
Conclusion
EMC has responded to wide-ranging Exchange environment storage concerns with
one comprehensive offering: EMC XtremIO is a thoroughly tested, production-proven,
enterprise-class array. XtremIO has been tested and evaluated by dozens of
customers including EMC IT. Initial findings report impressive and compelling
efficiency rates ranging from 2.5:1 to more than 8:1, depending on the number of
mailboxes and the number of DAG copies. In the vast majority of installations,
customers typically observe an average reduction of 60 percent in actual storage
usage for the active copy.
EMC provides a viable and reliable method for analyzing currently installed Exchange
environments in an effort to predict storage reduction ratios. EMC has verified that its
Mitrend tool can furnish customers with insights into the storage efficiency benefits
provided by XtremIO without the need to conduct an on-premises evaluation of the
product.
The XtremIO array provides cost-effective, highly-efficient storage for Exchange 2010
and Exchange 2013 mailbox databases. XtremIO enables customers to reduce the
overall capacity required to store mailbox databases and operate their Exchange
messaging systems more efficiently, compared to DAS and conventional block
storage arrays.
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
17
References
The following documents provide additional and relevant information:

Best Practice Considerations for Testing All-Flash Arrays (available on EMC
Community Network)

Introduction to the EMC XtremIO Storage Array (Ver. 3.0) White Paper (available
on EMC.com)
EMC XtremIO and Microsoft Exchange Databases
Reference Architecture Guide
18