How to make Exchange 2007 reliable

Hi;

I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me how
can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96% uptime?
I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will be
awesome.

If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.

I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
--
Kane

Ed
Fri Mar 14 16:29:06 CDT 2008

If you're running on reliable hardware and you install and maintain
properly, you should have absolutely no problem maintaining 96% uptime.
That's a very low threshold. Microsoft has plenty of whitepapers on their
website, and the books written by Tony Redmond and Jim McBee are excellent
resources.
--
Ed Crowley
MVP - Exchange
"Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"

"Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
> Hi;
>
> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
> how
> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
> uptime?
> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
> be
> awesome.
>
> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>
> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
> --
> Kane

Martin
Fri Mar 14 16:52:12 CDT 2008

Solid hardware (HP, whatever), solid testing, and once its up, don't mess
around with it. It seems more Exchange failures are man made vs. hardware.

As for defragging the store, you should never have to do this. Just leave it
alone.

iSCSI SAN? Depends on what you have and the config.

"Ed Crowley [MVP]" <curspice@mvpsnospam.org> wrote in message
news:etkxvphhIHA.5160@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> If you're running on reliable hardware and you install and maintain
> properly, you should have absolutely no problem maintaining 96% uptime.
> That's a very low threshold. Microsoft has plenty of whitepapers on their
> website, and the books written by Tony Redmond and Jim McBee are excellent
> resources.
> --
> Ed Crowley
> MVP - Exchange
> "Protecting the world from PSTs and brick backups!"
>
> "Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
>> Hi;
>>
>> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
>> how
>> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
>> uptime?
>> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
>> be
>> awesome.
>>
>> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store
>> file,
>> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>>
>> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
>> --
>> Kane
>
>

John
Fri Mar 14 19:30:27 CDT 2008

96% uptime equeate to 14.6 days of outage per year. Reliable hardware
should do it. At that reliability level, I don't think you'll need
clustering although you may still want to consider it. Clustering helps
reduce outages for routine maintenance by enabling rolling updates. The
less time you spend on planned outages, the more time you have for unplenned
outages at a given availability rate.

Offline Defragmentation of the store is really a repair option and should
not be considered part of normal maintenance. Online defragmentation occurs
automatically as part of online maintenance. See
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/12/06/447695.aspx for determining how
often online maintenance should run.

iSCSI SAN. Just make sure you size it correctly. Start with the MS sizing
Calculator for Exchange 2007.



John



"Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
> Hi;
>
> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
> how
> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
> uptime?
> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
> be
> awesome.
>
> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>
> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
> --
> Kane

Bharat
Fri Mar 14 21:43:49 CDT 2008

96% uptime shouldn't be an issue at all, and whoever came up with that SLA
needs to rethink this. :)
--
Bharat Suneja
MVP - Exchange
www.zenprise.com
NEW blog location:
exchangepedia.com/blog
----------------------------



"Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
> Hi;
>
> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
> how
> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
> uptime?
> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
> be
> awesome.
>
> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>
> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
> --
> Kane

Martin
Fri Mar 14 21:55:48 CDT 2008

Aim low and you will never disappoint! :)

"Bharat Suneja [MVP]" <bharat@nospam.org> wrote in message
news:e7oqpZkhIHA.4320@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> 96% uptime shouldn't be an issue at all, and whoever came up with that SLA
> needs to rethink this. :)
> --
> Bharat Suneja
> MVP - Exchange
> www.zenprise.com
> NEW blog location:
> exchangepedia.com/blog
> ----------------------------
>
>
>
> "Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
>> Hi;
>>
>> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
>> how
>> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
>> uptime?
>> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
>> be
>> awesome.
>>
>> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store
>> file,
>> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>>
>> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
>> --
>> Kane
>

Andy
Sat Mar 15 07:21:12 CDT 2008

On Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:55:48 -0700, "Martin Blackstone"
<martinb@myrealbox.com> wrote:

>Aim low and you will never disappoint! :)


Words that Mrs. Blackstone lives by!

>
>"Bharat Suneja [MVP]" <bharat@nospam.org> wrote in message
>news:e7oqpZkhIHA.4320@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> 96% uptime shouldn't be an issue at all, and whoever came up with that SLA
>> needs to rethink this. :)
>> --
>> Bharat Suneja
>> MVP - Exchange
>> www.zenprise.com
>> NEW blog location:
>> exchangepedia.com/blog
>> ----------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>> "Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
>>> Hi;
>>>
>>> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
>>> how
>>> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
>>> uptime?
>>> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
>>> be
>>> awesome.
>>>
>>> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store
>>> file,
>>> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>>>
>>> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
>>> --
>>> Kane
>>

Vladimir
Sat Mar 15 22:06:58 CDT 2008

You can start analizing high availability on following link:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124721(EXCHG.80).aspx

Also be sure that you have good support from your SAN vendors, regarding
drivers, disks, what RAID level you will implement, backup devices and
strategies. So your SAN should also be reliable.

Since you are still planning, you may also try System Center Capacity
Planner 2007 - http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/sccp/default.mspx

Regards,


Vladimir Meloski




"Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
> Hi;
>
> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
> how
> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
> uptime?
> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
> be
> awesome.
>
> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>
> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
> --
> Kane

Andrew
Sun Mar 16 02:44:00 CDT 2008

Reliable hardware as others have said.


"Kane" <Kane@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6922F8F-677F-4515-8800-05F4A3388D77@microsoft.com...
> Hi;
>
> I am going to implement a new Exchange 2007 Standard, can anyone tell me
> how
> can I make my new Exchange Server 2007 reliable to maintain the 96%
> uptime?
> I do not expect 100% uptime but if I could maintain it in 96%, that will
> be
> awesome.
>
> If I run the Exchange utility to defrag the Exchange 2007 data store file,
> is it good enough? I planned to deploy Exchange 2007 onto a iSCSI SAN.
>
> I will deploy my Blackberry Enterprise Server in the meanwhile too.
> --
> Kane