Exchange 2007 and 64 bit

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Posted by Jim on Aug 24, 2006 73 views

Information Update

I was looking into setting up an Exchange Server for 2 domains, a dozen users and mobile access. So talking to my local Exchange guru I found out that he was not running a server due to lack of ISP liking Exchange servers. So I offered him space on our box. But he needs 64 bit hardware to run the nextÃ‚Â version of Exchange, currently dubbed E12. It will ship as a 64-bit application only to run on x64 CPUs.Ã‚Â This may have left you wondering what x64 is, how 64-bit technology is going to benefit Exchange, or what you should be looking for when purchasing hardware now, so when Exchange 2007 (aka E12) ships you are ready.

What is 64 bit?

Today, your typical server contains a 32-bit processor(s) which can use a maximum of 4GB RAM.Ã‚Â Windows will split that into two, 2GB chunks, one for kernel mode and one for user mode. You can alter this, and Microsoft recommends you do so with Exchange servers that have more than 1GB ram, by adding the /3GB switch to your boot.ini file. This increases the amount of memory available to user mode applications, such as store.exe, to 3GB, leaving the other 1GB for the kernel.Ã‚Â This still limits a 32-bit application to a maximum of 3GB RAM.

If you do not know how to access these memory properly for your given servers, you could enable memory improperly and slow down performance on worse find yourself with a blue screen. It makes a difference in applications such as the OS, anti-virus, MOM agents, SMS agents and applications. SQL Server uses both types of memory, and a properly tuned SQL Server and a knowledgable dba will let you know which settings your box needs.

There are some ways a 32-bit application can overcome the 4GB memory limit /3GB andÃ‚Â Physical Address Extension (PAE) or Address Windowing Extensions (AWE). This does increase the amount of physical addressable memory, but it does not increase virtual memory addressing. Think back to the days of DOS and himem and the other memory managers we used to reach up into all that newer hardware we purchased.

With the introduction of the x64 architecture come two major improvements that will increase performance in E12.Ã‚Â The two major improvements provided to E12 by x64 are:

Increased physical and virtual memory addressing
Increased number and width of internal registers

The x64 architecture allows Windows to blow past the 32-bit memory limit of 4GB and allows 64-bit versions of Windows to access up to a whopping 1 terabyte (TB) or RAM.

Registers are a type of memory that are closest to the CPU.Ã‚Â The CPU can access data in these registers without any delay; so by keeping more code within these registers a programmer can increase the performance of the application.Ã‚Â X64 CPUs contain twice as many registers as their 32-bit counter parts and each register is also twice as wide, 64-bits versus 32-bits.Ã‚Â All this adds up to major performance boosts to computers running on the x64 architecture.

How x64 will benefit Exchange 2007?

There are numerous benefits to running Exchange 2007 on the x64 hardware architecture, the biggest of which is scalability.Ã‚Â Obviously, by having a server with more memory and faster performance will allow you to add more users to the Exchange server.

This translates into more users on a single server and for companies that provide hosted Exchange, more customers in the same rack and SAN space.

If you are running a medium to large Exchange organization you most likely forked out a large sum of money for a fast iSCSI or Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN). During the planning stages you also probably ran tests to determine the minimum, maximum and average IOPS your SAN would need to support to provide the desired performance level to your deployment. This is something to remember - Exchange runs great on SANS if you plan for what a SAN provides - disk IO’s and spindles. You do not configure a SAN just for storage.

With the additional address space, comes support for larger numbers of storage groups and stores. Currently ExchangeÃ‚Â support a maximum of 4 storage groups, each with 5 stores. Exchange 2007 will support 50 storage groups with 50 stores. This means larger storage overall and flexibility to do some clever things:

Offer users greater storage on the server, reducing PST problems
Insure more active scanning and backups of server based data
Implement policies for data retention - AND actually enforce those policies

How can more users hit the box? Currently 32-bitÃ‚Â Exchange is limited by the amount of memory in the kernel.Ã‚Â Each incoming and outgoing message can create a connection and all those assholes sending your users SPAM can easily create an enormous number of connections.Ã‚Â Add to this web access via OWA or OMA, RPC over HTTPS and connections made with MAPI, POP3 and IMAP clients and memory exhaustion becomes a large problem.Ã‚Â Even DMZ front end / back end designs users connections for IPSec. Each and every connection uses a bit of kernel memory and this limits the number of connections therefore limiting scalability dramatically. By effectively losing this limit, more connections will be supported. And to repeat the message - this means more users per Exchange server.

Hardware Supported by Exchange 2007

Component

Minimum Requirement

x64 architecture-based computer with:

-	Intel Xeon or Intel Pentium Family processor that supports Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (Intel EM64T) or
-	AMD Opteron or AMD Athlon 64 processor that supports AMD64 platform

Intel Itanium IA64 processors are not supported

- At least 1.2GB on the hard disk where you install Exchange Server 2007

-	Additional 500MB of available hard-disk space per language if installing language packs for Unified Messaging beyond those included in the default installation
-	Additional space is needed when using Local Continuous Replication or Cluster Continuous Replication (the amount of space required depends on the size of the storage groups being replicated)

200 MB on the system drive

System partition

Partition storing Exchange Server binaries

Partitions containing transaction log files

Partitions containing database files

Partitions containing other Exchange Server files

Microsoft .NET Framework Version 2.0

Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0

Windows PowerShell (for Exchange Management Shell)

Should these required prerequisites not be installed, the Exchange Server 2007 setup process will prompt and provide links to the installation location. Internet access will be required if the prerequisites are not already installed or available on a local network.

For more information on E12, and Microsoft’s 64-bit plans please see the following links.