3par Delivers Scalable Performance With Microsoft Exchange Server 2007

3PAR announced the submission of five storage solution reports for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 under the Microsoft Exchange Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP), Storage Version 2.1. The performance of the 3PAR InServ Storage Server, as documented in the five reports, demonstrated several significant customer benefits when deployed in Exchange Server 2007 environments.

These benefits included:

• High, predictable, and linearly scalable performance of 3PAR Utility Storage with Exchange Server 2007.
• Improved capacity utilization using 3PAR Thin Provisioning with negligible performance degradation when deploying Exchange Server 2007.

The ESRP results that 3PAR submitted demonstrated the ability to scale Exchange Server 2007 databases simply and confidently within a single, massively scalable storage platform, thereby avoiding the costs and complexities associated with multiple systems. 3PAR’s results of 24,000-user, 48,000-user, and 96,000-user Exchange Server 2007 configurations with a single, consolidated 3PAR InServ T800 Storage Server demonstrated the linear scalability of the 3PAR InServ array.

"Our previous environment was more expensive, more management-intensive, and limited our ability to scale to meet the demands of our students," said Bryan Lucas, CTO at Texas Christian University. "The combination of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and 3PAR Utility Storage allows us the agility to easily accommodate increasing student storage needs with minimal management overhead, all at a fraction of the cost of traditional storage."

The following results demonstrate that customers can easily calculate the required number of InServ Controller Nodes and disk drives required to support Exchange Server 2007 deployments based on the number of mailboxes and approximate aggregate IOPS (I/Os per second):

3PAR InServ Storage Servers were able to deliver this linear scalability because they feature a clustered architecture that utilizes fine-grained and autonomic striping of data across massively parallel internal resources. This unique architecture has been demonstrated to deliver exceptional performance and scalability on which customers like Texas Christian University have come to rely for their Exchange Server 2007 deployments.

3PAR also tested and submitted a 24,000-mailbox configuration using Exchange Server 2007 with Cluster Continuous Replication (CCR). CCR is a High Availability (HA) feature of Exchange Server 2007 that combines the asynchronous log shipping and replay technology built into Exchange Server 2007 with the failover and management features provided by the Cluster service.

Finally, 3PAR – a pioneer of thin provisioning and thin copy technologies — submitted a similar 24,000-mailbox configuration with CCR using 3PAR Thin Provisioning. 3PAR’s Thin Provisioning performance numbers demonstrated only a 1.4 percent decrease in aggregate IOPS as compared to the IOPS achieved using the same configuration but without 3PAR Thin Provisioning. 3PAR’s submission demonstrated that customers deploying 3PAR Thin Provisioning to achieve storage cost reduction in Exchange Server 2007 deployments do not have to sacrifice performance.

"The decision to deploy 3PAR Thin Provisioning was an easy one," said Lucas. "With 3PAR, we saved 5x on our storage hardware, reducing what would have cost us approximately five dollars per mailbox down to less than a dollar per mailbox. Those were savings on storage we couldn’t pass up — especially given the current economic climate."

"3PAR’s ESRP results demonstrate the ability to scale massively and do more with less with a single 3PAR InServ T-Class storage array in Exchange Server 2007 environments," said Jeff Boles, Senior Analyst and Director at Taneja Group. "3PAR has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated how the sophisticated technologies within their InServ arrays enable them to do ‘more for less.’ In this case, less InServ storage — and consequently less power, space, and cooling — delivers more performance. For IT organizations shopping for new storage because of data growth, new performance demands, or just the realization that their current storage should be more efficient, 3PAR’s reputation for smart, efficient storage should put them on any short list where ‘more for less’ is an important consideration," said Boles.

"These ESRP results demonstrate how 3PAR, as a longtime thin provisioning pioneer, delivers linear scalability and uncompromising thin provisioning performance with Exchange Server 2007 databases," said David Scott, President and CEO for 3PAR. "The ability to consolidate with confidence is critical in a climate where organizations are under tremendous pressure to do more with less. Avoiding the costs and complexities of purchasing and maintaining multiple storage systems can make the difference between surviving and perishing in these lean economic times."

"The Exchange Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP) for storage allows Microsoft partners like 3PAR to demonstrate the storage benefits, capabilities, and best practices that customers can take advantage of when deploying Exchange Server 2007," said Astrid McClean, Sr. Technical Product Manager at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased that 3PAR participated in the ESRP to demonstrate the performance, scalability, and thin provisioning benefits that our mutual Exchange Server 2007 customers can realize with 3PAR utility storage."

The ESRP for storage is a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 program designed to facilitate third-party storage testing and solution publishing for Exchange Server 2007. The program combines a storage testing harness (Jetstress) with solution publishing guidelines.

Specific results posted by 3PAR are as follows:

• 24,000-mailbox Exchange Server 2007 Solution (InServ T800 Storage Server, two controller nodes, 160 drives)
• 24,000-mailbox, Clustered Continuous Replication, Exchange Server 2007 Solution (InServ T800 Storage Server, two controller nodes, 160 drives)
• 24,000-mailbox, Clustered Continuous Replication, Exchange Server 2007 Solution (InServ T800 Storage Server, two controller nodes, 160 drives, Thin Provisioning)
• 48,000-mailbox Exchange Server 2007 Solution (InServ T800 Storage Server, two controller nodes, 320 drives)
• 96,000-mailbox Exchange Server 2007 Solution (InServ T800 Storage Server, four controller nodes, 640 drives)