-
Exchange 2010 DAG Running on vSphere – Database and Log Disk Support
Posted on November 5th, 2010 3 commentsWhilst at VMworld Europe 2010 I attended a session on virtualising Exchange 2010. This was one of the most useful sessions I went to and whilst it confirmed a number of issues I had read about in the Best Practices Guide there was one tip I picked up from the session that was not in the guide and I thought would be useful to share.
When deploying Exchange 2010 in a Database Availability Group (DAG) on vSphere the Database and Log file disks are only currently supported on RDM disks not VMFS.
On my return to the UK I confirmed this with VMware via a support call
The supported method of deploying Exchange 2010 DAG at the moment is by having the Exchange database and log files deployed on RDM disks.
DAG has not completed the QA process for VMFS volumes which why we are not recommending VMFS for DAG storage at the moment.We do have some customers that have Exchange DAG supported on VMFS but they needed to have their configuration approved using the RPQ process.
A RPQ is an exception that allows a currently unsupported configuration to be supported once the conditions of the RPQ process are met.
You would need to engage with your VMware Account Manager to initiate the this process if you want to go down this route.Hopefully I will find out when VMFS support arrives and can update this post.
2 responses to “Exchange 2010 DAG Running on vSphere – Database and Log Disk Support”
-
I’m really surprised to hear this to be honest. This is in contrast to what I heard presented at VMworld 2010 (US) as well as what I’ve seen printed on VMware’s documentation for virtualizing Exchange 2010. I’m looking at VMware partner documentation on virtualizing Exchange 2010 right now and there is nothing stating that RDMs are a requirement. In fact they say it is a preference and depends more on your backup strategy than any sort of supportability requirement.
In fact, the book “Virtualizing Tier 1 Applications with VMware vSphere 4″ (written by VMware employees) doesn’t even state that DAGs aren’t supported on VMFS. Very strange.
At times I wish VMware would get their act together on what they do and do not support. Failover clusters using iSCSI is another example where it doesn’t make a lot of sense. At VMworld they even said that the iSCSI limitation will be going away soon.
In any event, Microsoft supports virtualized Exchange 2010 servers w/ DAGs on VMFS and iSCSI and at the end of the day I care more about Microsoft support for my Exchange server than I do VMware support.
I’m looking forward to any additional info you get/hear from VMware. Thanks for the post..
-
Jonathan Medd November 5th, 2010 at 16:32
Thanks for the comment. The whole thing with MS, VMware, DAGs in general, HA, DRS, disk types is a support nightmare. I’m thinking of putting a support matrix together just for myself to get my head around it.
1 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
Leave a reply
-
 |
Automating vSphere Administration |
Amazon USA Amazon UK Sybex |
|
Subscribe in iTunes to the Get-Scripting Podcast
PowerShell 2.0 – One Cmdlet at a Time
AD PowerShell Quick Reference Guide
Matt Liebowitz November 5th, 2010 at 14:52