Brown University Exchange 2003

Molly Baird

Manager, Windows-Novell Services

Brown definitions

CIS: Computing and Information servicesProvides central IT services, central helpdesk,

SMTP + email services, file + print, DNS, networking

DCC: Departmental Computing CoordinatorPrimary IT support person in Administrative and

Academic departments. Focus on desktop and other client-side support issues

Exchange: current statistics

Mailboxes: 12,000 mailboxes migrated/added over 12

months 83% migrated (95% students migrated)

Hardware: Two 2-node clustered Exchange mailbox

servers Four load-balanced Exchange front-end

servers (Outlook Web Access, IMAP, POP) 250 Gig total storage across both clusters

Brown’s central Active DirectoryAD.brown.edu

Departments

People

Systems & Services

CIS

Human Resources

Engineering

Shared Accounts

Faculty/Staff

Students

Groups/Lists

Workstations

Exchange: internal routing

Server 1 Clients Server 2

Two kinds of databases comprise an Exchange “information store”

Stores content available to MAPI clients

Direct access by IMAP, POP, Outlook Web Access clients

MAPI Store Internet ContentStore

On-the-fly conversion of content when accessed by alternate client

MAPI: Messaging Application Protocol Interface

2-way communication with Exchange information stores

Changes in calendar, tasks, contacts, message folders

Communicates with Global Catalog servers to retrieve Global Address List (GAL)

Communicate with free/busy public folder to update calendar free/busy time

Exchange collaboration: calendaring

Shared auto-schedulable conference rooms and other resources

View free/busy time of colleagues Configure permissions on calendar folder to

permit others to see your personal calendar Delegate access to manage calendars

Exchange collaboration: public folders

Public Folders misnomer Departmental public folders Not replacement for file storage Vacation calendars Shared vendor contacts Shared lists Collections of project files

Exchange collaboration: shared IDs

Old model: shared password to access email in shared mailbox

New model: managed by group access to shared mailbox

Elimination of shared-password access Group access *can* be managed by DCCs if

acceptable by shared mailbox sponsor CIS not needed to update access to shared

mailbox

Brown’s central Active DirectoryAD.brown.edu

Departments

People

Systems & Services

CIS

Human Resources

Engineering

Shared Accounts

Faculty/Staff

Students

Groups/Lists

Workstations

Exchange: SMTP mail routing

BrownSMTP servers

Worldwide SMTP servers

Exchange servers

Other departmentalEmail servers

Brown legacy: “spraying” email

Hotmail

LegacyPostoffce

server

YahooMail

SMTP fromoutside world

Brown SMTPservers

Exchange: sizing

Database size based on SLAs to recover single database based on current backup practices

Many small databases on each Exchange server

Corruption in single database affects only 300 – 400 faculty/staff --or--- 500 – 600 student mailboxes

Exchange: maintenance

Need for maintenance indicated in server syslogs

Offline maintenance scheduled as needed Test maintenance outcome on test/recovery

Exchange server

Exchange: recovery

Exchange is a transactional database Database activity logged in transaction logs in

real-time Transactions later committed to database at a

lower processor priority. Single database recovery

Recover last full backup copy ofdatabase

Recovery and replay of successive incremental transaction-log backups

offline

online

Exchange: costs

Permanent Staff costs FTE hired for migration and maintenance (me!)

One-time Costs: Migration: 1 ½ FTE staff split between administrative and

technical duties for 6 months License: Microsoft Core Campus CAL required License: OS and Exchange software: $11,000 HW: four front-end servers: $30,000 HW: Staff cluster: $60,000 HW: Student cluster: $60,000 HW: SAN/storage for clusters: $70,000 Provisioning changes: coincided with Provisioning overhaul

Total one-time cost: $231,000 Total recurring cost: 1 FTE + MS Core CAL

Exchange: 2000 – 2003 upgrade

Outage of less than 60 minutes across all servers over a span of four weeks

Performed by one full-time staff member Additional “functionality testing” by full-time

desktop services staff Benefits:

improved Outlook Web Access client improved recovery options increased IIS security

Exchange: growth

Add new back-end clusters and distribute mailboxes across new server(s)

Increase mailbox quota size

Exchange: what limits growth

Current database sizes limited by aggressive SLAs

Backup methods aren’t sufficient for growing enterprise data needs

Eliminating “backup to tape” component will enable faster restores

“why can’t I have a 1 Gig mailbox like Gmail?” Recovery of an entire server of 1-Gig

mailboxes using today’s methods would take a month.

Exchange @ Brown: questions?

Molly_Baird@brown.edu

401-863-7218

http://cis.brown.edu/doc/email/