Modeling Exchange Server 2007 Features

  • Article

System Center Capacity Planner 2007 is designed to model those features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 that are most commonly used. The following sections describe the basic architecture of the Exchange Server application model, the topology, transactions, and Exchange Server 2007 features that Capacity Planner models in addition to the features that are not modeled.

Note

Capacity Planner models only the configurations related to an Exchange Server 2007 deployment, not configurations affecting extended network performance.

Information in this section does not address product availability or recommended hardware best practices that are suggested by Microsoft. For additional information about Exchange Server 2007 architecture deployment best practices, see the Messaging Services Build Guide Web page on TechNet (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=56112).

Basic Exchange Server 2007 Architecture

Capacity Planner is designed to model only a single Exchange organization, which includes Mailbox-only sites and client-only sites. For most organizations, this is the lowest unit of administrative access or control. Capacity Planner predicts the utilization of all processors, disks, network links, and the latencies of transactions.

Exchange Server 2007 Topology Limits

Because of the extensive size and distributed nature of many Exchange deployments, only a subset of possible deployments is modeled. Only sites containing at least one Exchange server are modeled—you cannot use Capacity Planner to model Outlook Web Access clients alone.

The following table describes topology limitations in Capacity Planner for Exchange Server 2007.

Object Description

Edge Transport

The Edge Transport server role cannot be collocated with any other server role.

Hub Transport

The Hub Transport server role can be collocated with the Client Access and Mailbox (unclustered and local continuous replication (LCR) server roles only.

Client Access

The Client Access server role can be collocated with the Hub Transport and Mailbox (unclustered and LCR) server roles only.

Mailbox
  • In Capacity Planner, a Mailbox server role can have subtypes, which address the following variants:
  • Mailbox – an active Mailbox server role that is affected by all Mailbox transactions. It may be unclustered (default), using local continuous replication (LCR) or standby continuous replication (SCR), an active node in a cluster continuous replication (CCR) pair, or an active node in a single copy cluster (SCC) cluster.
  • Passive CCR Mailbox – this is a passive node in a CCR pair. Capacity Planner does not estimate server load on this Mailbox. This server role cannot be collocated with any other server role.
  • Passive SCC Mailbox – this is a passive node in an SCC cluster. Capacity Planner does not estimate server load on this Mailbox.
  • Passive SCR Mailbox – this is a passive node in an SCR cluster. Capacity Planner does not estimate server load on this Mailbox.

Sites
  • As many as 109 sites are modeled. The sites are apportioned as follows:
    • As many as 10 Mailbox sites
    • As many as 99 client-only sites

Server computers

As many as 300 server computers are modeled.

Client profiles

The following client profile types are included in the application model:

  • Inbox
  • Outlook Web Access client
  • Outlook 2007 Anywhere
  • Outlook 2007 in Offline Mode
  • Outlook 2007 in Online Mode
  • Active Sync

Users
  • Up to 200,000 total users. You can distribute users among sites, as desired.

Modeled Transactions and Operations

The following transactions and operations are modeled in the Capacity Planner application model for Exchange Server 2007.

  • ActiveSync Aggregate Workload
  • All calendar operations
  • All contact operations
  • Browsing folders
  • Message From Internet
  • Outlook Aggregate Workload
  • Outlook Anywhere Offline Aggregate Workload
  • Outlook Anywhere Send Message
  • Outlook Offline Aggregate Workload
  • Outlook Offline Send Message
  • Outlook Online Send Message
  • Outlook Web Access Browse Calendar
  • Outlook Web Access Browse Contacts
  • Outlook Web Access Browse Folder
  • Outlook Web Access Create Contact
  • Outlook Web Access Create Meeting
  • Outlook Web Access Delete Meeting
  • Outlook Web Access Delete Message
  • Outlook Web Access Logon
  • Outlook Web Access Move Message
  • Outlook Web Access Open Contact
  • Outlook Web Access Open Meeting
  • Outlook Web Access Open Message
  • Outlook Web Access Send Message
  • Reading, moving, and deleting email

Note

Exchange Server 2007 includes other transactions that are not modeled by Capacity Planner.

Supported Exchange Server 2007 Features

The following table describes the Exchange Server 2007 features that are modeled by Capacity Planner.

Exchange Server 2007 Feature Description

Edge Transport

An Edge Transport server role is deployed to your organization's perimeter network as a stand-alone server. The Edge Transport server is designed to minimize the potential of malicious attacks, and it handles all Internet-facing mail flow, which provides Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) relay and smart host services for the Exchange organization. Additional layers of message protection and security are provided by a series of agents that run on the Edge Transport server and act on messages as they are processed by the message transport components.

Hub Transport

The Hub Transport server role, which is deployed inside your Active Directory forest, handles all mail flow inside the organization, applies transport rules, applies journaling policies, and delivers messages to a recipient's mailbox. Messages that are sent to the Internet are relayed by the Hub Transport server role to the Edge Transport server role that is deployed in the perimeter network.

Client Access

The Client Access server role supports the Microsoft Outlook Web Access and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync client applications, and it supports the Post Office Protocol version 3 (POP3) and Internet Message Access Protocol version 4rev1 (IMAP4) protocols. Capacity Planner calculates the additional CPU utilization caused by Office Communicator on Client Access servers.

Mailbox

The Mailbox server role is main Exchange component that contains all message traffic and performs the main functions of an Exchange system. The Mailbox server role hosts mailbox databases, which contain users' mailboxes. All transactions involve the Mailbox. Each server that acts as a Mailbox is automatically configured with four storage groups, each with five mailbox databases. Capacity Planner calculates the additional CPU utilization caused by Office Communicator on Mailbox servers.

High-availability features

Capacity Planner can model the following clustering are replication types for the Mailbox server role:

  • cluster continuous replication (CCR)
  • single copy cluster (SCC)
  • local continuous replication (LCR)
  • standby continuous replication (SCR).

Unsupported Exchange Server 2007 Features

The following is a list of Exchange Server 2007 features that Capacity Planner does not model:

  • Editions other than Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition
    Only Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise Edition is modeled.
  • Outlook 2003 clients
    Only Outlook 2007 clients are modeled.
  • RTF and plain text messages
    Only HTML format messages are modeled.
  • Indexing
  • Internet Protocol security (IPsec)
  • Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds
  • Outlook clients using remote procedure call (RPC) over HTTP in online mode

See Also

Concepts

Application Model Technology Review

Other Resources

Step by Step for Exchange Server 2007 Deployment Planning