New Training: Plan, Deploy, and Manage Mailbox Databases

In this 9-video skill, CBT Nuggets trainer Ben Finkel teaches you how to properly plan for database size in order to handle future growth, performance needs, and disaster recovery. Gain an understanding of public folders, storage architecture, AutoReseed, and JetStress. Watch this new Exchange training.

Watch the full course: Microsoft Exchange Server 2016 Training

This training includes:

• 9 videos

• 46 minutes of training

You’ll learn these topics in this skill:

• Introduction to Storage Planning for Microsoft Exchange 2016

• Planning for Database Size

• Public Folder Capacity

• Exchange Storage Architecture

• Planning for AutoReseed

• Planning for Virtualization

• Running JetStress

• Creating and Configuring Mailbox Databases

• Managing Transaction Logs

A Case For Not Deploying Exchange 2016 on a SAN

Traditionally an Exchange server would require the utilization of a SAN to store its databases. The need for high availability, high-performing SANs has steadily decreased since the release of Exchange 2010. Each iteration of the Exchange server has improved on reducing the number of IOPs required to run. With the release of Exchange 2016, a SAN is no longer required. Instead, Exchange 2016 can now use direct access storage.

Utilizing direct access storage has the benefit of reducing hardware costs while still maintaining some of the benefits of using a SAN. Storage drives and RAID devices have decreased steadily in prices, and Exchange no longer requires the high performance that hard drives used in a SAN demand. By using direct access storage instead of a SAN, an organization can significantly reduce its TCO. Likewise, by using direct access storage, Exchange admins can mitigate some of the headaches that a SAN might create like automatically provisioned tiered storage. In fact, tiered storage methods can reduce the performance of Exchange 2016.

This isn't to say that using direct access storage doesn't have downsides, though. Exchange servers are still required to use a RAID array for pieces of the Exchange databases. Of course, using a RAID 5 array may help mitigate potential issues like drive failures, the traditional benefits of using a SAN, like expanding storage down the road, become more difficult.