The HP E5000 Messaging System for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is part of a new range of appliances created as part of the Microsoft-HP alliance.
There are appliances for messaging, business intelligence (BI), data warehousing, and database consolidation. The general aim of these appliances is to
enable customers to shorten the deployment cycle while implementing a solution that follows best practices.
The HP E5000 series of appliances lets customers experience the benefits of Exchange Server 2010 (e.g., large mailboxes, archiving, high availability)
without the need to fully scope and scale a custom solution. Sizing an Exchange deployment is typically a complex undertaking that requires careful
analysis of the many factors built into a user profile. In the HP E5000 series, HP does that sizing for you. It provides a variety of models that cater
to small and mid-sized deployments. The HP E5300, HP E5500, and HP E5700 appliances support up to 500 users, 1,000 users, and 3,000 users,
respectively, with mailboxes ranging from 1GB to 2.5GB in size. You can add additional units, taking deployments up to 15,000 users. The appliances can
also be used in branch offices of large enterprises, providing an easy-to-deploy and uniform way of supporting remote sites.
Although HP has done all the sizing for you, it's important to note that you need to stick to the usage profile outlined. For example, if you start
adding BlackBerry or other devices that create an additional load on the Exchange server, you might have to consider reducing the number of supported
users. For complex scenarios, you might consider discussing your deployment with an Exchange consultant to see whether an appliance solution or a
traditional (and more scalable) hardware solution makes more sense.
It's also important to note that once an HP E5000 appliance is up and running, it's not really any different than any other Exchange server in your
organization in terms of management. For this reason, I'll spend more time discussing how to install and configure the appliance than on how to manage
it.
Installing and Configuring the System
The first thing that will strike you when you receive your HP E5000 appliance is just how large and heavy it is. Although it doesn't take up much space
in a rack (only 3U when used without additional storage shelves), the unit is very deep. As such, it's worth checking the specifications and your
existing racks to make sure it will fit.
I tested the HP E5300 unit, which Figure 1 shows. It's comprised of a pair of ProLiant c-Class blades, which sit alongside a storage unit that can hold
up to sixteen 3.5" Serial ATA (SATA) or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) drives. The HP E5300 requires only 12 drives to support the 500 users allowed. These
drives store the Exchange data. In each blade, there are two small-form-factor drives, which are used for OS and application installation. As part of
the setup process, you'll end up with the storage carved up between the two blades. Each blade forms part of a database availability group (DAG) and
runs the three core Exchange server roles (i.e., Mailbox, Client Access, and Hub Transport). This gives you a highly available deployment of sorts,
although to be complete, you'll need a hardware load balancer to provide high availability for the client connections.
Figure 1: The HP E5300 model
I used the HP quick start documentation to guide me through the install process. After setting up the rack and cables, you begin the configuration
process by setting your administrative workstation to a specific IP address on the same subnet that comes preconfigured on the appliance. Afterward,
you log on to the Environmental Monitoring Unit (EMU -- think of this as the chassis and storage subsystem) and the Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) cards
(which give you a console KVM connection to the blades themselves). In general, I found the quick start guide useful and clear. However, it didn't
mention one item that caused a problem: the need for a 1GBps or higher switch. It turns out that the NICs are 10GBps and will only negotiate down to
1GBps and no lower. After I found a suitable switch, the install process proceeded nicely.
After you've configured the relevant network and password settings, you can begin to configure the first blade. The blades come with Windows Server
2008 R2 SP1 pre-installed, so you just need to run a wizard to complete the OS setup. Once complete, the HP Configuration Wizard automatically loads
and connects to the EMU to set up the storage options and run diagnostics, among other things. Another wizard then guides you through configuring a
server OS administrator password, network settings, and domain and computer name settings. Afterward, you must manually run the Schema preparation
using the Exchange setup.com program in the normal way for Exchange 2010, but all the relevant files are already loaded on the server.