Hyper-V is here.. what about Exchange?
Virtualization June 26th, 2008
We’ve all got the burning question, and it looks like Johann’s getting answers. Check out more in Johann’s post “Hyper-V is here.. what about Exchange”, and a snippet is below:
Microsoft will be publishing a support statement with respect to Exchange Server on Hyper-V within 60 days of today.
…In terms of best practices and requirements, the following guidance was released:
- We’re only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.
- We’re only supporting fixed disks, and not dynamic disks.
- Storage should be on spindles that are separate from the Guest operating system VHD physical storage.
- Storage must be SCSI passthrough or iSCSI (with a preference of SCSI passthrough for queues, databases and log files).
- All Exchange server roles, except for the Unified Messaging server role, will be supported.
- There’s a limit on VHD size of 2040 GB.
It was also mentioned that Hyper-V is a good fit when Exchange servers in branch offices cannot be consolidated to a central datacenter (for example, because of bandwidth or connectivity issues).
…So what’s the really great thing about this soon-to-be-released guidance?
60 days from now is just in time for Tech.Ed Australia and New Zealand!!!
Yes, I know it says “We’re only supporting guests running Exchange Server 2007 SP1 on Windows Server 2008.” So let’s see what happens in 60 days..
July 1st, 2008 at 10:55 pm
[...] For many organisations, Exchange Server is one such workload but there are scenarios when it might be appropriate - at least for part of the messaging infrastructure. Up until now it’s been unsupported (in any case, Exchange Server 2007 requires a 64-bit platform, and that wasn’t available on a Microsoft virtualisation platform before the advent of Hyper-V) but Microsoft is running some of its Exchange Servers on Hyper-V and, as Andrew “Dugie” Dugdell commented a few days back, Exchange Server support for Hyper-V is on its way. [...]
August 19th, 2008 at 12:35 am
We understand the Unified Messaging role is not “supported”. But does anyone know if it will work? Or has it been shut off from running in Hyper-V?
Thanks, Doug
October 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
The Exchange Support is great news but try installing it yourself. I have in my domain where all DC’s are 2003. I built a Server 2008 box (parent) then built two instances, one for backup storage (b2d) and the other Exchange. There are issues running the prep tool on exchange using Hyper V. These issues do not exist on standard, by the book, installs on single physical box for exchange only role. I wish there was support for issues I am running into now. There are no books that explain how to properly install it on Hyper V nor do any threads/forums talk about issues that occur during a Hyper V guest instance install.