Document ID: 282100
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Support for VMWARE ESX (An EMC Company) Version 2.5.x, 3.0.x, 3.5.x and 4.0.x with Veritas Enterprise Vault (tm)
Details:
Symantec provides support for VMWARE ESX Server Version 2.5.x, 3.0.x, 3.5.x and 4.0.x with the Veritas Enterprise Vault (EV) products by Symantec.

Enterprise Vault products will run with VMWARE ESX Version 2.5.x, 3.0.x, 3.5.x and 4.0.x for the following versions: (See Compatibility Chart in Related Documents for version specific information)
Enterprise Vault for Microsoft Exchange 6.0.x, 7.0.x, 7.5.x and 8.0.x

Symantec has identified the following issues when running VMWARE ESX Version 2.5.x:

There is a performance overhead when running Enterprise Vault in an ESX virtual server. On a two processor server the overhead is equivalent to dropping one processor.  When archiving, Enterprise Vault is expected to have a high CPU usage and is therefore an application that is affected by the loss of CPU power caused by the ESX overhead.

For Example: When using a non-virtual 2 processor server, the expected archiving rate is approximately 25 000 items/hour. On a virtualized server the archiving rate was 18 000 items/hour.

It was also noticed that SQL Server 2005 and Exchange Server 2003 had an increase in CPU usage when they were virtualized and tested against a virtualized Enterprise Vault Server.

Test Environment
VMWARE ESX was tested using the following setup:
 
ServersEnvironment 1Environment 2Environment 3Environment 4
Enterprise Vault ServerNON-ESX ServerESX ServerESX ServerESX Server
2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)4 Processor + (Hyper Threading)
Archiving Rate =Archiving Rate =Archiving Rate =Archiving Rate =
25000150001500018000
CPU Usage =CPU Usage =CPU Usage =CPU Usage =
80 - 100%80 - 100%80 - 100%80 - 100%
Domain controllerNON-ESX ServerNON-ESX ServerESX ServerESX Server
2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)
MS Exchange Server 2003NON-ESX ServerNON-ESX ServerESX ServerESX Server
2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)
MS SQL Server 2005NON-ESX ServerNON-ESX ServerESX ServerESX Server
2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)2 Processor + (Hyper Threading)

* Only 2 of the 4 processors were allocated to the ESX Server. The remaining 2 processors were used by the underlying ESX operating system.

Technical Papers - ESX Server
For further information on ESX including the following: compatibility, white papers, technical notes, and performance tuning, please refer to:  http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/resources/esx_resources.html

Acknowledgements
EMC
Products Applied:
 Enterprise Vault for Microsoft Exchange 2007 7.5, 2007 7.5 SP1, 2007 7.5 SP2, 2007 7.5 SP3, 2007 7.5 SP4, 2007 7.5 SP5, 2007 7.5 SP6, 6.0, 6.0 SP1, 6.0 SP2, 6.0 SP3, 6.0 SP4, 6.0 SP5, 6.0 SP6, 7.0, 7.0 SP1, 7.0 SP2, 7.0 SP3, 7.0 SP4, 7.0 SP5, 8.0, 8.0 SP1, 8.0 SP2, 8.0 SP3
Last Updated: January 12 2010 09:32 PM GMT
Expires on: 07-11-2010
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Subjects:
 Enterprise Vault for Microsoft Exchange
   Administration: Vmware

Languages:
 English (US)

Operating Systems:
Windows 2000

Advanced Server, Datacenter Server, Server

Windows Server 2003

DataCenter, Enterprise Server, Standard Server