F5 Solution for Microsoft Exchange 2010
James Hendergart
Business Development Manager
Helen Johnson
Solution Engineer
What’s new in Exchange Server 2010?
1. Elevation of Client Access Server (CAS) role
• All client connections, regardless of protocol, are
with CAS servers
• CAS servers rely on ADC for high-availability
CAS is
critical
2
Exchange 2010 Architecture
Enterprise Network
Edge Transport
Routing and
AV/AS
Phone system
(PBX or VoIP)
Hub Transport
Routing and
policy
External
SMTP
servers
Mobile phone
Web browser
Mailbox
Storage of
mailbox items
Unified Messaging
Voice mail and
voice access
Client Access
Client connectivity
Web services
Outlook
(remote
user)
Line of business
application
Outlook (local user)
3
What’s new in Exchange Server 2010?
• Elevation of Client Access Server (CAS) role
• All client connections, regardless of protocol, are
with CAS servers
• CAS servers rely on ADC for high-availability
CAS is critical
• Microsoft recommends hardware load balancing
ADC for
for every Exchange 2010 deployment
highest
availability
• ADC recommended over NLB
• Includes multi-role Exchange server installations
• Includes installations with Microsoft clustering services
4
The F5 Solution for Exchange Server 2010
• Prevent these pains
– Dropped sessions  re-authentication, reconnection
– Failed network connections  retries, delay
– Slow response  trapped users
• These capabilities
–
–
–
–
Health monitoring and intelligent load-balancing
Client persistence
Server off-load
Availability of servers, arrays and sites
5
What’s new in Exchange Server 2010?
1. Elevation of Client Access Server (CAS) role
• All client connections, regardless of protocol, are with
All clients
CAS servers
need BIG-IP
2. Microsoft recommends hardware load balancing over
NLB
HWLB for
• Multi-role Exchange server installations
highest
• Installations with Microsoft clustering services
availability
Technical white paper on the MS internal Exchange design:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff829232.aspx
6
The F5 Solution for Exchange Server 2010
•
•
•
•
High-availability and superior user response
Site resilience
Reduced time and cost to replicate mail store
SPAM filtering and web client security
Availability
• Intelligent load
balancing
• Acceleration
• SSL offload
Performance
Security
• Server optimization
• Bi-directional proxy
• Client connection
acceleration
• Protection against
application layer
attacks
• Reduced bandwidth
use
• Application template
for error-free, fast
configuration
• DevCentral online
user community
• SPAM filter
• Cross-site resilience
• Reduce DAG
replication time
Configuration
• AuthN/AuthZ from
the perimeter
• Integration with
systems
management
7
F5 Solution for Exchange Server 2010
A
C
B
D
8
Configuration - we have a template for that
9
Availability
• Health monitoring
– Port/protocol requests
– Real-time in memory connection tables
• Intelligent load-balancing
– BIG-IP always knows the most available server
– Least connection method
– See application template
• Cross site availability
– Site level health
– Prioritized decision tree
10
Persistence
• Also known as affinity, or sticky sessions,
persistence can help enhance a user’s
application experience
• Different types of persistence:
– Source IP
– Cookie
– SSL ID
• Each Exchange client connection type has a
recommended persistence method
11
Configuring persistence profiles in BIG-IP
LocalTrafficProfilesPersistenceCreate
Cookie
Source IP and SSL ID
12
Performance - SSL termination
• Reduce cost and overhead of managing
certificates by moving them to BIG-IP
• BIG-IP is designed with dedicated chipset for
encryption/decryption calculations
• Increase Exchange server CPU utilization and
network connections per second
13
Security
•
•
•
•
•
Bi-directional proxy
Secure remote access
Pre-authentication
Application layer security for web clients
SPAM filtering
14
Multi-datacenter considerations
• Multiple datacenters provides additional options for
redundancy and load-balancing
–
–
–
–
Load-balancing and Failover across locations
DNS management
Secure, accelerated application data synchronization
Seamless integration with systems management tools
• Key enabling functionality
–
–
–
–
BIG-IP LTM – GTM communication
iSessions
iControl
F5 PRO-Enabled Management Pack
15
Summary
• Highest availability through intelligent, hardware-based loadbalancing of client connections to CAS servers
• Dramatically increased server processing power through off-loading
of SSL, caching, compression and client connection isolation.
• F5 enables cross-site availability and resilience
• Pre-authenticate users in the perimeter network
• F5 devices can be controlled using PowerShell and Management
Packs
16
Next steps
• Reply to your Coffee Talk calendar invite or your follow-up
email to schedule an appointment with your F5 customer
team.
• Please complete our 30-second survey and receive your $5
Starbuck’s coffee card!
17
Exchange related resources
•
Sysmex case study
– http://www.f5.com/pdf/case-studies/sysmex-america-cs.pdf
•
F5 video demo – how to configure BIG-IP for Exchange 2010
– http://www.vimeo.com/album/1537190
•
F5 Deployment Guide
– http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/f5-exchange-2010-dg.pdf
•
F5 Solution page for Exchange Server
– http://www.f5.com/solutions/microsoft/exchange
•
F5 online user community for Microsoft solutions
– http://devcentral.f5.com/microsoft
•
Technical white paper on Microsoft’s internal deployment
–
•
Load-balancing requirements from Microsoft TechNet
–
•
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/5/D/85D61478-8719-4219-96BAE5C53DD4F436/0941_ExchangeServer2010ArchitectureTWP.docx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff625247.aspx
Microsoft TechNet wiki
–
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/exchange-2010-client-access-array-amp-load-balancingresources.aspx
18