Xiotech ISE Supports 27,000 Mailboxes in 3U Footprint

Xiotech Corporation announced that a single ISE storage blade delivered unparalleled performance in a test simulating a 27,000-user Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment.

Within the framework of Microsoft Exchange 2010 Solution Reviewed Program (ESRP) – Storage v3.0, Xiotech conducted tests of its Emprise 5000 storage blade. One Emprise 5000 sustained 27,000 mailboxes (400 MB in size) on three Exchange 2010 Mailbox Servers with an I/O profile of 0.05 IOPS/mailbox, or – based on Microsoft Corp.’s estimated IOPS per mailbox – the equivalent of sending and receiving 50 messages per day. The results were achieved in 3U (5.25 inches) of rack space, and at capacity utilization rates of more than 94 percent – a performance density unequalled by traditional storage solutions whose performance suffers at maximum capacity.

"ISE is designed to meet the performance, linear scalability and reliability demands of enterprise Exchange 2010 deployments, regardless of size," said Steve Sicola, Chief Technology Officer at Xiotech. "This balance is particularly beneficial when non-transactional loads are placed on organizations’ Exchange databases during a normal workday. With tremendous performance density, ISE is an extremely compelling, cost-effective alternative to more expensive SAN solutions."

ISE storage blades are optimized for performance. Using patented groups of drives working together, adaptive caching and active-active controllers in 3U, or 5.25 inches of vertical rack space, ISE storage blades deliver the equivalent of 2x the IOPS per disk drive versus standard storage solutions. This patented design results in performance in high I/O environments, without the bottlenecks found in other storage architectures.

ESRP – Storage is a Microsoft Exchange Server program designed to facilitate third-party storage testing and solution publishing for Exchange Server. Customers can use the solutions published here to help plan/design their own Exchange storage architectures.

For  details on Xiotech’s published ESRP test (65 pages)