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How to generate HP Insight Dynamics
infrastructure orchestration templates with
the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange
Server 2010
Technical white paper
Table of contents
Executive summary............................................................................................................................... 2
Downloading and installing the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 ........................................... 2
Enabling the IO template file generator functionality ................................................................................ 3
Generating an IO template file .............................................................................................................. 4
“Generate an Example Configuration” mode tutorial ............................................................................ 5
“Build your own solution” mode tutorial .............................................................................................. 7
Notes and limitations ......................................................................................................................... 10
Importing the XML template ................................................................................................................. 11
Modifying the OS deployment job ................................................................................................... 12
Adding network resources ............................................................................................................... 14
Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 15
For more information .......................................................................................................................... 16
Executive summary
HP Insight Dynamics is advanced infrastructure lifecycle management software which allows you to
instantly adjust to dynamic business demands and provision a complex infrastructure in minutes.
HP Insight Dynamics includes:
 Integrated infrastructure design with automated activation of servers, storage and networking
 Built-in capacity planning and rebalancing tools
 Automated disaster recovery and failover capabilities
With HP Insight Dynamics, infrastructure orchestration (IO) templates can be designed and published
to enable consistent application service provisioning from pools of shared resources via a self-service
portal. These templates are designed based on specific application service requirements and best
practices. To facilitate the process of designing and creating these templates, the HP Sizer for
Microsoft® Exchange 2010 includes the capability to automatically generate IO templates based on
the Exchange requirements (user profile, count, etc.) specified during the sizing process. This IO
template can then be imported directly into the HP IO Designer tool, saving administrator‟s significant
time in the template planning and design process.
This document describes how to use the “HP Sizer for Exchange Server 2010” sizing tool to generate
HP Insight Dynamics infrastructure orchestration templates. The document also provides an overview
of how to save and import the resulting IO template file, and describes the further modifications that
are required before the template can be saved and published for provisioning.
Target audience: This “How-to” guide is for HP Insight Dynamics or Exchange architects responsible
for designing HP Insight Dynamics infrastructure orchestration service templates for Exchange 2010.
This document assumes that you are familiar with HP Insight Dynamics and with how to use the HP
Sizer for Exchange 2010.
For more information on HP Insight Dynamics please visit www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics.
For more information on HP BladeSystem Matrix which utilizes HP Insight Dynamics as the
infrastructure orchestration software please visit www.hp.com/go/matrix.
Downloading and installing the HP Sizer for Microsoft
Exchange Server 2010
The HP Sizer for Exchange 2010 can be downloaded by clicking on the appropriate link from the
Exchange solution page at www.hp.com/solutions/exchange. The download is a zip file that
contains the Exchange sizer setup.exe file. To install the Exchange sizer, launch the setup.exe and
follow the installation wizard.
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Enabling the IO template file generator functionality
By default, the option to generate an IO XML template file is disabled. To enable this functionality
within the Exchange sizer you need to first launch the Exchange sizer. Once the Exchange sizer has
been started, select the “Show „Generate IO Template File‟ Button” option from the “Options” dropdown menu in the top left of the sizer UI as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Enabling the IO XML file template generation
Once this option has been enabled, a button will be displayed at the completion of each sizing
exercise. However, as shown in Figure 2, this button will not be enabled if a solution is generated that
doesn‟t meet specific criteria. This is discussed in greater detail in the following section.
Figure 2 – Displaying the “Generate IO Template File” button
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Generating an IO template file
Just because the option to display the “Generate IO Template File” button has been selected, does not
mean that the button itself will be enabled. This was depicted in the previous figure above (Figure 2).
This button will only be enabled for Exchange solutions that meet the following conditions:
 Server platform type is “Blade” for all Exchange server roles.
 Storage architecture is “SAN (Fibre Channel)” for Exchange roles with external storage
requirements such as the Hub Transport (HT) and Mailbox (Mbx) server roles.
 The design is for a single site solution.
The reason these restrictions exist is that there are certain infrastructure requirements to utilize HP
Insight Dynamics infrastructure orchestration. For physical server provisioning, HP Insight Dynamics
requires HP server blades connected to an external FC storage array (HP BladeSystem Matrix1 for
example). Thus, the Exchange sizer prevents you from creating an IO template that is based on a
design for different server or storage architectures.
The following tutorial sections walk through how you can use the Exchange sizer to generate an IO
template in either the “Generate an Example Configuration” or “Build your Own Solution” mode.
Note:
The following examples are focused on solutions that generate an IO XML
template file and are not meant to be a comprehensive description of how
to use the Exchange sizer. For more general help on using the Exchange
2010 sizer, please select the “Sizer help…” option from the “Help” pulldown menu.
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For more information on the HP BladeSystem Matrix please visit www.hp.com/go/matrix.
“Generate an Example Configuration” mode tutorial
The “Generate an Example Configuration” mode of the Exchange sizer is a streamlined version of the
sizer with fewer inputs. In this mode there is a single input page to collect information about the
Exchange environment. The orange circles on Figure 3 below indicate the specific input values which
need to be set to generate an IO XML template file.
Figure 3 – Example configuration mode
The two specific inputs which need to be set are the “Server Platform” and “Storage Architecture”
options to “Blade” and “SAN (Fibre Channel)” respectively as shown above. The other input values
can be modified as needed to represent the desired Exchange environment.
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To size the solution press the “Finish” button. This brings up the solution‟s results page as shown in
Figure 4. Notice that the “Generate IO Template File” button is now enabled.
Figure 4 – Example mode solution results page
To generate the XML file, press the “Generate IO Template File” button. This will open up a dialog
box and allow you to save the XML file. This XML file can then be copied to your HP Insight Dynamics
management server and imported into the HP IO designer interface. This is described in greater detail
in the “Importing the XML template” section below.
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“Build your own solution” mode tutorial
When running the Exchange sizer in the full solution mode there are a number of additional input
options and UI screens to walk through. However, this section will only focus on the UI input options
and screens that are relevant for generating the IO XML template file.
To launch a sizing session in this mode, press the “Build” button from the main screen. The first few
screens are introduction pages, the first screen requiring input is the “Site and DAG Names” page
shown in Figure 5 below.
Figure 5 – Site and DAG Names screen
Here is where you will define the number of sites and whether there are any Exchange Database
Availability Groups (DAGs) that are required for your configuration. An IO template can be designed
with or without the use of a DAG. However, the IO template generation will only work with a single
site. Thus, you must only define a single site for your configuration.
The next several screens in the sizer (not shown) collect information about the following:
 Number and type of user profiles
 Database/Mailbox options
 Site Exchange role information
 Site Mailbox backup options
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This information will be specific to your own Exchange solution and the inputs will not impact whether
an IO XML template can be generated for this solution.
However, the last screens in the sizer will. These are the “Role Server Options” and “Role Storage
Options” pages shown in Figures 6 and 7 respectively.
Figure 6 depicts the “Role Server Options” screen. As with the example mode configuration, you must
specify “Blade” from the “Server Platform” drop-down box.
Figure 6 – “Role Server Options” page
One thing that‟s important to note here is that you must specify the “Blade” server platform option for
each server role as listed in the “Role” drop-down box. In this example, there are three different
Exchange server roles that need to be configured. If any of the server roles do not have “Blade”
chosen as the server platform, the “Generate IO Template File” button will be grayed out.
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Figure 7 below depicts the “Role Storage Options” page. As with the example mode configuration,
you must specify “SAN (Fibre Channel)” from the “Storage Architecture” radio button options.
Figure 7 – “Role Storage Options” page
Again as was the case with the server platform selection, you must specify the “SAN (Fibre Channel)”
option for each server role (with external storage requirements) listed in the “Role” drop-down box. In
this example, there are three different Exchange server roles; however, only two of the roles need to
be configured. The Exchange CAS (Client Access Server) role doesn‟t have external storage
requirements (beyond the boot LUN) and the “Storage Architecture” option is grayed out.
Once the storage architecture information has been set, press the finish button on the bottom of the
sizer (not shown above) and the sizing process will run. On the results page you‟ll see the button to
generate the IO XML file. This can be selected and the XML file saved to your system. This XML file
can then be copied to your HP Insight Dynamics management server and imported into the HP IO
designer interface. This is described in greater detail in the “Importing the XML template” section
below.
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Notes and limitations
This section describes several caveats and some limitations that are important to understand about the
way the IO template files are generated and some limitations that exist in the final XML file that is
generated.
The first thing to highlight is that the Exchange sizer does not currently support configuring a bootfrom-SAN (BFS) design. However, a boot LUN is a requirement for each server role that is configured
in an IO template. Thus, as part of the XML file creation process, a 40GB boot LUN is automatically
added to each server.
On top of that, there are several key areas of the IO template that are not automatically generated as
part of the sizing process. These include the network resources and the OS deployment jobs. Both the
network information and applicable OS deployment jobs are specific to your environment and can‟t
be automatically generated as part of the sizing process. These attributes will need to be added and
modified after the IO template file is imported. How to do this is covered in the “Importing the XML
template file” section below.
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Importing the XML template
The “Import” option within the HP IO designer can be used to import the Exchange-sizer-generated
XML file as a service template. An example of what the template looks like is shown in Figure 8 below
(Items have been moved on the screen to make the picture more compact and easier to view).
Figure 8 – Imported template file from Exchange 2010 sizing session
In this example there are three resources which have been marked as having an error (red highlighted
boxes). Looking deeper at these errors reveals that they are generated because there is no OS
deployment job associated with the server groups. There are also additional errors (not visible in the
picture above) due to the fact that the network resources for this solution are not automatically added
by the Exchange sizer. These resources must be added and the OS deployment jobs set appropriately
before the template can be published successfully. More detail on each of these areas is covered
below.
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Modifying the OS deployment job
To set the appropriate OS deployment job, double-click on a server group resource. This will open up
a pop-up window where additional attributes can be configured as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9 – Server group properties pop-up window
You can see that the memory and processor requirements for the mailbox server role have been set
based on the user profiles and input to the Exchange sizer. Also notice the red X on the software tab.
This is the error that was indicated by the red highlighted box in Figure 8. Click on this tab to modify
the OS deployment event (Figure 10).
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Figure 10 – Software configuration tab
Once the appropriate deployment job has been set (or “Manual software deployment” selected),
Press OK to save the changes. Repeat this procedure for the other server groups in the IO template.
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Adding network resources
Once the software properties have been configured for each server group, the next step is to add the
network resources into the template2. For this configuration, two networks will be configured, one for
front-end communications to the CAS servers and a second network for back-end traffic. After the
networks have been added and configured, a green check box should appear for the “Validation
status”. This indicates that the template is error free (see the orange circle in Figure 11 below).
Figure 11 – Error free Exchange service template
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For more information on adding network resources and designing IO templates please read the help file and associated documentation
available with the product distribution.
At this point you have a valid template which can be saved and published. However, there are two
other aspects of the template that you may want to modify depending upon your environment
including:
 Setting “Matching tags” on the storage resource definitions to match the property values with the
Logical Storage Pool Entries (SPEs)
 Attaching embedded HP Operations Orchestration (OO) workflows to execute as part of the service
provisioning process
Further information on these subjects can be found in the HP Insight Dynamics product documentation.
Note:
Even after modifying the necessary service template attributes and
publishing the template, the template cannot be provisioned unless the
necessary resources exist in your environment. When a user attempts to
create a service based on this template, the first step that runs is a
validation algorithm that checks that all the necessary resources (servers,
storage, and networks) specified in the template are available. If the
resources are available, they are reserved, and the provisioning process
commences. If a resource is not available, then the allocation halts, and the
service creation fails indicating which resource caused the failure.
Summary
By leveraging the capability of the “HP Sizer for Exchange Server 2010” to generate the HP Insight
Dynamics infrastructure orchestration templates, you can save valuable time when designing and
building service templates for Exchange. With the Exchange sizer, you can dynamically build XML
files based on your specific Exchange requirements. These files can then be directly imported into the
HP IO Designer interface to be further modified and published to the self-service portal for
provisioning.
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For more information
For the HP Sizer for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 please visit www.hp.com/solutions/exchange
HP ActiveAnswers website, www.hp.com/solutions/activeanswers/
For more information on HP Insight Dynamics please visit www.hp.com/go/insightdynamics
For more information on HP BladeSystem Matrix please visit www.hp.com/go/matrix
To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at
http://h20219.www2.hp.com/ActiveAnswers/us/en/solutions/technical_tools_feedback.html.
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Microsoft is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
4AA0-4553ENW, March 2010