Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

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chads
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Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:26 am
ZCS/ZD Version: ZCS 8.7.0 ZD 7.2.7

Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by chads »

So I currently have a couple single server ZCS setups within our organization, running as VMs (not as appliance installs). This is working fine. I am now investigating the Zimbra 8 Appliance with a multi server configuration. This is a test setup to see how it performs and to test out Zimbra 8 as well, with the hopes of migrating to this sort of setup. My question is with regards to the storage setup for the multi server configuration. I am following the VMWare Deploying Zimbra Collaboration appliance 8 on vSphere whitepaper, so essentially going to setup up 5 nodes (ldap master, ldap replica, mta, mbs, proxy). When I deploy the ovf file and run through the setup, I have the option of thin or thick provisioning, and it seems like thick provisioning is the way to go and I agree, BUT it wants to provision 140GB. And as I understand it, that would be for each of the 5 server nodes. Is this required for each of them. Yes I know that the mailbox store is going to have to be configured with more storage based on my user count and that is fine. But what about all the rest of these server nodes. Do the ldap (master and replica), proxy and mta have to be 140GB. What are the recommended storage sizes for each of the different servers? I have looked all over and I can not find any reference to a minimum or recommended storage size per server based on its functionality. If this all works out properly then there will be approximately 200-250 users. Once again I know I will have to tweak the mailbox store based on the number of users, but what about the rest?
7531prashant
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Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by 7531prashant »

Here is what I got from installation document:
Evaluation and Testing

• Intel/AMD 64-bit CPU 1.5 GHz

• 1 GB RAM

• 5 GB free disk space for software and logs

• Temp file space for installs and upgrades*

• Additional disk space for mail storage
Production environments

• Intel/AMD 2.0 GHZ+ 64-bit CPU

• Minimum - 2 GB RAM

Recommend minimum - 4 GB RAM

• Temp file space for installs and upgrades*

• 10 GB free disk space for software and logs (SATA

or SCSI for performance, and RAID/Mirroring for

redundancy)

• Additional disk space for mail storage
From you case and for 200-250 users, I feel that 40GB thin provisioning is sufficient for all the nodes except mailstore.
chads
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:26 am
ZCS/ZD Version: ZCS 8.7.0 ZD 7.2.7

Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by chads »

Okay, that sounds somewhat reasonable at 40GB per node (except mailstore), but will the other nodes need to grow based on the amount of email growth and/or user growth. Or will the ldap, mta, and proxy remain static in the storage requirements for each of these servers?
7531prashant
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Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by 7531prashant »

[quote user="chads"]Okay, that sounds somewhat reasonable at 40GB per node (except mailstore), but will the other nodes need to grow based on the amount of email growth and/or user growth. Or will the ldap, mta, and proxy remain static in the storage requirements for each of these servers?[/QUOTE]
Chances of other node growing are likely depening upon how many users you are adding to the setup. If you are not adding any more user to the setup then size of other nodes except storage will not increase much.
chads
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:26 am
ZCS/ZD Version: ZCS 8.7.0 ZD 7.2.7

Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by chads »

Okay, so I did an install of the zimbra appliance, master ldap, all went well. I noticed that there is no where that I can specify disk size to use, makes sense in an appliance installation, but since I am doing a multi server install, I don't see the need for each server to be 140GB. The 40GB seems more reasonable. So here is what I think I want to do. I have created the storage as thin provisioning so it does not allocate all the storage, now since I don't need 140GB, I will do a storage migration from thin to thick and specify the 40GB for storage separated through the 9 disks that were created on initial setup. Will this work? Is there another way I can do this and specify disk sizes?
chads
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:26 am
ZCS/ZD Version: ZCS 8.7.0 ZD 7.2.7

Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by chads »

Also, looking at the default storage sizes for the specific mountpoints from the Installation Guide, with the configuration that I want, is there a specific size that each of these mountpoints should be (or a minimum at least). Instead of the 140GB total distributed across the mountpoints, I want to distribute 40GB, can I just use percentages based on the 140GB and convert them to 40GB. For example, by default the /opt/zimbra mountpoint is 10GB with the 140GB total configuration, can I change this to 10/140 = 0.0714... (140GB Config) -> 40 * 0.0714... = 2.8GB (40GB Config), can I safely make this assumption for all mountpoints??? Or am I off my rockers :)
chads
Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:26 am
ZCS/ZD Version: ZCS 8.7.0 ZD 7.2.7

Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by chads »

So poking around, I decided to download the zip file as well for the appliance install. Looking at the vmdk files within the zip I have discovered a vmdk file for each of the mountpoints that are specified within the installation guide. And with further investigation, it seems like there is a specific entry within these files that specify the disk size. Here is the contents of the vmdk file for /opt/zimbra/store:
[QUOTE]# Disk DescriptorFile

version=1

encoding="UTF-8"

CID=4a145680

parentCID=ffffffff

createType="twoGbMaxExtentSparse"
# Extent description

RW 4192256 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s001.vmdk"

RW 4192256 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s002.vmdk"

RW 4192256 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s003.vmdk"

RW 4192256 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s004.vmdk"

RW 4192256 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s005.vmdk"

RW 10240 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s006.vmdk"
# The Disk Data Base

#DDB
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"

ddb.geometry.sectors = "63"

ddb.geometry.heads = "255"

ddb.geometry.cylinders = "1305"

ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 9d dc 4f ed f7-b3 47 6e 69 3b e3 87 1b"

ddb.longContentID = "8f36ee14e3b0f207f964dc444a145680"

ddb.toolsVersion = "2147483647"

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"[/QUOTE]
The entry [QUOTE]RW 10240 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s006.vmdk"[/QUOTE] seems to correspond to the disk size, or more importantly the size of the mountpoint for each of the mountpoints specified within the installation guide. In this case for /opt/zimbra/store, it would be 10GB. So back to my question about changing these sizes to work with a 40GB, instead of 140GB, storage size, can I modify these vmdk files, and more specific, entries like [QUOTE]RW 10240 SPARSE "zca-8.0.4.0-1151542-store-s006.vmdk"[/QUOTE] in each of the vmdk files to the size that I want the mountpoints to be, and then do the install from the zip file instead of the ova? Make sense? Any suggestions, help, comments?
7531prashant
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Zimbra Appliance - Multi Server Setup

Post by 7531prashant »

I am not very much sure on modifying vmdk file size. You can visit VMware forums for answer.
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