14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has updated the tool designed to simulate disk I/O load on Exchange servers in order to accommodate the next iteration of Exchange Server. Customers looking to migrate to the successor of Exchange Server 2007 will be able to take advantage of the Microsoft Exchange Server Jetstress 2010 Beta (64 bit) in order to test both the performance and stability of the disk subsystem in their environment prior to putting Exchange Server 2010 into a production environment. Microsoft has explained that the latest release of Jetstress comes with support tailored to the new Input Output characteristics of Exchange 2010.
“Jetstress team has prioritized validating Jetstress 2010 with Exchange 2010 versions of ESE vs. testing older ESE versions (Exchange 2003 and 2007). The goal of Jetstress 2010 is to completely replace Jetstress 2007 so it does support E2003/E2007 ESE binaries, but those scenarios are much less tested at this time,” revealed a member of the Jetstress Development Team. “Jetstress 2010 requires the most recent version of E2010 ESE binaries.”
Microsoft is advising all customers looking to perform Exchange Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007 testing to leverage Jetstress 2007. In this context, the software giant wants Jetstress 2010 to be used only with Exchange Server 2010. As of mid-August 2009, Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate (RC) is available for download directly from the Redmond-based company.
“Jetstress 2010 supports Windows 2003 and higher but Exchange 2010 supports W2K8 SP2 or W2K8 R2. Please use Windows Server 2008 SP2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with Jetstress 2010 when using E2010 ESE binaries. Only the 64bit version of Jetstress 2010 has been provided at this time. 32bit Jetstress 2010 will be available in the final release,” the Jetstress Development Team representative added.
Microsoft enumerated some of the new functionality changes introduced to Jetstress 2010:
“- Updated with Exchange 2010 Mailbox IO profile (32KB page size, AVG DB read size, avg DB write size, avg Log write size etc...); - Database duplication is now multi-cast; - Moved away from using Logical Disk performance counters to using MSExchange Database IO counters for IO measurement; - Log check summing is now multi-threaded; - Maximum number of Databases per test increased to 100 for E2010 ESE binaries; - Log replication IO is now simulated based on E2010 HA architecture - Background Database Maintenance (Checksum) is now simulated for E2010 test configurations; - Traces now contain date and time information for every entry; - More informative messages and warnings are provided prevent admins from using mismatched ese/eseperf and have further problems with performance counters errors when generating test reports. - Only the minimum necessary number of databases is created/replicated (as opposed to 5 databases per ESE instances); - ESE performance counters are now unregistered/registered back if it is detected that the current registered version is inconsistent with the version Jetstress will use. Restarting Jetstress is still required; - JetstressCmd and JetstressWin are now consistent in overriding the test type from Performance to Stress if the duration is longer than 6 hours; - System and Application events are now saved off per Jetstress run for time of run (along with html reports and perfmon log).”
Microsoft Exchange Server Jetstress 2010 Beta (64 bit) is available for download here.
Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate (RC) is available for download here.