Microsoft Exchange Server 2013: Mailbox and High Availability

Using virtualization

Virtualized platforms have made enormous strides in capability, performance, and robustness over the past five years, yet Exchange has not always been desirable in this sphere. In the past, two major factors were at play that caused Exchange to maintain almost a hands-off approach when virtualized servers were contemplated. First, Microsoft did not have a competitive hypervisor, and VMware dominated the market. This is not a technical reason for not supporting virtualization, but it is certainly a good commercial reason for going slowly, especially because Microsoft knew that Hyper-V, its own hypervisor, was coming. Second, Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 exert heavy demands on storage subsystems, and users doubted that Exchange ...