Dear Folks, I would like to ask for your recommendations that for 1200 Users Mailbox envrionment, where currently we are running single Exchange 2007 Server, we are planning to upgarde it to Exchagne 2010 over Hyper-v (Windows Server 2008 R2), where each Hyper-V node will be having one Mailbox and one HUB/CAS and therefore I would like to ask for your kind suggestion: - Is it supported to have Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server as Hyper-V VMs with Pass-through Disks for Database and Logs? - From the Performance and Availability stand point, do you suggest to virutalize Exchange 2010 on Hyper-V? - What are the major differences b/w Exchange 2010 Implementation over Hardware box and VM? - Can we get the same performance on Exchange 2010 as VM, which we suppose to get from a Physical box of Exchange? Thank you, Zahir Hussain ShahZahir Hussain Shah Infrastructure Practice Consultant My blog: http://zahirshahblog.com

We have virtualised out 2010 envorinment however only ~500 users. According to the MS guidelines you can use everything apart from the Unified Communications. From my last read it was either a pass-thru or a fixed disk, not alowed to use dynamic or differencing discs. The availability is enhanced if you have a failover cluster, a hardware or network failure will not result in a lengthy downtime whilst you resolve the issue. The differences of the HW / Virtual is the ability for the failover / reduction of physical hardware etc... I have had no performance issues in my virtual environment with Exchange 2010 in comparison to our previous physical exchange 2003 server. Hope that helps, Simon RobertsMany thanks, Simon Roberts

Here is a good article: http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2010/migration-deployment/running-exchange-2010-on-hyper-v-r2.html This article explain the hardware and virtualisation requirements: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719.aspx Regards Ron