Relative performance considerations

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Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) is deployed in two typical OS with Exchange configurations: Windows Server 2003 with Exchange Server 2007 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Exchange Server 2010. In addition to these typical deployments, FPE may also be installed on two typical virtualized environments: VMWare and Hyper-V. The following graph shows some relative performance comparison numbers for a selection of the typical deployments with all other environment variables being consistent.

Relative Edge Performance Data

Note the following impact factors for relative Edge server performance data:

  • A Windows Server 2003 with Exchange Server 2007 deployment operates with slightly less CPU than a Windows Server 2008 R2 with Exchange Server 2010 deployment.

  • A Hyper-V deployment with Windows Server 2003 and Exchange Server 2007 deviates from a physical computer installation by an additional 15% CPU utilization plus some linear amount of CPU utilization based on the message rate.

  • A Hyper-V deployment with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 deviates from a physical computer installation by an additional 10% CPU utilization that is reduced linearly based on the message rate, and slowly converges closer to the physical computer performance characteristics over a period of time.

  • A VMWare deployment with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 deviates from the physical computer deployment by a constant additional 20% CPU utilization.

  • The Hyper-V deployment with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 has increasingly better performance than the same VMWare installation as the message rate increases.