Capacity Planner Updated for Exchange 2007

The Capacity Planner 2007 performance analysis tool, now available as a release candidate, has been updated to support Exchange Server 2007, including SP1. Capacity Planner is a free Windows utility that allows IT workers to model and simulate real-world workloads in Exchange installations, and it can help IT workers optimize computer and network resources and prevent performance bottlenecks. However, it does not yet support modeling of all Exchange features—for example, administrators cannot model Exchange’s unified messaging feature. Support for modeling Operations Manager, which was included in the previous release, will be added soon.

Modeling for Most Exchange 2007 Features

Capacity Planner helps infrastructure designers plan the necessary hardware and software for deploying Exchange across an enterprise, especially for large replicated and clustered systems, for which design is a complex task. The tool allows designers to create and edit models of their planned installations by entering characteristics of servers, network connections, and Outlook client installations. A model consists of an installation topology (e.g., numbers and locations of servers and e-mail users, network connections), hardware details (e.g., types and sizes of servers, network speed and latency) and e-mail usage patterns (e.g., number of messages per day, average size of messages). The simulation function then analyzes the model and evaluates how the system would perform. It also identifies areas where the topology or hardware needs to be adjusted; for example, where servers are over- or underutilized or where network connections are too slow.