Sun Java Enterprise System 2005Q1 Technical Note

Sun Java™ Enterprise System Technical Note: Using NetApp Filers with Messaging Server Message Store

2005Q1

Part Number 819-3322-10

The Sun Java Enterprise System 2005Q1 Technical Note: Using NetApp Filers with Messaging Server Message Store describes how to configure NetApp storage appliances called filers with the Sun Java System Messaging Server 6 2005Q1 message store.

The component product affected by this technical note is:

This technical note contain the following sections:

Technical Note Revision History

Table 1  Revision History 

Date

Description of Changes

September 27

Corrected typo in release version of Messaging Server.

August 26, 2005

Modified To Configure Messaging Server to Work with NetApp Filers with note to change startup script.

August 8, 2005

Noted that the message store file system on the NetApp filer can only be mounted by a single Messaging Server host.

July 29, 2005

Initial release of this technical note.

Overview

The Messaging Server message store contains the user mailboxes for a particular Messaging Server instance. The size of the message store increases as the number of mailboxes, folders, and log files increase.

As you add more users to your system, your disk storage requirements increase. Depending on the number of users your server supports, the message store might require one physical disk or multiple physical disks. Messaging Server enables you an add more stores as needed.

One approach to adding more stores is by using storage appliances. NetApp storage appliances called filers integrate seamlessly with Messaging Server in the message delivery environment. Filers are reliable and provide excellent performance, scalability, and data availability. Filers provide high-performance access to a single copy of the data, which is shared across all types of UNIX� clients through NFS.

The high-level steps to configure the NetApp filer for Messaging Server are:

  1. Planning disk capacity
  2. Creating volumes
  3. Configuring Messaging Server to access the NetApp filer

in addition, you can use Snapshot™ to create periodic copies for data protection in the event of server failure or loss of data. You can use SnapRestore� to quickly restore mailboxes from the snapshots taken previously. You can dump the Snapshot copies to tape library using NDMP and store them offsite. For more streamlined disaster recovery (DR) purposes, you can send these Snapshot copies by using SnapMirror� to a NetApp NearStore� system located at a secondary site or data center.

Planning Disk Capacity and Creating Volumes

You need to create a volume (or volumes) on the filer before installing Messaging Server. To avoid disk I/O bottlenecks, configure the system with as many spindles as possible. Note that more spindles in a volume means longer RAID reconstruction time in case disk failure happens.

Note

The message store file system on the NetApp filer can only be mounted by one Messaging Server host. Sharing the same message store file system by more than one Messaging Server is not supported.

  To Create a Volume on a NetApp Data ONTAP 7G (Flexible Volume)

  To Create a Volume on a NetApp Data ONTAP 6.5 and Older (Traditional Volume)

  1. The following command creates a volume called eng with 10 spindles:

    2. vol create eng 10

  2. Export the volume(s) to Messaging Server through NFS.

    3. Add the following entry to the system /etc/exports file on the filer (the server is msg1).

    /vol/eng -root=msg1

  3. Run the Data ONTAP exportfs command.

    4. exportfs -a

  4. Mount the volume eng from server msg1.

    5. mount filer:/vol/eng /eng

  5. Use /eng as the path to message store.

Configuring Messaging Server to Work with NetApp Filers

After creating the volume, you need to configure Messaging Server so that it can function with the NetApp device.

  To Configure Messaging Server to Work with NetApp Filers

  1. Configure the temporary database directory on the Messaging Server host by setting the store.dbtmpdir parameter to a directory under /tmp.

    2. For example:

    configutil -o store.dbtmpdir -v /tmp/mboxlist

  2. Move the data/lock directory to a local file system, for example, /tmp.
  3. Create a symlink to the lock directory.

    4. For example:

    mv /var/opt/SUNWmsgsr/lock /tmp/lock

    ln -s /tmp/lock /var/opt/SUNWmsgsr/lock

    Note

    If you do this, modify the startup script to recreate the /tmp/lock directory (with proper permissions) upon bootup. Otherwise, it won’t exist and your sever will fail to start.

Configuring the Message Store Database Snapshot

After configuring Messaging Server to work with the NetApp filer, you need to specify a message store database snapshot interval and location.

A snapshot is a hot backup of the database and is used by stored to restore a broken database transparently in couple minutes. This is much quicker than using reconstruct, which relies on the redundant information stored in other areas.

  To Configure Message Store Database Snapshot Location and Interval

  1. Plan the snapshot location and interval based on the following:
    • Try to allocate five times as much space for the database and snapshots combined.
    • Reconfigure snapshots to run on a separate disk, and that it is tuned to the system’s needs.
    • Having a snapshot interval which is too small will result in a frequent burden to the system and a greater chance that a problem in the database will be copied as a snapshot. Having a snapshot interval too large can create a situation where the database will hold the state it had back when the snapshot was taken.
    • A snapshot interval of a day is recommended and a week or more of snapshots can be useful if a problem remains on the system for a number of days and you wish to go back to a period prior to point at which the problem existed.
  2. Use configutil parameters to configure the snapshot location and interval, as described here:

Further Reading

Refer to the following documentation for more information.

Known Issues and Limitations

See the Java Enterprise System Release Notes Collection at the following URL to find out about known problems:

How to Report Problems and Provide Feedback

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So that we can best assist you in resolving problems, please have the following information available when you contact support:

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To share your comments, go to http://docs.sun.com and click Send Comments. In the online form, provide the document title and part number. The part number is a seven-digit or nine-digit number that can be found on the title page of the book or at the top of the document. For example, the title of this book is Sun Java Enterprise System 2005Q1 Technical Note: Using NetApp Filers with Messaging Server Message Store, and the part number is 819-3322-10.

Additional Sun Resources

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