There are a couple of Exchange virtualization whitepapers available through the InformationWeek website:
- Microsoft Exchange 2010 on VMware
Many VMware customers running Exchange 2003, 2007, and 2010 are already taking advantage of the benefits offered by virtualization to improve their organization’s messaging capabilities and effectiveness.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 includes a number of enhancements in areas such as availability, architecture, remote access, operational efficiency, and improved end-user experience.
For organizations not already using vSphere, the upgrade cycle from previous versions of Exchange to Exchange 2010 presents an ideal opportunity to begin leveraging the power and flexibility of virtual machine technology.
This guide provides use cases and explains the primary technical benefits that can be achieved by deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere. - Virtualizing Tier 1 Applications: A Critical Step on the Journey Toward the Private Cloud
Virtualization has evolved rapidly since it first began to be used on x86 servers in 2003, mainly for test and development. By 2007, the second generation, Virtualization 2.0, was under way, and the focus was consolidating production applications. Today, we are transitioning to the third era of virtualization deployment (3.0), which is taking on cloudlike attributes for highly virtualized and automatically managed internal deployments.
The transition to adopting cloud-like deployments shifts the focus from early capex savings drivers to transforming IT into a service and delivering operational efficiencies. Crucial to the success of this transition to the cloud computing deployment model is the inclusion of tier 1 applications, the most complex and often business critical in nature to an enterprise.
This IDC white paper includes two case studies and a sidebar highlighting the experiences of three enterprises with virtualizing their tier 1 applications, which include Oracle and Microsoft SQL databases and a Microsoft Exchange email system.