With the introduction of new Microsoft(R) Exchange Server 2007 database features, such as replication, you might be wondering if fully featured and highly available storage area network (SAN) infrastructures can now be replaced with simpler direct-attached storage (DAS) solutions. The decision is not straightforward, and in fact, has a number of dependencies, not all related to the price per GB of a disk unit.

In the last five years, Microsoft Exchange has become either a leading business- or mission-critical application for the majority of its deployments. The IT professional is tasked with architecting and deploying a Microsoft Exchange solution that can recover from a storage failure in a graceful way and is cost-effective from both acquisition and operation viewpoints.

In this white paper, several of the key decision criteria are reviewed, helping you to better understand the implications of selecting one approach over the other when planning and designing Exchange Server 2007. The goal is to create a solution for Exchange Server 2007 that meets budget constraints and, more importantly, business requirements and changes that may occur in the lifetime of the deployment.