While virtualization has advantages it has also disadvantages. One thing is that it introduces an additional layer of complexity into the game. It's my impression that in many areas virtualization gets introduced not because of technical reasons but because of political pressure.
In our case I wouldn't necessarily call it political pressure ... it's more like organizational pressure. We have fewer personnel resources than we used to, and have to run more systems with them!
For a high power, mission critical system like a mail cluster I'd stick with real iron as long as possible. That may sound old fashioned but is what I would do after everything I've seen. You will need the irons anyway, with or without virtualization. Did I miss something?
Maybe. Ideally you save irons by putting more than one VM on each. For the mail cluster that may or may not be an option. I think it might, because as I mentioned the current boxes are 5+ years old. So I'd think with brand new hardware we would get away with less than 100% on each box.
The main advantage that ESX would offer is in employing VMotion, VMMware HA and such. It adds a layer of complexity, but also a layer of security and convenience.
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