Why do you need 16 individual IP addresses?
Who are you trying to fool? IPs would be assigned in a block, so anyone reading a log file would suss it in no time.
Feel free to ask any questions that don't compromise the details of my business model.
16 Windows Machines on a Box
- Thread starter Mayoor
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Feel free to ask any questions that don't compromise the details of my business model.
How are the clients connecting to the host ? - At the moment we have 3 laptops around the home and we are using each of them to connect to 3 static ips, each laptop has team viewer built into it and allows anyone with a teamviewer client to log into it and remotely control it.
And why hell do you need 16 external IPs ? - Each connection to our clients website has to be done on a separate ip address, don't ask me why, but this is what they have specified. They have said that if we want to run 16 different accounts with them we will need 16 different ip addresses.
No I do mean Box. I need effectively 16 PC's all accessing a business broadband service which provides 16 different ips.
Lol, nah you're alright.
You'll also need to read this if you want the VMs to be Windows clients:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/briefs/win8-virtual.aspx
Otherwise on a dual-socket box you can buy one license of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition and install it as many times as you like. Don't forget RDS CALs.
But to echo what's been said already, if people are looking out for multiple connections from the same place then they will notice you quickly. If you were less vague about what you're doing then you'll get a better answer.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/briefs/win8-virtual.aspx
Otherwise on a dual-socket box you can buy one license of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter edition and install it as many times as you like. Don't forget RDS CALs.
But to echo what's been said already, if people are looking out for multiple connections from the same place then they will notice you quickly. If you were less vague about what you're doing then you'll get a better answer.
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Associate
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Save your money, Stick some VMS on each laptop.. should get 2-4 VM per Laptop. If they are unable to host VM that well just buy a few i5 16GB ram desktops
I thought from fist post more users was involved.
Soldato
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You could use a single machine with 16 sub interfaces, then run squid on there and maybe some static routes. Then you just need to change the proxy config in your browser to change IP.
i7, 32GB RAM, 512GB SSD for 16x Linux Mint configured with 1.5GB RAM each? Sounds feasible given the description (one user/one VM accessed at a time). If they do nothing but access the internet then 25GB a VM for disk space is plenty. Just need to get some kit you know works on w/e hypervisor you're going with, personally i like ESXi.
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Soldato
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Will these 16 windows machines be doing anything while you are not logged on ? If not, then you can cut the specs down hugely. Set up 16 vm's and just spin them up and down as needed.
If its just browsing, do you need windows at all ? A Linux with smaller footprint would do it cheaper too.
If its just browsing, do you need windows at all ? A Linux with smaller footprint would do it cheaper too.
As above I'd consider whether you have to have all 16 VM's running at once or whether you can spin them up when required. Can you use a Linux distro instead as you could cut down on hardware requirements.
Or do you really need 16 full machines at all? Could you still browse from your laptop but assign those IP's as required to your laptops (it would be worth discussing this with your broadband provider). e.g. I assume the external IP ould be routed to an internal IP in some way - well what happens if you simply change the IP of your laptop? Will it then be assigned a different external IP? If that works then you'd only need one spare machine for your US partner to remotely connect to in the UK.
But assuming all you really want is some big machines then...
As for hardware I'd suggest that if this is for a business then you should consider two machines. If your single machine fails then your business is dead in the water. So I'd consider two machines. There is no point in having a passive/active setup so I'd go active/active as follows:
Dedicated hardware router/firewall. Consider a spare in case of failure.
2 x X79 or X99 6 core systems with 32gb or 64gb (x79 means you can save on cost)
UPS
Consider a dedicated NAS with a backup solution.
Is there sufficient business value in considering a second boradcand connection for resiliance?
Regularly test failure scenarios including setting up current firewall rules on any spare hardware, rebuilding a server etc.
Or do you really need 16 full machines at all? Could you still browse from your laptop but assign those IP's as required to your laptops (it would be worth discussing this with your broadband provider). e.g. I assume the external IP ould be routed to an internal IP in some way - well what happens if you simply change the IP of your laptop? Will it then be assigned a different external IP? If that works then you'd only need one spare machine for your US partner to remotely connect to in the UK.
But assuming all you really want is some big machines then...
As for hardware I'd suggest that if this is for a business then you should consider two machines. If your single machine fails then your business is dead in the water. So I'd consider two machines. There is no point in having a passive/active setup so I'd go active/active as follows:
Dedicated hardware router/firewall. Consider a spare in case of failure.
2 x X79 or X99 6 core systems with 32gb or 64gb (x79 means you can save on cost)
UPS
Consider a dedicated NAS with a backup solution.
Is there sufficient business value in considering a second boradcand connection for resiliance?
Regularly test failure scenarios including setting up current firewall rules on any spare hardware, rebuilding a server etc.
1. The only thing that will be happening whilst they are not being accessed by a user is the chrome browser will need to remain active and logged into the site. However it wont be loading anything or using any bandwidth.
2. Yeah there is also a small tool we need to run every now and again which only has support for windows. If there is a way of running windows tools on linux id be happy to do this. some kind of emulator or something.
Yeah all the instances need to act like separate machines. I am open to the linux idea however, would need to get a small windows tool running which we use to run on linux, from asking around I hear this is possible by using something called WINE. So a linux solution is more than feasible.
Soldato
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Find a reseller that will rent you 16 Windows VPS' (Or however many customers you actually have). Enterprise licensing is required for all the good features of RDS so you'll be better off doing it like this until you're big enough (250+ nodes), not to mention access to a much larger, resilient internet connection and third party infrastructure support. Ideally you'd have a load balancing portal in front of your Windows instances to maximise VPS utilisation.
This turns a large Capex into a small marginal Opex which means you can manage your cashflow more easily as well as figure out the technical challenges you will have before you get larger. If the proposed business model isn't feasible you won't have dumped £30k+ into the venture.
This turns a large Capex into a small marginal Opex which means you can manage your cashflow more easily as well as figure out the technical challenges you will have before you get larger. If the proposed business model isn't feasible you won't have dumped £30k+ into the venture.
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As mentioned above the ip addresses I have to use need to be residential ips.
Soldato
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Redirect all non-management traffic (eg, everything but the ports you need to access the VPS') back through your residential connection with NAT over IPSEC VPNs. The NAT will obfuscate your 'internal' datacentre IP addresses from the end network and make it look like you're using the residential connection. The only outlay will be a decent router or firewall which will support this kind of configuration. I think this will scale up nicely as you can add more IP addresses to the NAT pool.
Any decent Junior / Midlevel network engineer will be able to set this up for you.
Edit: Another option is to get a proxy server on your residential connection and bounce all of the traffic off that. It should be a tad more robust and give you more control.
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Interesting. Are you able to recommend a VPS reseller that might do this?
This is something that occurred to me, something like pfsense (can also be virtual)
Soldato
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I have no idea sorry. Look for 'Windows 7 VPS' or 'Hosted Desktop' services and shop around. It'll work out a lot cheaper than buying a whole bundle of expensive servers and licensing - you can always do that if things take off. Make sure they'll let you install an OpenSSL / Cisco Anyconnect / VPN client of your choice and fiddle with the traffic as described.Mayoor said:
If he has to pipe the traffic back to his home connection anyway then he'll need a piece of hardware either way, PFsense could do it easily though. It's mostly about keeping capex low for now.Uhtred said: