Hi all,
I'm looking to spec a hardware solution to run a vmware workstation set-up. I've searched the forums and the recommendations that come back are older and maybe a little out of date.
I have another PC that will handle my everyday computing needs - this rig will be entirely for running an internal network. My hardware requirements are:
4 core or 2 x dual-core processors (or more...)
Minimum of 8gb ram (possibly 16gb)
100gb for Windows 7 64-bit and Workstation 7 application
500gb for VM storage
400gb for ESXi storage
1gb NIC
Essentially, I want to run a private LAN within Workstation for the following VMs:
1 x 2GB Win2K8R2-64 - DC, DNS, DHCP, Windows Update (using a 10.0.0.0/24 network)
1 x 2GB Win2k8R2-64 - vCenter 4.1
2 x 4GB ESXi 4.1 hosts, configured in vCenter as 2 datacenters for vMotion etc)
1 x 1GB OpenFiler appliance for iSCSI target for ESXi VMs (using 400gb partition)
1 x 1GB Vyatta Router as gateway (on 10.0.0.1) and firewall onto home LAN, bridging the private LAN and the physical NIC
Essentially I want something that has good IOPS so there is as little storage contention as possible. I can use the VMware Tools drivers in the VMs to do memory overcommitment, balooning and page sharing, so no problems there as far as memory is concerned. There will only be minimal VMs configured on the ESXi boxes at any one time.
What I'd like is people's thoughts on hardware to run this set-up. Currently it's running on an HP ProBook laptop, but I want to move it off to a dedicated machine.
Any thoughts on what I should be looking at to run all this?
Cheers.
Jer2224.
I'm looking to spec a hardware solution to run a vmware workstation set-up. I've searched the forums and the recommendations that come back are older and maybe a little out of date.
I have another PC that will handle my everyday computing needs - this rig will be entirely for running an internal network. My hardware requirements are:
4 core or 2 x dual-core processors (or more...)
Minimum of 8gb ram (possibly 16gb)
100gb for Windows 7 64-bit and Workstation 7 application
500gb for VM storage
400gb for ESXi storage
1gb NIC
Essentially, I want to run a private LAN within Workstation for the following VMs:
1 x 2GB Win2K8R2-64 - DC, DNS, DHCP, Windows Update (using a 10.0.0.0/24 network)
1 x 2GB Win2k8R2-64 - vCenter 4.1
2 x 4GB ESXi 4.1 hosts, configured in vCenter as 2 datacenters for vMotion etc)
1 x 1GB OpenFiler appliance for iSCSI target for ESXi VMs (using 400gb partition)
1 x 1GB Vyatta Router as gateway (on 10.0.0.1) and firewall onto home LAN, bridging the private LAN and the physical NIC
Essentially I want something that has good IOPS so there is as little storage contention as possible. I can use the VMware Tools drivers in the VMs to do memory overcommitment, balooning and page sharing, so no problems there as far as memory is concerned. There will only be minimal VMs configured on the ESXi boxes at any one time.
What I'd like is people's thoughts on hardware to run this set-up. Currently it's running on an HP ProBook laptop, but I want to move it off to a dedicated machine.
Any thoughts on what I should be looking at to run all this?
Cheers.
Jer2224.
