Server good enough?

[PU7E]

Hi,

Not really ventured into the server world before and after looking around for what I want in my budget iv decided on the following equipment:

Server
Sun Microsystems V40z
5x74tb
4xOpteron 875 @ 2.2
8gb PC2700 (2x1gb per cpu)

Software
Xen or EXSi (Undecided)
SUSE Enterprise 64bit
4xGentoo (E17) 64bit Client's

Will this machine be upto the job?

Regards
Pure

 

[slylittlefox]

Will this machine be upto the job?

Regards
Pure

That's the critical bit you've missed out - what job will it (or rather the VMs) be doing?

 

[daz]

Personally I would be looking at a Dell R710. I know you've gone for CPU power, but two high-end Nehalem CPUs are probably going to approach those AMDs in a lot of benchmarks, depending on how well threaded/parallelised the application you're running is. What's typically more important is disk I/O - I see you're going for 5 disks - you should really go for 6+ in RAID 10. (SAS of course )

 

[slylittlefox]

Personally I would be looking at a Dell R710. I know you've gone for CPU power, but two high-end Nehalem CPUs are probably going to approach those AMDs in a lot of benchmarks, depending on how well threaded/parallelised the application you're running is. What's typically more important is disk I/O - I see you're going for 5 disks - you should really go for 6+ in RAID 10. (SAS of course )

We've recently taken delivery of three R710s, can vouch for them being nice systems. They run ESX with 3-4 VMs (Server 2008) comfortably.

 

[PU7E]

That's the critical bit you've missed out - what job will it (or rather the VMs) be doing?

Compiling (Avg 300mb+ Data file's per client on a 4 hour rotation (speed depending))

Personally I would be looking at a Dell R710. I know you've gone for CPU power, but two high-end Nehalem CPUs are probably going to approach those AMDs in a lot of benchmarks, depending on how well threaded/parallelised the application you're running is. What's typically more important is disk I/O - I see you're going for 5 disks - you should really go for 6+ in RAID 10. (SAS of course )

I was leaning towards the sun's for there embedded ssh. I also have to factor in price I can pick up a V40z for around the £400 mark where im looking at around 2k for a R710. As for the HDD's I have been looking at a PCI-X (133) RAID 5 card and getting another drive for a Hot spare for an extra £60 (Approx).

Also does the prolient, IBM, Dell series have any embedded managment system's similar to the Sun's SSH ?

Regards
Pure

 

[slylittlefox]

Experementing.

In that case a cheapo Dell or HP at £200 would do. Hate to use the 'catch all', but have a look at the ML115

I was leaning towards the sun's for there embedded ssh.

I'm unfamiliar with this - what does it allow you to do? Manage/monitor the server via a limited CLI?

I also have to factor in price I can pick up a V40z for around the £400 mark where im looking at around 2k for a R710

If you call Dell you'll be able to get a better price than £2k - we got them for £800 (with vastly improved specs on the base model) when buying just three of them.

Will this system suit my need's?

Presuming you're talking about the Sun, almost definitely yes if all you're doing is 'experimenting'.

Also does the prolient, IBM, Dell series have any embedded managment system's similar to the Sun's SSH ?

Yep, they all do. Dell has DRAC, think HP's is LightsOut (though somebody will probably correct me on that), and I'm unsure of IBMs. DRACs and LO cost extra though (looking at maybe £100 - hard to say without knowing what discounts you could potentially be in line for).

HTH.

 

[PU7E]

In that case a cheapo Dell or HP at £200 would do. Hate to use the 'catch all', but have a look at the ML115

I would rather get a rusty spoon and use it to remove my eyes then buy a ML115

I'm unfamiliar with this - what does it allow you to do? Manage/monitor the server via a limited CLI?

It's pretty much a Remote Secure SHell.

If you call Dell you'll be able to get a better price than £2k - we got them for £800 (with vastly improved specs on the base model) when buying just three of them.

Might be worth a look will do some research on it tomorrow.

Yep, they all do. Dell has DRAC, think HP's is LightsOut (though somebody will probably correct me on that), and I'm unsure of IBMs. DRACs and LO cost extra though (looking at maybe £100 - hard to say without knowing what discounts you could potentially be in line for).

LO doesn't seem to bad untill I look at the costs and the requirement for a Java client, Does LO use VNC as DRAC does?

DRAC again it requires Java client so I will need to look into both of them further.

Regards
Pure

 

[slylittlefox]

I would rather get a rusty spoon and use it to remove my eyes then buy a ML115

Why? What's wrong with them? Perfectly suited for having a play with things. You snob!

It's pretty much a Remote Secure SHell.

I think the phrase is 'lawl' I'm well aware of what SSH is - I was enquring as to what you could actually do once you were in this 'Secure SHell'

LO doesn't seem to bad untill I look at the costs and the requirement for a Java client, Does LO use VNC as DRAC does?

DRAC again it requires Java client so I will need to look into both of them further.

DRAC only implements the VNC protocol, AFAIK you can't actually login to DRAC via a VNC client. DRAC can use an ActiveX plug-in or Java (the 2900s we have use an ActiveX plug-in, think the R710s use Java) - it's a pretty well implemented bit of kit

 

[PU7E]

Why? What's wrong with them? Perfectly suited for having a play with things. You snob!

Im no snob I just like REAL hardware not kids toy's

I think the phrase is 'lawl' I'm well aware of what SSH is - I was enquring as to what you could actually do once you were in this 'Secure SHell'

I have to have some fun

It pretty much allows you to do anything you want. can't beat the CL it make's me feel all nostalgic well that and im a link's/irssi addict

DRAC only implements the VNC protocol, AFAIK you can't actually login to DRAC via a VNC client. DRAC can use an ActiveX plug-in or Java (the 2900s we have use an ActiveX plug-in, think the R710s use Java) - it's a pretty well implemented bit of kit

Sound's ok what if I want to SSH off the CL and don't have access to a WM?

Regards
Pure

 

[sportq]

Hi,

Not really ventured into the server world before and after looking around for what I want in my budget iv decided on the following equipment:

Server
Sun Microsystems V40z
5x74tb
4xOpteron 875 @ 2.2
8gb PC2700 (2x1gb per cpu)

Software
Xen or EXSi (Undecided)
SUSE Enterprise 64bit
4xGentoo (E17) 64bit Client's

Will this machine be upto the job?

Regards
Pure

Getting back to the posters question. I've run ESX and ESXi on the v20z, effectively the 2 socket little brother of the V40z and it runs great, although it's not on the VMware HCL (the v40z is). I've also run w2003 and various Linux distros on it.

If anything, I'd trade some of the CPU horsepower of this configuration for memory. With 8Gb of RAM you'll never have enough memory for VM's to keep those 8 cores busy. With some more cheap 1Gb DIMMS you can max it out to 16Gb (4 DIMMS per socket).

-Pete

 

[slylittlefox]

Im no snob I just like REAL hardware not kids toy's

Riiiiiiight - either you're joking or it sounds like you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Good luck with the purchase.

 

[iaind]

Riiiiiiight - either you're joking or it sounds like you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Good luck with the purchase.

The ML115 isnt really a server - it's a desktop machine with a low end server CPU, so can understand why they've been referred to as kids toys.

Fine if you want a "server" in your loft at home, if you're doing anything important for a real company, I wouldnt consider them

 

[slylittlefox]

The ML115 isnt really a server - it's a desktop machine with a low end server CPU, so can understand why they've been referred to as kids toys.

Fine if you want a "server" in your loft at home, if you're doing anything important for a real company, I wouldnt consider them

Just because it's in a desktop form factor doesn't make it a 'kids toy'. So any server that's in pedestal form is worthless in a business environment?

It has an Opteron CPU, takes ECC RAM, has Gigabit LAN and onboard RAID. What would make it a 'proper' server in your eyes? Dual PSUs? Off-chip VRMs? Dual CPUs? A 5U rackmount chassis?

I think you're both being rather silly. I'm not saying that it should be a production VM server, but if all he's doing is 'experimenting' then the ML115 will cope admirably. Similarily, I would have no qualms about putting an ML115 into a small business or branch office to act as a siteserver (routing, backups etc).

 

[mikeh501]

Just because it's in a desktop form factor doesn't make it a 'kids toy'. So any server that's in pedestal form is worthless in a business environment?

It has an Opteron CPU, takes ECC RAM, has Gigabit LAN and onboard RAID. What would make it a 'proper' server in your eyes? Dual PSUs? Off-chip VRMs? Dual CPUs? A 5U rackmount chassis?

I think you're both being rather silly. I'm not saying that it should be a production VM server, but if all he's doing is 'experimenting' then the ML115 will cope admirably. Similarily, I would have no qualms about putting an ML115 into a small business or branch office to act as a siteserver (routing, backups etc).

The ML115 is a great little box for experimenting with ESXi. I wouldnt however touch it with a very large barge pole in any kind of corporate production capacity, and yes I own one for the purposes of the former at home. Its basically a desktop machine. Theres no way i'd commit my companies data and productivity of my staff to a £200 server, just wouldnt do it.

To answer the OP's question. If you want to play then get pretty much anything you like on the VMWare HCL including the ML115 as its cheap and works with ESXi.

If you want something your going to put into production then your going to need to do a little more research about your applications behaviour, specificlaly around IO and memory needs. Those are two biggest factors I believe in sizing an ESXi host. As a general rule, get plenty of spindles to give you more IOPS (entirely dependent upon load but dont go less than 100IOPS per VM, which is about 1.5-2 SATA disks or .7ish SAS) and load up on memory, as much as you can get in there. At least 16gb, but better with 32gb.

 

[bigredshark]

It has an Opteron CPU, takes ECC RAM, has Gigabit LAN and onboard RAID. What would make it a 'proper' server in your eyes? Dual PSUs? Off-chip VRMs? Dual CPUs? A 5U rackmount chassis?

Well any form of resilience would be a starting point, proper integrated lights out management as well. It's a fancy desktop, anything at that price will be. I've exactly the same complaint about the Dell R200 and similar boxes.

If that's all you can afford or it suits you for a box to stick in the corner and play with then fine but don't confuse it for something you'd run production workloads on given the choice...