Server Virtualisation Project

tbz_ck

tbz_ck

tbz_ck

Soldato
Joined
28 Nov 2002
Posts
2,844
Location
merseyside
Hi

We currently have 9 servers in our environment, all running Windows 2003, and most are poorly utilised. The equipment is also ancient and due for replacement anyway.

I want to consolidate our environment using a physical to virtual copy process and hosting the Windows 2003 servers on 2 or 3 Windows 2008 servers running the Hyper-V role.

Now the question. Everything we run is pretty much Microsoft based and I thought that an MS virtualisation solutiun would be better suited to our environment. Hyper-V though is brand new and not really in a v1.0 form. Although I'm convinced I could run with a v1.0 product without issue I'm wondering what you guys would do and whether you would rather use VMWare or another hypervisor for this kind of project.

I'll be wanting to virtualise Exchange 2003, F&P services, Intranet, WSUS and EPO (McAfee) and my 2 domain controllers. RSA SecurID and my ISA server 2004 will not be virtualised.

Thanks for your thoughts
 
You really want to be looking at VMWare ESX server and not VMWare server for a live environment, plus you need to really get someone in to size your servers up, figure out what can actually be virtualised and what can't!

Why would you not virtualise your RSA & IIS servers? :confused:
 
I've already done my research ;) ISA 2004 cannot be virtualised without problems, although ISA 2006 can. The RSA server already hosts 1 virtual server which is ticking over nicely. It was part of a pilot test process and it worked so well the Virtual Server 2005 product was used to host an engineering based database app.

In your opinion what are the benefits of ESX server compared to Hyper-V please?

I wasn't convinced it was worth the extra cost at the time I looked at it.

Regards

ck
 
ESX server is the base operating system, where as you are wanting to put VMWare onto Windows, you are already using memory you could divert to VM's. Plus you can throw more memory at VMWare ESX, for instance you can get a server with 16GB RAM, put four VM's on it with 4GB each no problems, unless you run Windows 64bit and run VMWare on that (I have heard of problems with doing this!) you are stuck with 4GB RAM for your VM's.

Plus, you can by Virtual Centre for VMWare ESX which will monitor and move the VM's between physical servers, but only with shared storage...

Until Microsoft's offering has been around for a while, I wouldn't put it into a live environment, VMWare ESX is proven.
 
I think what I'm going to do is buy one of my target servers and see if I can get trial versions of each of the two solutions. I can then see for myself which will work better in my environment before buying the other two servers and moving all of the VM's across.

If I set up a new vlan I can keep it pretty much separate too and test throughput, manageability, and test my intended backup strategy. I was intending on doing all of this anyway, but only with the Microsoft solution. I think I'll try it with both products and see which is the better fit.

Thanks

ck
 
You can't live migrate VM's with Hyper-V, meaning if you want to shutdown the host for whatever reason, you have to shutdown the VM's.

2 ESX boxes with shared storage (doesn't have to be a SAN as such) when bought as a Virtual Infrastructure 3 solution need never have to shutdown a VM again.

Its more expensive, but its better.
 
Stolly said:
2 ESX boxes with shared storage (doesn't have to be a SAN as such) when bought as a Virtual Infrastructure 3 solution need never have to shutdown a VM again.
Click to expand...

VMotion is so cool. No matter how many times i was told / read about it, i was still amazed when i actually did it myself.
 
Baz said:
Why would you not virtualise your RSA:confused:
Click to expand...

The last time I checked with our RSA reseller, which admittedly was a couple of months back, the Authentication Manager wasn't supported by RSA in a virtualised environment. That's not to say it wouldn't work, but before offering support we would have had to replicate any problems we were having on physical hardware before they would open a ticket with us. That wasn't a scenario we really wanted to entertain, so for our second server we're just lobbing another physical box in.
 
Stolly said:
You can't live migrate VM's with Hyper-V, meaning if you want to shutdown the host for whatever reason, you have to shutdown the VM's.

2 ESX boxes with shared storage (doesn't have to be a SAN as such) when bought as a Virtual Infrastructure 3 solution need never have to shutdown a VM again.

Its more expensive, but its better.
Click to expand...

Mmmm interesting. Its going to be determined by what budget I can eek out of our parent company. Out of interest what do you think it would cost to host up to 8 servers (and a completely separate mirrored environment for testing so 16 in all) on VI3 with shared storage. I'm prepared to purchase up to 3 servers at around £6k each.

Cheers

CK
 
Depends entirely on their peaks for processor/memory/iops and network traffic... really couldn't say.

Looking at your list, only Exchange will be troublesome... how many users are in the environment?
 
Its a SME so only around 70 mailboxes, and a database around 16Gb (public and private) for Exchange.

Network was only just upgraded to full Gigabit to the desktop including vlan separation of voice and data traffic (we have a full VoIP solution I put in too)
 
Hyper V is still in Beta or is it RC now? and will move VMs if you have 2 or more 2008 Enterprise Servers in a Cluster with a SAN giving shared storage but compared to VMWare's ESX and VMotion it just isn't worth the effort. There is an article on how to set this up on MS' Website.

ESX is simply worth the money. Go see a demo of VMothion and you will be converted.
 
tbz_ck said:
Mmmm interesting. Its going to be determined by what budget I can eek out of our parent company. Out of interest what do you think it would cost to host up to 8 servers (and a completely separate mirrored environment for testing so 16 in all) on VI3 with shared storage. I'm prepared to purchase up to 3 servers at around £6k each.

Cheers

CK
Click to expand...

3 x DELL PE R805 2xQUAD CORE OPTERON 2356 (2.3GHz, 2MB, 95W) Virtulaization Specific servers with 16GB RAM and 3 Year 4 Hour Critical Warranty = £8547

1 x Dell EqualLogic PS5000E 8TB SAN with 3 Year 4 Hour Critical Warranty = £24,600

Hope your parent compnay has some cash!

Yes you can do it cheaper...
 
Ouch that SAN is expensive. They will never agree to that! What about iScsi? I saw an MS demo of VM clustering using iSCSI and 2 host servers.

To be honest, a hot swap of a running VM without a shutdown isn't that important in our environment. We don't have anything running that couldn't be missed for short time and I'm more than happy to inconvenience users if absolutely necessary ;)

If that's the main benefit of ESX and Vmotion on a storage area network then its not really necessary. The ability to move VM's between host servers IS necessary, but not on the fly.

I'm also keen on Windows 2008 as a host given that it'll provide me additional benefits within our domain if I make it a DC (especially when it comes to managing our vista clients).

Oh, and I'm an HP server kinda guy. Wouldn't touch Dell with someone else's !!
 
tbz_ck said:
Ouch that SAN is expensive. They will never agree to that! What about iScsi? I saw an MS demo of VM clustering using iSCSI and 2 host servers.

To be honest, a hot swap of a running VM without a shutdown isn't that important in our environment. We don't have anything running that couldn't be missed for short time and I'm more than happy to inconvenience users if absolutely necessary ;)

If that's the main benefit of ESX and Vmotion on a storage area network then its not really necessary. The ability to move VM's between host servers IS necessary, but not on the fly.

I'm also keen on Windows 2008 as a host given that it'll provide me additional benefits within our domain if I make it a DC (especially when it comes to managing our vista clients).

Oh, and I'm an HP server kinda guy. Wouldn't touch Dell with someone else's !!
Click to expand...

SANs are expensive, our latest iSCSI platform is 80TB using 10Gbit ethernet and cost around £100k. iSCSI isn't really a hell of a lot cheaper any more, any shared storage is expensive in the end.

I'm sure you can do better than that price, I've seen starter HP EVA systems from around £12k which should do you...
 
bigredshark said:
I'm sure you can do better than that price, I've seen starter HP EVA systems from around £12k which should do you...
Click to expand...

Are we comparing Apples with Oranges? Is the HP in the same league as the EqualLogic (or the equivalent NetApp) with the appropriate intelligent features?

Skimping on a SAN doesn't make much sense unless the data you are putting there really isn't that important...
 
tbz_ck said:
Ouch that SAN is expensive. They will never agree to that! What about iScsi? I saw an MS demo of VM clustering using iSCSI and 2 host servers.

To be honest, a hot swap of a running VM without a shutdown isn't that important in our environment. We don't have anything running that couldn't be missed for short time and I'm more than happy to inconvenience users if absolutely necessary ;)

If that's the main benefit of ESX and Vmotion on a storage area network then its not really necessary. The ability to move VM's between host servers IS necessary, but not on the fly.

I'm also keen on Windows 2008 as a host given that it'll provide me additional benefits within our domain if I make it a DC (especially when it comes to managing our vista clients).

Oh, and I'm an HP server kinda guy. Wouldn't touch Dell with someone else's !!
Click to expand...

There is a reason that SAN is expensive, it is an intelligent SAN. Go to Dells website or have a look at NetApp's website. Oh and it is an iSCSI SAN. iSCSI != Cheap, well you can do it on the cheap with OpenFiler and some cheap SATA drives. OK for demoing bad for production environments.

ESX is far better than Hyper-V on 2008. Like I said it Hyper-V is only just out of Beta. ESX has other benfits than just VMotion. It is a bare metal hypervisor for starters. Just get that and run 2008 on top of it.

My experience with 2008 does indeed indicate some promise but it has also raised some issues as well.

I am a Dell man. I used to swear by HP for Servers but switched to Dell as I get much better ROI and they are cheaper than HP too. Take off your HP blinkers and use the best tool for the job (be it HP, Dell, and so on!) :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom