Server Virtualisation.

[BoomAM]

Hi.
What do the admins amongst you think of server virtualisation?

Im currently drawing up a 5year plan for our network and server virtualisation interests me.

At the moment we have 3 servers, one network has a server thats the DC, has AD, DNS, DHCP & file servers, and a second server that has our ISA proxy, and SQL for SurfControl. A second network has a server that does the DC, AD, DNS, DHCP, File server & SQL for Sims.

So the idea would be to virtualise the 3 'old' servers, but still keep them to run backups of the VMs on in an emergency.

Now theres many pro's and cons to server virtualisation, but im wondering what all of your viewpoints are on it, from an administrators point of view.

I have my viewpoint on it, im just wondering what you think?

Thanks in advance all. .

 

[oldbag]

One major advantage is you'd save lots of space in your server room.

For virtualisation you'd need superfast processors and lots of RAM. I don't know what happens when/if VMWare corrupts and how easy it is to fix.

 

[teaboy5]

To be honest i dont think you have enough servers to warrant running virtual servers. You would need to buy a new server to cope with this and since your keeping the old ones you not saving any space either.

 

[#Chri5#]

One major advantage is you'd save lots of space in your server room.

For virtualisation you'd need superfast processors and lots of RAM. I don't know what happens when/if VMWare corrupts and how easy it is to fix.

Save lots of space? Two servers is lots?

I'm with Teaboy - virtualisation comes into it's own when you've gots lots of iron (servers running into 100s or more).

 

[Vtec9k]

Yea, not so usefull with only 3 servers really.

It's handy for siloing specific apps onto their own server for support or compatibilty reasons. For test servers or if you quickly require a specific stand alone server for some reason. Backups are a mixed bag, snapshots and full image backups = great. Single point of falure = bad.

 

[BoomAM]

Some good points.
We're gonna be buying new servers anyway, as a new Sims.net release soon needs a significantely more capible server.
For the same price as 3 servers, we could get one server.
For example, i did a test spec, and for the same price as 3 that'd do the job (cheaper in fact), we could get a dual quad core system, 8gb memory and 2Tb of RAID5'ed storage. More than capable to run 3 servers on?
Backup/corruption wise, the plan would be to backup the VMs once a week to a NAS on our network. Making main backups simple.
Then either having the data drives backup seperately to tapes from within the host OS, or, prehaps, having the data stored on our NAS's.

Its strange, as you have all put across some valid points, but the ntsysadmin gang also put across some good points, but with the opposite of what you guys say..

 

[LizardKing]

Backups are a mixed bag, snapshots and full image backups = great. Single point of falure = bad.

Thats when clustering comes into play, but as already mentioned, its hardly worth it with 3 servers.
Edit, just noticed the post above, if your replacing it with one then yes virtual servers make sense, just hope you dont have to do a reset as it has no redundancy.

Its worth noting though that using virtual servers makes it a lot easy for future upgrades, with the potential to replace the entire server with minimal downtime, and great ease.

 

[#Chri5#]

How much resilience have spec'd into your super-dooper box? What happens if you have a major hardware failure on it? You could power up one of your old boxes but do any of them have the horsepower to cope with the new version of your Sims software?

 

[BoomAM]

How much resilience have spec'd into your super-dooper box? What happens if you have a major hardware failure on it? You could power up one of your old boxes but do any of them have the horsepower to cope with the new version of your Sims software?

The HDDs would be raid5'd over about 8 300Gb SAS disks, and the PSU would obviously be redundant ones running off a high capacity UPS.
The Sims.net issue is an issue, but a small one, they could theoretically mange without Sims.net, or restricted to under 5 users, until the main server could be repaired.

The ease of upgrade/expansion/backup is a big draw for me in regards to virtual servers. There is the 'all the eggs in one basket' problem, but i think that could be overcome with a good backup/failure routine.
Such as, as said, keeping the 'old' servers ready with the last working VMs of each server on each.

 

[teaboy5]

I still think its not worth it when you only have 3 servers. We have 25 in work and dont even seen a reason why we need to go virtual tbh.


If it were me i would buy 3 new machines fit for the job and use the 3 old ones for backup's in case the new ones go down.

 

[Burnsy2023]

Ahh, a school techy.

Vitualisation give plenty of benifits on a large spec system, esecially when you enter a disaster recover position. It's easy to recover VMs from the VHD or what ever Vitual hdd image you're using.

One thing to consider though, if you're running VMs make sure the server has a TCP/IP offload engine to ssave on CPU cycles, it really does make a difference, especially when you have three servers going for 2/3 NICs.

Vitualisation is a big thing at the mo, but with hardware coming down in price is the cost benifit really worth it?

O/T: BTW, how many clients do you manage?

Burnsy

 

[teaboy5]

Ahh, a school techy.

Vitualisation give plenty of benifits on a large spec system, esecially when you enter a disaster recover position. It's easy to recover VMs from the VHD or what ever Vitual hdd image you're using.

One thing to consider though, if you're running VMs make sure the server has a TCP/IP offload engine to ssave on CPU cycles, it really does make a difference, especially when you have three servers going for 2/3 NICs.

Vitualisation is a big thing at the mo, but with hardware coming down in price is the cost benifit really worth it?

O/T: BTW, how many clients do you manage?



Burnsy

You really think its worth it for 3 servers? I can see where your coming from on the cost side of things. But if he is given the budget would he not be best just to get 3 servers instead

 

[BoomAM]

Ahh, a school techy.

Vitualisation give plenty of benifits on a large spec system, esecially when you enter a disaster recover position. It's easy to recover VMs from the VHD or what ever Vitual hdd image you're using.

One thing to consider though, if you're running VMs make sure the server has a TCP/IP offload engine to ssave on CPU cycles, it really does make a difference, especially when you have three servers going for 2/3 NICs.

Vitualisation is a big thing at the mo, but with hardware coming down in price is the cost benifit really worth it?

O/T: BTW, how many clients do you manage?

Burnsy

Over the two networks, about 750.
The test spec i did, did include an offload engine.
As you've mentioned, its the recovery options thats the big plus for me.
At the moment i'd have to install 2003, then symanbtec backupexec, then spend hours if not days reconstructing the data.
With a VM based system its as simple as one file. Dont have to worry about permissions, boot records, hardware type, ect;

Prehaps one mega server is overkill for 3 servers. But we wont allways have 3 servers. With the correct choice in parts now, giving us upgrade options later, we could add more servers as/when needed.

Then theres the issue on deciding the specifics of the spec. Do i go for one all singing all dancing server with lots of cores, lots of memory and terabytes of storage. Or do i have the storage on an entirely different system?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Over the two networks, about 750.

750 workstations and only three servers? Really?

Then theres the issue on deciding the specifics of the spec. Do i go for one all singing all dancing server with lots of cores, lots of memory and terabytes of storage. Or do i have the storage on an entirely different system?

Where the storage is kept depends entriely on your backup solution and network avaliability. Do you want a storage server /SAN? Although personally I'd keep it in the same server and have some LTO3 tape drives to back it up.

Burnsy

 

[TheKnat]

I'm in work at the moment upgrading our Virtual Servers to 32GB RAM each.

We've only got around 50 servers that are being moved into a virtual environment, but a lot of our apps need to run on standalone machines and buying the physical hardware was killing us. That coupled with the fact that a lot of our servers are now going end of life, means that we save quite a bit of cash over time for an initial outlay of £££

 

[BoomAM]

750 workstations and only three servers? Really?

No, lol.
750 users.
About 250 workstations in total.
And that grows by about 30-40 every year or so.
So you can sort of see my reasoning for virtualised; easyier/cheaper to deploy new servers.

Where the storage is kept depends entriely on your backup solution and network avaliability. Do you want a storage server /SAN? Although personally I'd keep it in the same server and have some LTO3 tape drives to back it up.

Burnsy

How do you mean network availability? You mean network speed?

 

[Mikey]

To be honest i dont think you have enough servers to warrant running virtual servers. You would need to buy a new server to cope with this and since your keeping the old ones you not saving any space either.

Indeed. We're wanting to use it more as we currently have 1800 servers.. Not sure where we're looking at it, but an example would be our 5 intranet servers down onto few powerful boxes etc. They're in a NLB config at the moment.

First thing I want to see is the company junk our very very ***** Lotus Notes for Exchange. Never seen such a pile of poo. I enjoy winding up our Notes guys with "death to notes"!

How much is esx server again?

Swapping letters for numbers doesn't make it acceptable.
Tolien

 

[skanky]

Backup/corruption wise, the plan would be to backup the VMs once a week to a NAS on our network. Making main backups simple.
Then either having the data drives backup seperately to tapes from within the host OS, or, prehaps, having the data stored on our NAS's.

make sure the backup solution is able backup file that are "in use" else i assume it wont be able to backup the vmware image.

 

[BoomAM]

make sure the backup solution is able backup file that are "in use" else i assume it wont be able to backup the vmware image.

A good live imaging software would be able to do that i suppose.
Or at worst, which im happy doing, i can take the 'servers' off line.

Is an 8 core/8gb/2tb system overkill for our needs do you think?
Gonna start writing up the plan this afternoon.

.

 

[TheKnat]

How much is esx server again?

Last time I got a price it was £4000 for a 2 CPU license pack.

Also if your having more than 1 server if may be worth you getting the management server for about £4000.