Virtualisation in Linux

[mejinks]

Has anyone here set up a virtualised infrastructure using Linux?

I'm looking to setup a medium office (80 users) who use SQL, Exchange and file shares. The whole environment comes to less than 1TB of data, but they don't want to spend a bundle of cash, so rather than scrimping on a server ,I thought why not spend a decent wedge on the hardware and use Linux to run the host.

How easy is it to maintain? Do people here have experiences with it?

 

[mejinks]

There are no client licences for Xen is there? They have a mix of 2003 and 2008 servers now and the required Cals (I think) but don't you need extra licences like you do with VMware? Trying to find a straight answer from the VMware site makes me want to not bother with VMware lol.

 

[mejinks]

Another thing to consider here is that one of the strengths of virtualisation is with multiple hosts and the resilience that brings. A single host with all the vm's on it with no failover options is not a good solution and not one I would favour.

As others have said, implement something robust and maintainable - you should be able to justify the investment as typically these are written off over 3+ years.

Good luck...

My plan is to get two servers. I would have a raid 1 drive with the server O/S on it and then a Raid 10 array with the VM O/S and filestore on. Currently, I am thinking about 2 Dell 710 with 48Gb of Ram each.

I would back the VMs and filestore up each night.

Could the second server be set up as a hot swap spare that mirrors the drives?