VMware ESXi (Free) Server Specification

Curiosityx · 20 Mar 2009 at 11:36

Greetings im looking at putting together a vitual server specification for between 4-6 VM's running on ESXi Free.

Initial List of VM's

Win2003 Srv - Solarwinds NMS
Wind2003 Srv - Solarwinds NMS
Wind2003 Srv Web - IIS Web + FTP
Win2003 Srv -Stonevoice Reporting
Win2003 Srv - Application Server - BES, Sage CRM Frontend

For this i have chosen a DL380 G5

1 x HP DL380R05 E5450 4G Perf EU Svr
3 x HP 8GB FBD PC2-5300 2x4GB Kit
1 x HP Smart Array P400 w/512Mb BBWC
2 x HP 146GB 10k 2.5 SAS HP SP HDD - Raid 1 - ESXi Volume
4 x HP 300GB 10K SAS 2.5 DP HDD - Raid 10 - Datastore
1 x HP Slim 8X/24X DVD-ROM Drive
1 x HP NC364T PCIe 4Pt Gigabit Server Adptr

Can anyone see an area that may cause performance problems?

At this point im not worried about what would happen if the entire server fell over due to an issue such as the Raid controller failing or the motherboard exploding.

Regards

Baz · 20 Mar 2009 at 12:03

Looks ok to me for a stand alone VMWare server. I take it you are going to team the network ports into one 4GB connection?

Curiosityx · 20 Mar 2009 at 12:10

Baz said:
Looks ok to me for a stand alone VMWare server. I take it you are going to team the network ports into one 4GB connection?

Correct yes it will be connected to a Cisco 2960GB Switch.

iaind · 20 Mar 2009 at 12:33

Without knowing the load on the current servers it's hard to tell - but it should easily be doable. Might be worth taking some performance baselines to find out though.

If youre going for HP, get the genuine HP ESXi kit - its only about 20 quid, lets you boot from the internal USB socket so you dont need to waste HD space and has proper ILO integration.

Part of the problem with virtualisation is the "all your eggs in one basket" scenario...

Only VI enterprise and a SAN with multiple servers can truly get around this

Curiosityx · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:26

Cheers for the reply, yes i was trying to find out how to get ahold of the embedded version of ESX on the proliant range.

You wouldnt happen to know the part codes i need to add to the above so that i can implement it? I can remove the 2 x 146Gb disks for the VMWare install then.

Regards

iaind · 20 Mar 2009 at 17:40

Should be 465388-B21. Its described as a license but my vendor assures me its the bootable USB stick

If you're using external storage, why dont you go for the DL360 instead?

zetec452 · 20 Mar 2009 at 20:41

Not sure why you need 146GB drives for the OS volume. 2 x 36's would do, or as suggested the USB kit.

CGrieves · 25 Mar 2009 at 10:28

JonRohan said:
Not sure why you need 146GB drives for the OS volume. 2 x 36's would do, or as suggested the USB kit.

I'd agree there, if you use ESXi embedded, you may as well boot from USB. Then stick another 300Gb SAS or two in there as hot spares. If I was using a single-server ESXi solution in production, I'd want at least one hot spare.