Server Spec - XenServer/W2k8/XenApp

[bodminman]

Hi there,

Can you please let me have your opinion on the following server specs for rolling out the foundations for our XenApp environment.

Servers x4

HP PROLIANT DL360 (G5) BASE MODEL RACK SERVER XEON QUAD CORE (E5405) 2.5GHZ (1P) 1GB
HP QUAD-CORE INTEL XEON (E5420) 2.5GHZ PROCESSOR OPTION KIT WITH 1333MHZ FSB FOR DL360
HP 16GB MEMORY KIT
HP 146GB SERIAL ATTACHED SCSI 10,000RPM HDD x3

Storage x2

HP PROLIANT DL380 (G5) BASE STORAGE SERVER XEON QUAD CORE (E5430) 2.66GHZ 4GB (2x2GB)
HP 8GB MEMORY KIT
HP 500GB (7200RPM) HOT PLUG SATA HDD

1 Server = FRDC
2 Servers = Running XenServer with 2 XenApp servers running on each
1 Server = DC / Printing / Citrix Licencing

1 Storage = Live
1 Storage = Backups

Please let me know your thoughts.

Cheers

[Ric_]

Why are you planning on running 2 virtual XenApp servers on each XenServer box? I can't see any performance benefit in this.

You would surely be better off running each box without virtualisation and going down to 2 hard disks with a fancy RAID controller for added speed. This should get you 30+ clients on each.

Without shared storage you miss out on the HA benefits of XenServer too.

[bodminman]

Hi Ric, many thanks for your comments.

We are looking to only have 100 concurrent connections with this setup for the time being and we are not looking for an increase in 'Performance benefits' by virtualising the servers, we're just looking to keep things neat and tidy and have greater options (Hardware & Software) when increasing the number of connections we want.

On top of that are all the usual benefits of virtualisation.

As for shared storage, we are looking into that too.


Good 'White Paper' if you're interested.
http://www.citrix.com/%2Fsite%2Freso...rver_WP_4A.pdf

[Ric_]

@bodminman: I'd reconsider the hardware choices and do something like the following:
5x Dual-processor servers with 8GB RAM and 2 mirrored SATA disks
2x Shared storage (e.g. Sun Storage 7110 or 7210)

Run XenServer on all the boxes and use the storage to hold the VMs.

I've read several XenServer/XenApp white papers and don't trust the numbers really. When was the last time you experienced 50 users on a server in education? I can't see this scaling to 200 by creating 4 VMs like they suggest.

My XenServer hosts use 1.3GB of RAM on top of the RAM used by each VM so you also need to factor that in.

[Butuz]

I think you definatly need to upscale your server specs if your going to be running virtualised xenapp as well as two DCs.

Franky - you would be better off running two high spec servers rather than four low spec servers - it wil save you electricity costs, and also in the future save you on waranty costs etc.

Go for at least two servers each with Dual CPU Quad Core 3.16GHZ would do you good here. That will give you 16 x 3.16GHZ Cores rather than the 16 x 2.5Ghz Cores you have specified above. Also one thing to note is the latest Xeon 55xx series are considerably faster than the 54xx series.

Butuz