im thinking about virtualizing a few of our unimportant servers to start with and doing it all inhouse using Hyper-V servers. What do i need to get started
2 basic servers with loads of ram - Raid do i need it?
1 or 2 sans?
and the correct licensing of course
would that be good enough to get me started
The first thing you need is planning (lots of it) and the second thing is time (as much as you can get).
There's nothing stopping you starting with just 1 server and adding additional servers and SAN's, etc later as the project grows. I started here by converting an exiting physical server to a VM and then throwing more RAM into the old physical server and formating the HDD's installing Hyper-V. I've since done that to each of our three existing servers and have just bought the first new dedicated server last easter. Will be looking towards SANs and storage in the Summer.
Ideally, you'd want 2 servers with enough cpu and RAM to run the intended VM's and an iSCSI SAN for storage. But it's not necersarrily needed straight away.
Best thing to do is to sit down and look at your existing infrastructure. Look at how it can be virtualised. Plan the steps to achieving that and compare that with the budget and time you have.
Does HyperV support your OSes? When i last looked it didnt officially support any linux distros other than redhat and Suse.
we only use MS OS
I have done without a san but with 2 Dell R710 servers - never used hyper v or virtualisation stuff before - found it very easy to use.
Have got print, exams,wsus, impero, ghost, terminal servers all working fine on virtual - am going to get more across.
Your server processor needs to support virtualisation - may need to be turned on in bios.
I am doing it without a SAN at the minute on a HP DL 380 G5 with 20GB of RAM and 2x 2.5 Quad Xeons. I'm about to hit the limit on internal storage - currently RAID 1 for 2008 R2 w/ HyperV @ 146GB and RAID 5 for storing VMs @ ~300GB. It currently running Exchange, 2008 R2 DC, WDS, Print Server, LANSweeper (Software Auditing), SharePoint 2010 Foundation, Sophos Server, WSUS Server.
This summer we're going to expand it with a Dell EqualLogic and another HP DL 380 G6.
On a basic level you just need a Server that can support Hardware Virtualization, be it Intel or AMD, most modern servers will support this, as with everything the more RAM the better, but don't think you need to spend £8000 on 144 GB of RAM, our current box started with 8GB, then 16GB, and now 20GB
Spec Below:
Dot Hill Product Family 2330 Series
Product Type RAID, JBOD
Chassis Configuration 2U
Disk Architecture 3Gb SAS/3Gb SATA-II
Max Drives per Chassis 12 drives
Total Capacity 1.7TB/56TB (with expansion trays)
Total Disks 56
Mounting Options 19” Rack, Telco Rack, Rack tray
Max Number of Chassis 5 (1 RAID and 4 JBOD)
Max Capacity per Chassis 24TB (2TB SATA-II drives)
Data Management Services (DMS) AssuredSnap™, AssuredCopy™
iSCSI (IETF) ICMP (RFC 792, 950, 1256)
IP (RFC, 894, 1092) SCSI-2 and SCSI-3
TCP (RFC 793) FC Channel
Initiators All iSCSI compliant initiators
Interface Type RJ-45
External Ports 2/4 iSCSI (Gigabit Ethernet)
Single/Dual Controller
Max Number of Drives 56
Drive Options 3Gb SAS 146GB 15K RPM
3Gb SAS 300GB 15K RPM
3Gb SAS 450GB 15K RPM
3Gb SATA-II 500GB 7200 RPM
3Gb SATA-II 750GB 7200 RPM
3Gb SATA-II 1TB 7200 RPM
3Gb SATA-II 1TB 5400 RPM
3Gb SATA-II 2TB 5400 RPM
Levels Supported Non-RAID, 0,1,3,5,6,10, and 50
RAID Type Hardware
Cache Memory 512MB per controller
Cache Backup Battery-free protection with super capacitors
Virtual disks per System 32
Volumes per virtual disk 128
Volumes per System 256
Mirrored Cache Yes - SimulCache™
Super Capacitor Cache Backup Yes
Cache Backup to Flash Yes - Non-volatile
Interface Types Mini DB9 RS232, 10/100 Ethernet
Protocols Supported SNMP, SSL, SSH, SMTP
Management Consoles WEB GUI, CLI
Management Software RAIDar
Last edited by DaveCoop; 20th May 2010 at 02:11 PM.
Thanks for the Info, certainly could'nt afford 20K this year. more like 5-8KOriginally Posted by DaveCoop
@dirtydogmitchell: £5-8K for the SAN, or for servers + SAN? If just the SAN, have a look at the Sun 7110. There are many happy customers of it on here - ourselves (bossman and I) and john, off the top of my head.
We spent about 7K - two Dell R710 - 12GB of ram in each but will probably expand ram soon. Can run about 5 virtuals on each, maybe more.
no problem, they do cheaper solutions Stone Computers: Laura
Last edited by DaveCoop; 20th May 2010 at 02:12 PM.
All this hardware is overkill to say the least!
I have 4 Dell R300's with 1 Xeon processor and 16gb of ram. They hapily run 5 Virtual servers and never go over 10% cpu.
Cost about 900 quid each.
What kind of storage?
To each there own Zag this works for me, This is just the SAN solution, as we are becoming more media orientated. we will only be using 2 actual servers to run 5 virtual servers inc E-Mail etc so all in all not so much overkill but forward planning as this solution should last the 7 year warranty that's included
I use standard 500gb drives in them.
One server I have upgraded to an Intel 160GB SSD as the OS drive and its blazingly fast.
No San here, don't see the point.
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