Spare Dell Poweredge 2850

[sadams1980]

Hi all,

I have a spare Dell PowerEdge 2850, I want to have a play with virtualisation set-up a couple of virtual machines and if they work well connect them to the network. What would be the best/free way of doing this?

We are an RM CC3 school and one of the things I want to use one of the virtual machines for is as a SmoothWall server etc.

Can anyone give me any help or any tips on what to use the server for?

Many thanks

[3s-gtech]

What's the spec of the server currently like? Look fairly old, though they seem to support hardware virtualisation.

Any number of things could go on there. Do you need a spare DC? Deployment host? Sharepoint server? You'll need plenty of RAM, but you can add some things that'll really benefit the school and the network.

[EduTech]

Hi all,

I have a spare Dell PowerEdge 2850, I want to have a play with virtualisation set-up a couple of virtual machines and if they work well connect them to the network. What would be the best/free way of doing this?

We are an RM CC3 school and one of the things I want to use one of the virtual machines for is as a SmoothWall server etc.

Can anyone give me any help or any tips on what to use the server for?

Many thanks

Hi,

First of all have you checked to see if that server will support visualization? If it does it may only support x86 guest operating systems so just take note on that one.

What i would look at doing is maybe use Microsoft HyperV R2 - If you install this on that host and the you can do 1 of 2 things either, use the server on a workgroup so of your local LAN or/ add it to your domain and then manage the machines using domain user accounts etc.

It depends what you are thinking of doing, if you are going to require some form of AD structure during your testing which i imagine you may then i'd just use it setup for a workgroup and create a DC on that host or/ add it to the domain and then use your current AD (not sure how it would work with RM CC3 though mind).

If the machine does not support virtualization or/ does not really have enough memory to do anything with then maybe you set up a SVR2008R2 box and have a play with some new things (if your running server2003 at the moment it may be handy)

James.

[DSapseid]

Citrix XenServer is free and is a really easy to set up. Might be worth giving that a go.

[FN-GM]

I know the Dell Poweredge 2800 doesnt support virtualisation. The 2850 is in the same family, but you will need to check.

It does however support x64

[sadams1980]

Hi 3s,

The server is Xeon 3Ghz, 2 Gig Ram, 3 x 73GB h/d.

We are a CC3 school so all the software deployment is done through that, we have a spare DC. What benefits would a Sharepoint server give us? Sorry I don't know much about Sharepoint.

Thanks again

[3s-gtech]

It was released in 2004 - our 2005 DC with same choice of processors does not support VT so I suspect it's out for you. It should support EM64T so at least will take 2008 R2.

Have a look at the MS site for Sharepoint Foundation, the main uses are for collaboration and web sites.

[sadams1980]

Yeah I did try VMware and it kept playing up. Thing is I have 2 old servers the Dell and an old RM one. I don't want them just sitting there as it is a waste of resources, I was thinking of a media server for one. I know all of the legal issues that come with this we do have the appropriate licensing etc.

All ideas greatly appreciated, any more ideas would be great. As I'm stuck.

[dhicks]

Yeah I did try VMware and it kept playing up.

Xen (the free version) doesn't require hardware virtualisation support to run Linux virtual machines, so that might be a good choice for older hardware. A Samba server would make a good general file server or video/photo storage area.

[sadams1980]

Hi dhicks,

When you say Xen do you mean Citrix Xen Server or Xen from Xen.org?

As I have tried to install Citrix Xen Server (Free edition) and it says "Hardware virtualization support is not enabled/or does not exist".

Thanks
Sean

[EduTech]

Hi dhicks,

When you say Xen do you mean Citrix Xen Server or Xen from Xen.org?

As I have tried to install Citrix Xen Server (Free edition) and it says "Hardware virtualization support is not enabled/or does not exist".

Thanks
Sean

If you go into the BIOS have you had a look to see if you can turn on Visualization support? If that does not appear that that machine won't support VM's

[dhicks]

When you say Xen do you mean Citrix Xen Server or Xen from Xen.org?

The open source Xen from Xen.org, as handily included in a number of Linux distributions. I use Debian, which runs Xen just fine on my £30 worth of Atom-with-no-hardware-virtualisation-support home server's motherboard.

[Chris_]

You should be able to get ESXi installed on it. I've installed ESXi on a couple of older servers for testing purpose, the CPU's don't support any virtualisation extensions but performance isn't too bad. Just chuck in loads of RAM!