1 server running Hyper V, Active Directory, DHCP and DNS?

[gsls48]

Hope someone can guide me in the right direction. I work for a primary school, who basically have 2 Dell servers at the moment. One just to run sims.net on server 2012 and the other 2003 running active Directory, DND DHCP and file print services.

 

Was thinking about updating the other to Server 2012 , install Hyper-v and have 2 virtual servers, 1 running AD, DNS, DHCP on the other file and print services.

I could then install Hyper v on the Sims server and have some failover. Does this sound ok

[Techie-v2]

Age, spec of the servers?

[HPlum78]

Sounds like the right thing to do, question is, is if you only have two servers how are you going to move stuff around while getting hyper v on the server that runs your world? I have on more than one occasion hung domains on client hardware! when upgrading and moving stuff because of being in the position your in.

[gsls48]

The school purchased A DELL PowerEdge T410 (2 1TB Disks 16GB memory) a year or so ago to replace aging Curriculum server, so can set this up without disruption, until moving actual data across. The current server is running with just 4GB. The Sims.net server is newish so spec is similar except just 1TB disk, hence the reason for thinking about some kind of duplication for failover.

I also cover a couple of other primary schools, who will be upgrading their servers, so I could do the same setup again.

[HPlum78]

it is by far the best way forward, RAM is all I will add! and don't forget licensing!

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Let me know if you need any cheap RAM upgrades to make the job easier!

[Blue_Cookeh]

We're using a T410 on Hyper-V 2008R2, have been for a while now and it's been running great. I run a few VMs on ours and I'll be getting another machine for failover soon. We're a small primary school.

 

VMs are:

2012 DC

2008R2 SCCM

2008R2 Forefront TMG

CentOS Linux

 

Never had a problem and aside from failover, it's worth it even if it's just for snapshots, quick and easy remote rebuilds and backups. So much simpler to manage than our physical DC.

 

Licensing is quite nice, IIRC if you license the host for 2012 Standard you can run that (as long as you don't install any other roles, only Hyper-V) and 2 virtual instances of the same license for anything else. Might be wrong on that one though...

[gsls48]

Am I right in saying, because I'm only thinking of using two Virtual servers both running 2012 I don't need extra licensing.

But if I add another to run another role I would need to purchase one again?

 

Thanks for your answers, it will be a learning curve but sounds like its not a waste of time, even in our small setup.

[HPlum78]

Here is the answer to your questions! if you work out MS licensing let the rest of us know!

WS2012_Licensing-Pricing_Datasheet.pdf

[mikkydoos]

Whats the point in using Windows Server to virtualise Windows Server VM's ? Never understood Hyper-V run on top of Windows.

 

Try using VMWare ESXi (the free one) on the Dell. Install bare metal. A Windows Server 2012 license will only cost about £40 per VM... Pugh.co.uk or your LA.

 

You can run as many failover guests as you want on the same host. I don't personally failover in case of hardware faults - only OS failure.

 

You could set up a second domain controller on the Sims machine using HyperV for that.

 

Veeam free will sort out all your guest backups.

Edited December 20, 2013 by mikkydoos

[gjefferies]

Hyper-v would be the way to go... with 2012 R2 keep things simple and makes management easier too. Setup replication between the two.

2 free virtual machines with standard and unlimited on datacenter.

If you don't have the system center suite i.e. DPM for backups worth looking at PHDVirtual Backup and Disaster Recovery Solutions for VMware, Citrix and Cloud as it is free at the moment for hyper-v.

 

Thanks

 

Gareth

[Firefox]

One quick thing to note...make sure on the virtual DC server, edit it's options so that it does NOT get time from it's Host. This can cause a terrible loop.