abillybob Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 Hey Guys So hopefully when Windows 10 comes out we'll be waiting around for Windows Server 2016 until we deploy. What the school is going to do is buy a new Rack Mounted Server and create a virtualised host from that. I then will most likely be running 7-8 different servers on it although I'm quite inexperienced when it comes to virtualisation of servers. I get how it all works on a desktop and have setup and played with Windows Server 2012 R2's Remote App. I have a few questions that the internet can't seem to answer for me so I'm hoping you guys could shed some light on the subject 1. What do you use to virtualise your servers? I've been thinking of using Hyper-V. Thoughts? 2. When creating a host one would assume you need to install a standard OS running on it such as Windows Server 2012 R2 and then install the Hyper-V roles so it hosts the other servers? Is this correct? 3. Spec wise what would you recommend for a host server that has to run 7-8 Virtual Servers? RAM I kind of know how much I'd need and I think about 32GB would do it but haven't got a clue what to look for in processors I'd also quite like to look at hosting virtual machines from the server like Citrix thin clients do but through VM. I know how to do all this but would it be best practice to host virtual machines on a Virtual Server? If so what specs would you recommend I give that server if we're running say 30 clients? Thanks Guys, I'd really appreciate your input. I'm expected to do this next year on my own (without training - yay). I have taught myself quite a lot on the subject but I just wanted to get it right!
synaesthesia Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 I'd wait until you see what 2016 is capable of before heading down the route of Hyper-V or other hypervisors. HyperV is being much improved apparently also with some features being added to help it catch up with the leading hypervisors. The big things to note if I remember correctly are app containers and headless server (lighter than 2012 Core installs) 1
tmcd35 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 1. It's the cheapest option, since it's included in the price of Windows - which you need to buy anyway. 2. Correct. 3. What spec do you want/need to assign each of those servers? Add it up, double it, add an extra CPU core and 2Gb Ram for the host. There's your answer. I have hosts with 2x12 core Xeons and 128Gb Ram for about 10-12 machines. Unless you have a very good reason, or very tight budgets, nothing beats traditional fat clients and given form factors like the Intel NUC doing anything else is a lot of effort for little gain, IMHO. 1
simpsonj Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 I'll chip in, but more because I'm interested in how others have done it as the way I've set it up is from trial and error rather than any training! 1, I use Hyper-V, seems to work fine with no major issues encountered so far. 2, This is the way I've done it, though I understand you can install a Hyper-V supervisor OS that will allow you to run Hyper-V and nothing else. I prefer a bit of flexibility at the cost of RAM and processor though. 3, As many cores as possible, talk to someone like @ICTDirect_Dave or @Millgate and they'll have a good idea. Rough idea for servers is 4GB per server plus 4GB for host, but you can never have enough RAM! Also make sure you've got LOTS of disk space, it's amazing how quickly it disappears. Also, it might be worth while investigating two servers instead of one for back up/redundancy. Have to ask the question, if the bare metal server fails, do you have anyway of getting your vital VMs up and running again quickly on another server? Where will you back up your VMs to? Highly recommend VEEAM (I'm just using the free version and it's great for backing up virtual servers, planning to upgrade over the summer). As I say, I'm not really much further along the line than yourself, but hopefully that might help a little! 3
ICTDirect_Dave Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 I'll chip in, but more because I'm interested in how others have done it as the way I've set it up is from trial and error rather than any training! 1, I use Hyper-V, seems to work fine with no major issues encountered so far. 2, This is the way I've done it, though I understand you can install a Hyper-V supervisor OS that will allow you to run Hyper-V and nothing else. I prefer a bit of flexibility at the cost of RAM and processor though. 3, As many cores as possible, talk to someone like @ICTDirect_Dave or @Millgate and they'll have a good idea. Rough idea for servers is 4GB per server plus 4GB for host, but you can never have enough RAM! Also make sure you've got LOTS of disk space, it's amazing how quickly it disappears. Also, it might be worth while investigating two servers instead of one for back up/redundancy. Have to ask the question, if the bare metal server fails, do you have anyway of getting your vital VMs up and running again quickly on another server? Where will you back up your VMs to? Highly recommend VEEAM (I'm just using the free version and it's great for backing up virtual servers, planning to upgrade over the summer). As I say, I'm not really much further along the line than yourself, but hopefully that might help a little! Yup, drop me a message mate, we've specced a load of servers for similar roles and should be able to help you find something that will work for you
abillybob Posted June 23, 2015 Author Posted June 23, 2015 1. It's the cheapest option, since it's included in the price of Windows - which you need to buy anyway. 2. Correct. 3. What spec do you want/need to assign each of those servers? Add it up, double it, add an extra CPU core and 2Gb Ram for the host. There's your answer. I have hosts with 2x12 core Xeons and 128Gb Ram for about 10-12 machines. Unless you have a very good reason, or very tight budgets, nothing beats traditional fat clients and given form factors like the Intel NUC doing anything else is a lot of effort for little gain, IMHO. Thankyou mate very informative. I'll only be running standard things really, Smoothwall Server (Currently runs on an Intel Pentium with 4GB RAM MicroServer - works fine), Fileserver that runs happily on a HP MicroServer N54L, Domain Controller and Second Domain Controller, Print Server with PaperCut, Anti-Virus Server, WSUS Server, MDT Server, Backup Server, Remote Apps Server. Would that all be ok running on something like this or do we need something a bit more powerful? HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9 Xeon E5-2630V3 2.4 GHz 32GB RAM 5U Rack server - Ebuyer
abillybob Posted June 23, 2015 Author Posted June 23, 2015 I'll chip in, but more because I'm interested in how others have done it as the way I've set it up is from trial and error rather than any training! 1, I use Hyper-V, seems to work fine with no major issues encountered so far. 2, This is the way I've done it, though I understand you can install a Hyper-V supervisor OS that will allow you to run Hyper-V and nothing else. I prefer a bit of flexibility at the cost of RAM and processor though. 3, As many cores as possible, talk to someone like @ICTDirect_Dave or @Millgate and they'll have a good idea. Rough idea for servers is 4GB per server plus 4GB for host, but you can never have enough RAM! Also make sure you've got LOTS of disk space, it's amazing how quickly it disappears. Also, it might be worth while investigating two servers instead of one for back up/redundancy. Have to ask the question, if the bare metal server fails, do you have anyway of getting your vital VMs up and running again quickly on another server? Where will you back up your VMs to? Highly recommend VEEAM (I'm just using the free version and it's great for backing up virtual servers, planning to upgrade over the summer). As I say, I'm not really much further along the line than yourself, but hopefully that might help a little! That's interesting never thought of that so you recommend two hosts for redundancy? What do you do with the second one do you just leave it turned off and then on if the first one dies you can move everything over to the new one? Never knew Hyper-V has an OS I'm guessing this is free? Might have a go at testing with this and see how it all works/performs because I don't think it'd bother me whether or not the host had a full OS running on it, surely it's just an extra license to pay for? Thankyou It really helped. Yup, drop me a message mate, we've specced a load of servers for similar roles and should be able to help you find something that will work for you Cheers mate. Maybe closer to the time though, around next summer time is when I think we'll be doing this
tmcd35 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 (edited) Go for two lower spec'd host rather than one super powerful host. Just make sure both hosts can run all the virtual machines you want to run on their on. Day to day, just load balance and split the VM's equally between them. If one goes down, or needs to be taken off line, just move it's VM's into the spare capacity of the other host until you can bring it back online and move them back again. As for the host licence, no you don't need to pay extra for it. Windows comes licensed for the host plus x number of VM's depending on edition purchased. The low resources used by the full GUI OS, and the extra hassle of not having a GUI in Core or free Hyper-V means it's really not worth it. Just install full Windows on the host and be done with it. Edited June 23, 2015 by tmcd35 2
simpsonj Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 Go for two lower spec'd host rather than one super powerful host. Just make sure both hosts can run all the virtual machines you want to run on their on. Day to day, just load balance and split the VM's equally between them. If one goes down, or needs to be taken off line, just move it's VM's into the spare capacity of the other host until you can bring it back online and move them back again. As for the host licence, no you don't need to pay extra for it. Windows comes licensed for the host plus x number of VM's depending on edition purchased. The low resources used by the full GUI OS, and the extra hassle of not having a GUI in Core or free Hyper-V means it's really not worth it. Just install full Windows on the host and be done with it. What he said really! In my case I've got lots of low spec servers running VMs, which is less than ideal (no money to consolidate yet), but putting all your eggs into one basket would worry me if you've got the option to run two, then I would suggest doing that instead 1
hallb15 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 You'll definitely need more RAM, although this is easier to add later than, say hard drive space. We're in the middle of our virtualisation process and like you I've just read as much as possible and filtered out the important stuff. Take advice from suppliers if you have a good relationship with, who take the time to understand your requirements and not just flog you whatever they get the most kickback from. I got ours from @VeryPC - I think Ed there probably builds servers in his sleep. But you've probably already have a preferred supplier in mind. For the host I've got an HP ML3 350p G8 with dual 6 core Xeons and 64GB of RAM. I'm using Hyper-V. As others have said, there's no reason not to as its free, does the job, and is well supported. I'm backing up to NAS using Altaro which is simplicity itself and very reasonable for up to 5 VMs. Once our transition to virtual is complete, I'm going to put Server2012 Hyper-V on the best of the old servers to use for backup in case the main server fails. I'm hoping that day never comes, but its always best to be prepared. You'll need several NICs so that you can assign them to individual VMs (you can also team them to enable load balancing) for our host I'm using a 4-port nic. Keep an eye on what's out there, but in reality a year is a long time in IT and things will have changed a lot by the time you come to placing the order. Keep asking questions on here and everyone will keep chipping in their thoughts so that when the time comes, you'll be able to order with confidence.
sonofsanta Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 (edited) Cores > clock speed for virtual hosts, within reason, so AMD Opteron processors can be a good fit... although they're probably too far behind Xeons now to really be worth it. Gobs and gobs of RAM; both my hosts are at 72GB each now, running about a dozen servers between them. Lots of NICs, but @hallb15, you don't need to assign them individually; in Hyper-V (2008R2), you create Virtual Networks assigned to a network adapter, and then assign VMs to those virtual networks. My hosts have 8 network ports each: I've set one up as host access, cabled two directly between the hosts for cluster heartbeat and live migrations respectively, and the remaining five are teamed into a three-port team and a two-port. Domain-only VMs are assigned to the former, Web-facing VMs to the latter, so that if any web facing server was attacked and the network bandwidth saturated, it wouldn't affect the domain VMs. That was the advice I read at the time, anyway... don't know if I'd bother with that now for the sake of the MIS server and Home Access Plus. It made sense when I thought I'd virtualise Exchange, but then 365 happened Edited June 23, 2015 by sonofsanta
hallb15 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 Cores > clock speed for virtual hosts, within reason, so AMD Opteron processors can be a good fit... although they're probably too far behind Xeons now to really be worth it. Gobs and gobs of RAM; both my hosts are at 72GB each now, running about a dozen servers between them. Lots of NICs, but @hallb15, you don't need to assign them individually; in Hyper-V (2008R2), you create Virtual Networks assigned to a network adapter, and then assign VMs to those virtual networks. My hosts have 8 network ports each: I've set one up as host access, cabled two directly between the hosts for cluster heartbeat and live migrations respectively, and the remaining five are teamed into a three-port team and a two-port. Domain-only VMs are assigned to the former, Web-facing VMs to the latter, so that if any web facing server was attacked and the network bandwidth saturated, it wouldn't affect the domain VMs. That was the advice I read at the time, anyway... don't know if I'd bother with that now for the sake of the MIS server and Home Access Plus. It made sense when I thought I'd virtualise Exchange, but then 365 happened Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I was trying to keep it concise but I'm not very good at that either!
mikkydoos Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 (edited) Thankyou mate very informative. I'll only be running standard things really, Smoothwall Server (Currently runs on an Intel Pentium with 4GB RAM MicroServer - works fine), Fileserver that runs happily on a HP MicroServer N54L, Domain Controller and Second Domain Controller, Print Server with PaperCut, Anti-Virus Server, WSUS Server, MDT Server, Backup Server, Remote Apps Server. Would that all be ok running on something like this or do we need something a bit more powerful? HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9 Xeon E5-2630V3 2.4 GHz 32GB RAM 5U Rack server - Ebuyer Smoothwall don't recommend running on a VM. I'd put the 2nd DC on a physical machine or a 2nd host. I couldn't get WDS to read/write images to anything but a local drive... hence lots of disk space munched up. My VMWare setup runs great on an HP 360p Gen 8 with 72Gb RAM and 10 VM's.... need more disk space tho' Backup server should be separated out too. EDIT: God that Ebuyer server is a beast 5U ??? My hosts cost about £6000 each. I seem to remember the RAM being about £1500. Almightily expensive Edited June 23, 2015 by mikkydoos
sister_annex Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 @abillybob We have a fully virtualised Hyper-v environment here... you're more than welcome to pop in and visit us to chat if you want? Let me know.
tmcd35 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 Would that all be ok running on something like this or do we need something a bit more powerful? HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9 Xeon E5-2630V3 2.4 GHz 32GB RAM 5U Rack server - Ebuyer I'd say that looks overpriced and under spec'd. Speak to Novatech or VeryPC for something more realistic. Or ICT Direct if you you want amazing, cheap, and don't mind refurb. 1
SHimmer45 Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 needs MORE ram for growth if needed. also id say a single CPU might be an issue if you start running alot of VM's on it. man its a 5 u monster, id be look at 2u options if possible some of the dell stuff is rather clever in how they use the space. (same as alot of vendors)
localzuk Posted June 23, 2015 Posted June 23, 2015 That Ebuyer HP is expensive. Can get a dual processor version with 32GB RAM for less than that. You can get them much better priced than that too - that was a 2 minute config using list pricing. Eg. Go here: http://www.rackservers.com/retrieve-quote.aspx and put in the code S56010
SHimmer45 Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 if you want to go down the Dell route you can get some attractive pricing through resellers (ive got several grand off list without any effort)
mikkydoos Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 @abillybob Ebuyer do have an education sales dept and also a server sales guy called Alex who is very good. They've beaten most competitors for me, especially when it comes to buying disks, RAM etc. Remember that sever won't come with any RAM, hard disks, disk caddies, 2nd power supply. You also want one extra disk at least as a spare in your RAID array. The cost will soon ramp up. A £2K server suddenly becomes £4K. Magic!
synaesthesia Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 Serversource have been good for us also with new and refurb Dell kit. Bought a pair of servers from them last year with more storage and ram than you can shake a stick at; buy one get one free, too!
SHimmer45 Posted June 24, 2015 Posted June 24, 2015 HP sell their kit without the disks added and things like that so the price looks appealing until you start adding the bits you actually need to make it useful..
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