Starting Over WITH Virtualisation...

[GRitchie]

The 'biggy'...

I've started into a new school as NM and the servers are all over the place, no virtualisation, half of them running Server 2003 and not configured properly.

 

How would you go about starting again and implementing virtual machines.

 

Obviously I'll need to preserve user data but would it be something I'd have to do over the summer period (this would be next year) or should I slowly migrate over the year?

 

With virtual hosts being the price they are, I was considering starting off with a MicroServer with ESXi and then moving that to a bigger ProLiant or something later on, but that seems like twice the work?

 

 

Help...

PS - single staffed here......

Edited July 22, 2015 by GRitchie

[Davit2005]

MicroServers are fine for a start but a bit limiting. But it wouldn't necessarily be twice the work if you later got a more powerfull ESXi box as you just move the machines across to the new server but they may need shutting down first if vMotioning between different hardware/hosts.

 

 

I've got 2 MicroServers at home and they are fine for very small environments or Lab work.

 

RAID is software based,

1 or 2 PCI express slots depending on Generation

1 or 2 Onboard network port depending on generation

8/16GB (or I think new ones can go to 32GB but check first)

 

There are low profile cards for RAID and extra network ports etc that are readily available.

 

Someone on here maybe able to provide you with a better piece of kit second hand i.e. an second hand Dell or HP that would be better suited and better spec'd for not much more.

 

You could P2V servers through the year depending on the demand and usage, It is what I normally do. Any servers that need upgrading OS we prepare them and move the services over when not in use.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Davit2005

[GRitchie]

Sounds like a good idea.

I'll probably just end up buying an HP MicroServer and begin on that!

 

Thanks!

[teejay]

Can you give us some idea of the number of servers and size of your network? I very much doubt microservers would be up to the task, ok for a very small virtualisation project or testing but very much doubt the would cope with the load placed on it by a decent sized secondary school. Put it this way, our virtualisation uses 3 servers each with dual 8 core processors and each have 256Gb RAM. Yes we're a big school and run a lot of servers, but most large secondaries I know have that or more than us.

[theeggmaster]

Can you give us some idea of the number of servers and size of your network? I very much doubt microservers would be up to the task, ok for a very small virtualisation project or testing but very much doubt the would cope with the load placed on it by a decent sized secondary school. Put it this way, our virtualisation uses 3 servers each with dual 8 core processors and each have 256Gb RAM. Yes we're a big school and run a lot of servers, but most large secondaries I know have that or more than us.

 

I agree with this. We're a medium-sized secondary school, and we have two virtual hosts with 128Gb RAM in them, attached to a SAN and set up for failover. We also have a Microserver which I use for testing, but I wouldn't put anything on it that I would run in production.

[GRitchie]

Yes, I would have a fair few servers to virtualise and I agree that the MicroServers wouldn't take the load for everything.

 

I was thinking more, build from scratch with a MicroServer as a test/demo environment. Then when SLT etc. can see that it's all good and works I can migrate it across to a bigger host with 100+GB of RAM.

[IanT]

If I was approaching this sort of project I would look at two solutions here in taking the school forward:

 

1. If you've have a good budget I would go down the Hyper-V Cluster route with a few servers and a SAN (just an example, couple of DL360 or DL380 G9 Servers\P2000 or equivalent with SAS storage).

 

2. If money is tight I would get a single host (example, DL380 G9 with 12 LFF disks) with lots of memory, couple of xeon processors and lots of local storage, in are academies we deploy a single Hyper-V Host with about 20Tb+, 64Gb of Memory+, 2x Xeon processors and this is capable of hosting all servers for that local academy - this solution normally comes in about 4-5k for us.

 

In the past where we have taken schools over we sometimes P2V there legacy servers onto this host and retire the server at a later date or build some new VM's up and migrate any services or data over, I wouldnt fancy the HP MicroServer solution myself.

[computer_expert]

I'd stay away from the microserver (coming from a gen7 microserver owner). By the time you have sourced and upgraded an EoL Xeon processor and bumped up the RAM to the max for the Gen8, the cost was a lot more than something like the Lenovo TS140 with the cashback offer (and the TS140 is a lot more powerful too)

[Blue_Cookeh]

What's your budget looking like for this?

 

We're a relatively small school and I found that a couple of Dell R220 servers spec'd up with more RAM, iDRAC Enterprise, and a couple of SSDs in RAID work out wonderfully for a 2 node HyperV cluster. You can then back the VMs up to a NAS or something each night and call it finished.