Would you virtualise?

[BassTech]

We're currently on a physical network with 6 servers: (RM CC4 network)

 

1 Forest Root

2 File & Print servers

1 Exchange Server

1 Admin Server (SIMS)

1 Backup server (D2D2T)

 

All of them except the admin server are on Windows Server 2003 R2. I'm currently looking at virtulisation - I've heard from people not to virtualise exchange or the admin server, but I can't see a reason not to. My question is: With the exception of the backup server, would you virtualise the whole she-bang?

[FN-GM]

We virtualise everything and have done for the past 10 years. Had no problems with either of those.

[jhothersall]

I vvirtualise everything except SQL Server (SIMS.net) find it to be a memory hog at times.

[localzuk]

Simply put - yes. Virtualise everything, even if you have a dedicated box for something, virtualise on top of it. That way disaster recovery is a 5 minute job of loading the virtual machine up onto a different host.

 

For SIMS, stick it on SSD storage, and specify how much memory it has/can have (so it doesn't just grab everything, as SQL server is happy to do). Also, get yourself upgraded from 2003 R2. It is well out of support now.

[hallb15]

We've been moving over to virtual for 12 months. I wanted to do it a bit at a time to iron out any issues but realistically, nothing has come up that meant we couldn't have done it a lot quicker.

Haven't had any problems with SIMS on a VM - that was the first one we moved over to a VM and its been great. We're using Hyper-V.

We don't have a separate backup server. We run Altaro Hyper-V backup on the host server which backs up to two NAS devices. So far its proved very reliable.

[jhothersall]

I virtualise everything except SQL Server (SIMS.net) find it to be a memory hog at times.

[hallb15]

Is there an echo in here?

[TechMonkey]

Virtualised it all here. Even SQL, but we don't run SIMS. Wouldn't go back.

 

Plan ahead and get the right licenses and it does change your outlook. Want to test a new service or software? Spin up a server play around then dump it. The Head wants a new system, spin up a server and install. No waiting to spec a new server, get it approved, delivered and then sit there installing.

 

One other consideration would be once virtualised you could virtualise your backup solution with Veeam.

[Sagima]

There are no issues with virtualising exchange or sql. You shouldn't give either variable/dynamic memory and you need to set the memory limits within sql for its various instances.

We don't virtualise the fileservers, media servers, backup servers, DCs or ConfigMgr

[BassTech]

Cheers for the feedback. Looks like virtualising everything is the way forward - Just speccing up servers at the min, sounds to me like RAM is the main thing then, what would you guys have as a minimum for RAM? I'm looking at around 128GB

@localzuk - I've been trying to tell them about how old 2003 R2 is for years, but I just get the usual "no money" replies. Thing is we've never had a disaster here with the IT so they don't realise just how much trouble we'd be in if our out-of-warranty FRDC fails (shudder).

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Rather asking would you virtualise I would ask why would you not virtualise.

 

As mentioned above I would highly suggest upgrading your severs OS. The way Microsoft license there products actually is designed at getting people to virtualise. Having been a fan of VMware I have been amazed with Hyper-V.

[TechMonkey]

what would you guys have as a minimum for RAM?

 

All of the RAM!! On a more helpful note, what is your budget and then get as much RAM as you can afford. We have 128GB per host, but we did over spec as we were running 2 networks for a period of time, plus wanted plenty of wiggle room.

[Snuffkins]

Yes, definitely. As has been said with Exchange and SQL there are best practices to configuring them for virtualisation. It's probably best to look at the best practice guides first, which will point you in the right direction for how to set the VMs up.

 

Virtualise SQL Best Practice

 

Virtualise Exchange 2013 Best Practice

 

They're both published by Microsoft and they're quite useful documents to refer to.

[hallb15]

Definitely go for it with the RAM, the more the better!

I agree with @localzuk in that you must specify how much RAM and other resources the admin (SIMS) server gets - ours is 16GB RAM, 4 vCPUs, 100GB OS VHD and 500GB data VHD.

The other VMs (DC, File server, Apps server) are all dynamic and take resources as required. It seems to work well for us.

 

Our host server hardware is an HP ML350 G8 with two Xeon E5-2620v2 CPUs, 64GB RAM, two 15K SAS drives for the OS, and 4x 10K SAS drives for data.

Talk to some suppliers and see what they recommend, based on your requirements. We got ours from VeryPC. Ed is the boss when it comes to speccing servers!

[jmak]

Always more RAM (echo, echo, echo...). But as a starting point, how much have you got in your physical servers at the minute? The overhead for Hyper-V is very low.

 

We used to have one physical server with 4 GB RAM; I upped it to 24 GB when we virtualized - and split the existing rolls across 4 virtuals on the same hardware. I've never seen it use more than the 4 GB we originally had.

 

My point is not that you'll only need 24 GB, just that you don't need to be worried that you'll need many multiples of the original spec to make it run smoothly.

 

As mentioned above, anything with SQL or SIMS, allocate a fixed amount of memory - they will just take everything available which will kill the performance of your other VMs.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Thanks for the VeryPC shout out @hallb15 - are you wanting another pair of socks from @VeryPC_Colin_M

@BassTech do get in touch, with either Ed or myself and we can have a look at what we can do on a new server/s for you.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes virtualise everything, sims servers, domain controllers, Linux servers, all of it.

 

There's literally no reason not to virtualise (come on literacy pedants....) given you can get ESXi and Hyper-V for free. It ensures same day disaster recovery is possible. Without virtualisation, frankly it is not possible unless you keep a spare identical replica server of every physical server you have "just in-case" (which would be a ludicrous waste of money)

[Gibson335]

We virtualised several years back and we have everything on it. We spread the load across 2 physical servers, as this allows greater flexibility. Disk storage is via SAN.

 

Our backup server is physical as well.

[twin--turbo]

We probably have 40-50 SQL databases virtualised, some fast moving.

 

Exchange 3way DAG

 

Veeam

 

And a shead load more virtualised..

[BassTech]

Wow some of you have some serious set-ups!

 

We're quite a small school ~800 students - Currently our servers have:

Forest Root - 8GB

File & Print servers - 4GB each

Exchange Server - 8GB

Admin Server - 16GB

Backup server - 2GB

 

I can hear the gasping from here haha we seem so far behind with our hardware

[mthomas08]

We've virtualised most things:

 

Still got separate Exchange/SIMs.net and a DC or two.

 

All for obvious reasons, in the event (incredibly tiny odds) of the virtual box having several failures all at once. The general system can still operate, although key ones will be down.

 

In a dream world I would have 3 Physical Servers with some key ones Synced/Clustered. Perhaps overkill but in my eyes with the ever growing need for more more more there is no such thing.

[rich_tech]

We have virtualised our in-house services here some two years back now, excellent decisions, the only things we have as physical servers these days are our LEA supplied fileserver, our CCTV and MDT servers, everything else sits on our platform.

 

So many bonuses to doing it, as others have already pointed out, the main one I think though is backup ease - VEEAM means you can restore stuff from failure to working rapidly compared to having to rebuild a server and reinstall something from scratch.

[dry]

A question for those who've virtualised SIMS servers already:

 

Are you setting upper memory limits within SQL as well as allocating a fixed amount of memory to the VM? As SQL will munch up as much memory as it's offered, presumably only allocating x amount of memory to the VM and not setting the limit within SQL too would potentially cause issues with that VM in terms of other background Windows processes not getting enough memory?

 

Hope that makes sense! Thanks

[ITGURU]

Half way here - critical servers are Physical - Management and update servers are Virtual with the odd few latest servers being virtual.

DC , Exchange and SIMS will always be physical as all storage is local - no SANs

[Steve21]

A question for those who've virtualised SIMS servers already:

 

Are you setting upper memory limits within SQL as well as allocating a fixed amount of memory to the VM? As SQL will munch up as much memory as it's offered, presumably only allocating x amount of memory to the VM and not setting the limit within SQL too would potentially cause issues with that VM in terms of other background Windows processes not getting enough memory?

 

Hope that makes sense! Thanks

 

Both SQL has an upper limit, but we still use dynamic on the server (approx 6-8GB more than the SQL set) so it can fluctuate on other bits like backups/groupcall/parentpay processes blah blah

 

Steve