talksr Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Hi there, I have an old 2008 R2 server which I would like to replace with a shiny new 2012 or 2016 Windows server. Our current 2008 install has been very reliable and as such, I have not really needed to do any work on it since setting it up. I have completely forgotten how to do a swing and wondered if anyone could give me the details. The file shares and GPOs on this server are minimal so should not need too much work. Thanks in advance.
Cazale Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Not what you asked I know, but I'd be tempted to do a physical to virtual conversion and slowly migrate services over. 1
talksr Posted October 17, 2016 Author Posted October 17, 2016 Not what you asked I know, but I'd be tempted to do a physical to virtual conversion and slowly migrate services over. Hmm, could do. Would you use the free vSphere Hypervisor from VMWare?
Oaktech Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 If you have an EES or OVS with MS it doesn't make sense not to use HyperV as you get most of the features you'd have to pay for in VMWare, even if you have to licence a DataCentre install to get the number of VMs you need, and particularly if you enable replication or clustering, it's still cheaper than VMWare. I'm in the process at the moment. I have a school which had a physical DC which did everything. I've bought a new server with 12r2 Datacenter on it and I've P2V'd the DC. I've split off WDS and WSUS onto a new 12r2 VM, split off Impero onto another 12r2, I've built a new 12r2 File server and we're slowly migrating shares onto that. I've brought up a 2012r2 DC but I haven't got round to Promoing it in yet, that's a job for half term.
Tefters Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Exactly what has been said by Oaktech, go Virtual! You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. I think back to my full physical server rack days and shudder, yes you still have to deal with physical servers and hypervisors etc... but working in a virtual world is so much easier now overall... 1
Oaktech Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Exactly what has been said by Oaktech, go Virtual! You'll wonder how you ever lived without it. I think back to my full physical server rack days and shudder, yes you still have to deal with physical servers and hypervisors etc... but working in a virtual world is so much easier now overall... And now with failover cluster in one school... OMG you have no idea how happy it made me to be able to configure cluster aware updating and just watch as everything is live migrated off one host, updates done, host rebooted, everything migrated back, the updates done on the other host and rebooted, without any down time, no one noticing and pretty much without lifting a finger! 1
dry Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 I'm in the process at the moment. I have a school which had a physical DC which did everything. I've bought a new server with 12r2 Datacenter on it and I've P2V'd the DC. You're a braver man than me... whilst researching what to do I found it was not recommended to P2V your DC due to the potential to screw up your entire domain! My virtualisation plans were to create a new virtual DC on our domain, demote current DC and remove any other roles that may cause issues during virtualisation and then P2V it. I'd then slowly transfer roles over to new VMs as and when I had time until we were fully virtualised. We are in the fortunate position of having new server hardware to facilitate this, though. 2
talksr Posted October 17, 2016 Author Posted October 17, 2016 Hmmm ok. I have never ever, ever used MS Server Data Center. How did you guys learn how to use it? It is a completely new area for me. More than happy to go down this route, but not at all confident in setting it up or using it. Any advice on how you came to use it and learn how to set it up would be very much appreciated.
pantscat Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 Hmmm ok. I have never ever, ever used MS Server Data Center. Think of it like a version of Windows server - same as client editions of Windows come in Home/Pro/Ultimate versions, Server comes in Standard/Enterprise/DataCenter. Datacenter edition just allows you to host an unlimited number of VMs amongst other things. 2
Oaktech Posted October 17, 2016 Posted October 17, 2016 You're a braver man than me... whilst researching what to do I found it was not recommended to P2V your DC due to the potential to screw up your entire domain! My virtualisation plans were to create a new virtual DC on our domain, demote current DC and remove any other roles that may cause issues during virtualisation and then P2V it. I'd then slowly transfer roles over to new VMs as and when I had time until we were fully virtualised. We are in the fortunate position of having new server hardware to facilitate this, though. I'm not going to lie to you, I was sweating blood that it was all going to sync up again. But I took precautions of ensuring a good backup and taking the existing server nic mac address with the p2v, I booted the p2v'd machine without the network connected to ensure the new VM booted, which it did, and then I connected the network and away we went, we did it on a friday evening and no one even noticed. I would have preferred to do it your way too, but I had the extra pressure of an out of warranty server with a failing raid in it. I'd already replaced 2 out of 5 drives in 3 weeks and I wasn't fancying my chances of a third rebuild. Most of the time I find the p2v's fail because of odd disk configs (usually in windows) or remnants of a hyperv on the machine you're p2v ing which will cause a bsod when you try to boot the new VM. I've p2v'd, I think, 8 DC's successfully with that knowledge and careful planning. 2
Cazale Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 remnants of a hyperv on the machine you're p2v ing which will cause a bsod when you try to boot the new VM I'm curious; does this still happen with nested virtualisation? 1
Oaktech Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I'm curious; does this still happen with nested virtualisation? I'm not 110% on all the circumstances at the moment. I believe from reading, but I haven't tried it, that you cannot nest anything other than 10/16 From MSDN A Hyper-V host running Windows Server 2016 or Windows 10 Anniversary Update. A Hyper-V VM running Windows Server 2016 or Windows 10 Anniversary Update. A Hyper-V VM with configuration version 8.0 or greater. An Intel processor with VT-x and EPT technology. I know for certain than neither 08r2 nor 12r2 can be p2v'd with (or with remnants of) hyperv onto a 12r2 host. 2
talksr Posted October 18, 2016 Author Posted October 18, 2016 Think of it like a version of Windows server - same as client editions of Windows come in Home/Pro/Ultimate versions, Server comes in Standard/Enterprise/DataCenter. Datacenter edition just allows you to host an unlimited number of VMs amongst other things. I see. Thanks, very helpful. I am going to download a copy on eOpen and have a mess around and see how it works. I am assuming it uses HyperV for the virtualisation?
pantscat Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 I see. Thanks, very helpful. I am going to download a copy on eOpen and have a mess around and see how it works. I am assuming it uses HyperV for the virtualisation? Yep, exactly that. 1
talksr Posted October 18, 2016 Author Posted October 18, 2016 Yep, exactly that. Ok thanks. Makes sense. What do you do re raid? Do you just set it up as normal on the host OS Server Datacenter as though it was a standard server?
Geoff Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 2016 has full nested virtualisation support (including GPU pass thru and container support). 1
pantscat Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 (edited) What do you do re raid? That's a good question. It depends really on what you're virtualising and whether you need lots of performance or not. The easiest option (but not necessarily the best depending upon requirements) would be to just to have a single RAID 6 array with different volumes - e.g. one for the host OS, then another volume for VM data and another for whatever else you might need. If you're running some high-performance VMs, you may want to have multiple RAID arrays and use RAID 1 or RAID 10 (depending upon how risk averse you are!) for your VMs (or just some of them!) to get better read and write speeds - e.g. SQL or similar. Edited October 18, 2016 by pantscat unclear waffle! 1
Geoff Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 There's also the Storage Spaces Direct stuff if you have 2016 (It's basically VSAN). So you can do that Hyper-converged nonsense. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server-docs/storage/storage-spaces/storage-spaces-direct-overview 1
Oaktech Posted October 18, 2016 Posted October 18, 2016 Re: raid... I've got a single server set up as follows: Drive 0, 300gb 10k sas, server reserved (dell) Drive 1,2 300gb 10k sas, raid 1, host OS Drive 3-7 1tb 7.2k nl sas, raid6 general storage. Drive 8,9 1.2tb 10k sas raid 1, vm OS' Drive 10,11 1.2tb 10k sas raid 1, 100gb exchange db. It's not the only way, but it suits us. 1
talksr Posted October 31, 2016 Author Posted October 31, 2016 (edited) Thanks everyone for your advice. I have installed Server 2016 Datacenter. Not sure on the RAID yet, so just installing to have a look. The server is an HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 v2 and as such it only has 4 bays for HDDS. Each have a 1tb drive installed. May be tricky to use one as the host OS and raid the rest. Must I install Hyper-V as a server role to get the bits I need? Edited October 31, 2016 by talksr
Tefters Posted November 2, 2016 Posted November 2, 2016 So your server has 4x 1TB drives to which you've 1 for the OS of what will be the Hyper-V host? I would suggest personally before going any further to wipe and do your raid from the server controller again first as you have a single point of failure. 4 disks is a bit awkward as raid 1 will mean loss of 1 disk and then leave 2 drives left which all you can really do is raid 1 again. I would setup a raid 5 on all 4 drives on the server controller which allows for 1 disk failure and means you will have 3TB usable before formatting etc... 1
Tefters Posted November 2, 2016 Posted November 2, 2016 Then of course install the Host OS on to the raid and you can then partition that if you so wish in Windows. 2
talksr Posted November 7, 2016 Author Posted November 7, 2016 Then of course install the Host OS on to the raid and you can then partition that if you so wish in Windows. Great minds think alike. I set up a raid five via the HP controller and installed the host OS onto this raid using 250gb (it may have been 350 can't remember). I have left the rest to be a partition for the hosts. It is somewhat silly they only have four boxes in these servers. There always used to be a couple of slots on the rear for the host, but not with these smaller HP servers. I just need to install the appropriate roles now. And give it a bit of a test run. The server in question is an HP Proliant DL320e Gen8 v2 Server with a good processor and 16gb of RAM which should be enough for the one virtual server I plan on installing. There are lots of slots to add more RAM in future if needs be.
Tefters Posted November 7, 2016 Posted November 7, 2016 Great minds think alike. I set up a raid five via the HP controller and installed the host OS onto this raid using 250gb (it may have been 350 can't remember). I have left the rest to be a partition for the hosts. It is somewhat silly they only have four boxes in these servers. There always used to be a couple of slots on the rear for the host, but not with these smaller HP servers. I just need to install the appropriate roles now. And give it a bit of a test run. The server in question is an HP Proliant DL320e Gen8 v2 Server with a good processor and 16gb of RAM which should be enough for the one virtual server I plan on installing. There are lots of slots to add more RAM in future if needs be. Yup that's the ticket. The HP servers these days are always short of drive bays which is rather annonying! 1
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