mtdmitchell Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 im thinking about virtualizing a few of our unimportant servers to start with and doing it all inhouse using Hyper-V servers. What do i need to get started 2 basic servers with loads of ram - Raid do i need it? 1 or 2 sans? and the correct licensing of course would that be good enough to get me started
tmcd35 Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 The first thing you need is planning (lots of it) and the second thing is time (as much as you can get). There's nothing stopping you starting with just 1 server and adding additional servers and SAN's, etc later as the project grows. I started here by converting an exiting physical server to a VM and then throwing more RAM into the old physical server and formating the HDD's installing Hyper-V. I've since done that to each of our three existing servers and have just bought the first new dedicated server last easter. Will be looking towards SANs and storage in the Summer. Ideally, you'd want 2 servers with enough cpu and RAM to run the intended VM's and an iSCSI SAN for storage. But it's not necersarrily needed straight away. Best thing to do is to sit down and look at your existing infrastructure. Look at how it can be virtualised. Plan the steps to achieving that and compare that with the budget and time you have.
Guest Guest Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 Does HyperV support your OSes? When i last looked it didnt officially support any linux distros other than redhat and Suse.
maark Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 I have done without a san but with 2 Dell R710 servers - never used hyper v or virtualisation stuff before - found it very easy to use. Have got print, exams,wsus, impero, ghost, terminal servers all working fine on virtual - am going to get more across. Your server processor needs to support virtualisation - may need to be turned on in bios.
theJonson Posted May 13, 2010 Posted May 13, 2010 I am doing it without a SAN at the minute on a HP DL 380 G5 with 20GB of RAM and 2x 2.5 Quad Xeons. I'm about to hit the limit on internal storage - currently RAID 1 for 2008 R2 w/ HyperV @ 146GB and RAID 5 for storing VMs @ ~300GB. It currently running Exchange, 2008 R2 DC, WDS, Print Server, LANSweeper (Software Auditing), SharePoint 2010 Foundation, Sophos Server, WSUS Server. This summer we're going to expand it with a Dell EqualLogic and another HP DL 380 G6. On a basic level you just need a Server that can support Hardware Virtualization, be it Intel or AMD, most modern servers will support this, as with everything the more RAM the better, but don't think you need to spend £8000 on 144 GB of RAM, our current box started with 8GB, then 16GB, and now 20GB
DaveCoop Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 (edited) Spec Below: Dot Hill Product Family 2330 Series Product Type RAID, JBOD Chassis Configuration 2U Disk Architecture 3Gb SAS/3Gb SATA-II Max Drives per Chassis 12 drives Total Capacity 1.7TB/56TB (with expansion trays) Total Disks 56 Mounting Options 19” Rack, Telco Rack, Rack tray Max Number of Chassis 5 (1 RAID and 4 JBOD) Max Capacity per Chassis 24TB (2TB SATA-II drives) Data Management Services (DMS) AssuredSnap™, AssuredCopy™ iSCSI (IETF) ICMP (RFC 792, 950, 1256) IP (RFC, 894, 1092) SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 TCP (RFC 793) FC Channel Initiators All iSCSI compliant initiators Interface Type RJ-45 External Ports 2/4 iSCSI (Gigabit Ethernet) Single/Dual Controller Max Number of Drives 56 Drive Options 3Gb SAS 146GB 15K RPM 3Gb SAS 300GB 15K RPM 3Gb SAS 450GB 15K RPM 3Gb SATA-II 500GB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 750GB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 1TB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 1TB 5400 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 2TB 5400 RPM Levels Supported Non-RAID, 0,1,3,5,6,10, and 50 RAID Type Hardware Cache Memory 512MB per controller Cache Backup Battery-free protection with super capacitors Virtual disks per System 32 Volumes per virtual disk 128 Volumes per System 256 Mirrored Cache Yes - SimulCache™ Super Capacitor Cache Backup Yes Cache Backup to Flash Yes - Non-volatile Interface Types Mini DB9 RS232, 10/100 Ethernet Protocols Supported SNMP, SSL, SSH, SMTP Management Consoles WEB GUI, CLI Management Software RAIDar Edited May 20, 2010 by DaveCoop
mtdmitchell Posted May 19, 2010 Author Posted May 19, 2010 We just looking into this for a SAN solution, coming in at around 20K but 7 year warranty not VM 4 ratified yet so RM wont install there CC solution. but a worthy investment it is ratified to VM3.5 Spec Below: Dot Hill Product Family 2330 Series Product Type RAID, JBOD Chassis Configuration 2U Disk Architecture 3Gb SAS/3Gb SATA-II Max Drives per Chassis 12 drives Total Capacity 1.7TB/56TB (with expansion trays) Total Disks 56 Mounting Options 19” Rack, Telco Rack, Rack tray Max Number of Chassis 5 (1 RAID and 4 JBOD) Max Capacity per Chassis 24TB (2TB SATA-II drives) Data Management Services (DMS) AssuredSnap™, AssuredCopy™ iSCSI (IETF) ICMP (RFC 792, 950, 1256) IP (RFC, 894, 1092) SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 TCP (RFC 793) FC Channel Initiators All iSCSI compliant initiators Interface Type RJ-45 External Ports 2/4 iSCSI (Gigabit Ethernet) Single/Dual Controller Max Number of Drives 56 Drive Options 3Gb SAS 146GB 15K RPM 3Gb SAS 300GB 15K RPM 3Gb SAS 450GB 15K RPM 3Gb SATA-II 500GB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 750GB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 1TB 7200 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 1TB 5400 RPM 3Gb SATA-II 2TB 5400 RPM Levels Supported Non-RAID, 0,1,3,5,6,10, and 50 RAID Type Hardware Cache Memory 512MB per controller Cache Backup Battery-free protection with super capacitors Virtual disks per System 32 Volumes per virtual disk 128 Volumes per System 256 Mirrored Cache Yes - SimulCache™ Super Capacitor Cache Backup Yes Cache Backup to Flash Yes - Non-volatile Interface Types Mini DB9 RS232, 10/100 Ethernet Protocols Supported SNMP, SSL, SSH, SMTP Management Consoles WEB GUI, CLI Management Software RAIDar Thanks for the Info, certainly could'nt afford 20K this year. more like 5-8K
webman Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 @dirtydogmitchell: £5-8K for the SAN, or for servers + SAN? If just the SAN, have a look at the Sun 7110. There are many happy customers of it on here - ourselves (bossman and I) and john, off the top of my head.
maark Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 We spent about 7K - two Dell R710 - 12GB of ram in each but will probably expand ram soon. Can run about 5 virtuals on each, maybe more.
DaveCoop Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 (edited) no problem, they do cheaper solutions Stone Computers: Laura Edited May 20, 2010 by DaveCoop
zag Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 All this hardware is overkill to say the least! I have 4 Dell R300's with 1 Xeon processor and 16gb of ram. They hapily run 5 Virtual servers and never go over 10% cpu. Cost about 900 quid each.
mtdmitchell Posted May 19, 2010 Author Posted May 19, 2010 All this hardware is overkill to say the least! I have 4 Dell R300's with 1 Xeon processor and 16gb of ram. They hapily run 5 Virtual servers and never go over 10% cpu. Cost about 900 quid each. What kind of storage?
DaveCoop Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 To each there own Zag this works for me, This is just the SAN solution, as we are becoming more media orientated. we will only be using 2 actual servers to run 5 virtual servers inc E-Mail etc so all in all not so much overkill but forward planning as this solution should last the 7 year warranty that's included
zag Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 I use standard 500gb drives in them. One server I have upgraded to an Intel 160GB SSD as the OS drive and its blazingly fast. No San here, don't see the point.
tmcd35 Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 I use standard 500gb drives in them. One server I have upgraded to an Intel 160GB SSD as the OS drive and its blazingly fast. No San here, don't see the point. So, you have four virtual host servers with virtual machine images stored locally. If one of the four servers just died, what would you do? I'm thinking along the lines of a PSU failure or CPU blowing, Host server not making it past POST, that type of thing. I agree SANs can be a little overkill - but there is a lot of milage in centralised storage, Good quality NAS boxes can be just as effective (and a lot cheaper) for a lot of small Virtualisation environments.
FN-GM Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 All this hardware is overkill to say the least! I have 4 Dell R300's with 1 Xeon processor and 16gb of ram. They hapily run 5 Virtual servers and never go over 10% cpu. Cost about 900 quid each. Do you have it setup so if the host goes down another will take over the virtual machines? If you want to do this you will need a SAN
zag Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 What I'm planning to do is simply backup the virtual hosts. And keep 2 of the servers as reserves to move over to in the event of a complete failure. Hopefully that should cover everything but maybe I'm missing something The whole point of virtulization to me is improving disaster recovery so I'm very interested in this topic.
DaveCoop Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 What I'm planning to do is simply backup the virtual hosts. And keep 2 of the servers as reserves to move over to in the event of a complete failure. Hopefully that should cover everything but maybe I'm missing something The whole point of virtulization to me is improving disaster recovery so I'm very interested in this topic. When you say keep to servers as backup, are you going to mirror them or will they just sit there, as if your Virtual servers were hosted on a central source you could just limp along until you fixed your hosting server as the second would kick and take the load until the other server came back online as otherwise you would be wasting 2 servers for disaster recovery ??
Theblacksheep Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 What I'm planning to do is simply backup the virtual hosts. And keep 2 of the servers as reserves to move over to in the event of a complete failure. Hopefully that should cover everything but maybe I'm missing something The whole point of virtulization to me is improving disaster recovery so I'm very interested in this topic. SO, you have 2 hosts doing nothing except waiting for other hosts to fail? The point of virtuliazation is utilising server hardware. If you had central storage and your main servers failed you could be up and running again in 30seconds. You could also utilise your servers all the time.... you can also move your VMs live between hosts if your hosts need to update.
DaveCoop Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 SO, you have 2 hosts doing nothing except waiting for other hosts to fail? The point of virtuliazation is utilising server hardware. If you had central storage and your main servers failed you could be up and running again in 30seconds. You could also utilise your servers all the time.... you can also move your VMs live between hosts if your hosts need to update. I agree entirely
tmcd35 Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 And keep 2 of the servers as reserves to move over to in the event of a complete failure. How often are you doing the backups, and how long do they take? We back all our VM's onto a portable NAS once a term so if there was a fire or the main NAS box become totally non recoverable then we can get everything back - all be it with up to a terms worth of data missing. To me the two beauty's of centralised storage are (almost) instant recovery when a host dies as you can quickly restart the effect VM's on the other hosts and being able to actively load balance out servers. We're not interested in some of the more advanced auto-recovery, high availbility, auto loadbalancing features that the like of VMWare charge $$$$$'s for here, but being able to do some of this stuff manually is a real bonus. But then I suppose this way the centralised storage becomes the single point of failure, oh-hum - can't win some days The whole point of virtulization to me is improving disaster recovery so I'm very interested in this topic. I think virtualisation is a fasinating topic with far too meny permutations, probably why I spend too much time posting here
zag Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 Yes doesn't that mean the SAN would be a massive single point of failure? What I'm trying to do is distribute the risk. The 2 "reserve" servers are all up and running with Hyper-V ready to take over. I intend to backup the server images every half term and the data a couple of times a week.
Theblacksheep Posted May 19, 2010 Posted May 19, 2010 Yes doesn't that mean the SAN would be a massive single point of failure? What I'm trying to do is distribute the risk. The 2 "reserve" servers are all up and running with Hyper-V ready to take over. Less of a single point of failure than a server hosting the VMs on local disks.
mtdmitchell Posted May 19, 2010 Author Posted May 19, 2010 which SANS are recommended then? for a small budget
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