2x hyper-v plus switch plus san

[sacrej]

Hi guys, we've just had our hardware arrive for our new hyper-v environment, I was just wondering if people could check over what i'm going to do- and make any suggestions - not relating to the vm's themselves but to the actual configuration of hyper-v the servers, san and switches

 

Servers:

2 x Dell Poweredge R610 - 2 x x5650 processor (6 cores each - 2.66ghz)

32gb ram (ddr3 1333mhz

2x 4port nics totalling 8ports one broadcom one intel

redun power

2 mirrored drives (not that important)

 

SAN Switch

D-link DGS-3024

 

SAN

Dell MD3200i - dual controllers (4ports per controller) 12x 450gb 15k drives

 

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Network linking

 

each server will have 4 ports to the san switch and 4 ports to the main network (link aggr)

the san will have all 8 ports to the san switch (link aggr)

 

the SAN environment will operate on a different ip range to our main network, so we will have 172.16.*.*(main network) and 172.15.*.* (SAN Network)

 

Server OS

 

have installed Server 2008R2 with Hyper-V installed as a role on both machines which will connect to an ISCSI LUN to store VM's. We will also be using SCVMM to manage this environment.

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any feedback would be much appreciated.

[steve]

It really depends on if you intend to use failover clustering. If you are you might need a small rethink.

 

We use failover clustering and use 10 ports per production server. The extra two are for heartbeat of failover and hyper-v management.

 

SCVMM also needs to be part of a domain, which means your hyper-v servers need to be in a domain (member servers at least).

[teejay]

Spec looks fine, the only thing I would possibly do if you have the budget is change the dlink switch for a Cisco as they allow much more fine tuning of the link aggregation. I'm a big fan of HP Procurve switches, but have really found their limitations on link agg when using for virtualisation. Have tried other switches as well, same sort of problems. A poor performing switch between your SAN and VM hosts can really stuff things up.

[sacrej]

yes, we already run a 2003R2 domain which is gradually going to be moved up to 2k8r2 although domain controllers will stay physical.

 

also with scvmm, should it be installed onto one of the hyper-v servers or a seperate server? I dont have the documentation with me at the moment as i'm at home, but I guess thats something to consider.

 

oh and we have reached the ends of our budget having just had to replace our core switch (8+ years old) with a brand new swanky 3com unit 4800g sfp I think.