Vmware , is this correct ?

[2097]

Requirements

 

we have 1 server with 64gb ram

the server has 2 CPU's

 

we want to run between 4-6 Vm's

 

The free version of vmware limits the ram to 32gb

 

we have been looking at this

 

VMware Europe Online Store - Product Information

 

I see they state they limit the number of hosts , am i right to assume this means the number of servers ? and not the number of individual virtual machines running on each server .

 

Has any one else bought this ?

 

Many thanks

2097

[CyberNerd]

I see they state they limit the number of hosts , am i right to assume this means the number of servers ? and not the number of individual virtual machines running on each server .

 

Has any one else bought this ?

 

It is limited by number of physical hosts. fine if you only have a few machines and don't intend to grow much. When you do the price jump is enormous.

[sparker]

We did and it is good but also expensive. They do an Edu deal which is £2.4 K for 3 physical hosts and you have to buy a yrs support with it ( support is awesome BTW)

We chose VM ware after running free xen and free VM esxi for a year .

Baiscally it goves you high availability ( if you have more than one server) If you only have one server then maybe HyperV makes more sense?

If you don't need the HA then you could just use the free versions and manually move the VMs - what I was describing to the Head as medium availability (hours rather than days of downtime for major server failure)

[cpjitservices]

if you want free then dont use vmware use KVM in Redhat / CentOS / Fedora... as many hosts as you want and on as many servers as you like.. KVM all the way here completely ditched VMWare now!

 

http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page

[glennda]

if you want free then dont use vmware use KVM in Redhat / CentOS / Fedora... as many hosts as you want and on as many servers as you like.. KVM all the way here completely ditched VMWare now!

 

Main Page - KVM

 

KVM is brilliant but you need the skills to be able to support it.

 

From what you have written above yes that is correct re vmware.

[CyberNerd]

I'm in the process of ditching vmware for KVM, but I'm going with support from redhat.

Not because I lack the skills to set it up (I have a nice test setup) but because I don't mind paying for support, and it is a lot cheaper than the competition.

[glennda]

I'm in the process of ditching vmware for KVM, but I'm going with support from redhat.

Not because I lack the skills to set it up (I have a nice test setup) but because I don't mind paying for support, and it is a lot cheaper than the competition.

 

But you are somebody who usees linux a lot - if you have never used Linux KVM could be very daunting.

[oxide54]

kvm is a joke compared to VMware's full feature set.

[glennda]

kvm is a joke compared to VMware's full feature set.

 

its not if you use the full management set from Redhat or software like Cloudstack (citrix sponsored product)

[oxide54]

have they release a new version of RHEV? was an absoloute joke last time i looked at it,

[glennda]

have they release a new version of RHEV? was an absoloute joke last time i looked at it,

 

I've not looked at it under REHV but CyberNerd will know more on that site - but from the internet looking at it - seems to be fairly robust

 

I'm working with VMware and View at the moment - just about to do a VCP

[oxide54]

there was all kinds of weird restrictions on it, and I though it was quite ironic it required a windows 2003 box to run its management server, and its management server was fecked it that box died for whatever reason, I think you even had to have that management server as physical Edited June 18, 2012 by oxide54

[glennda]

there was all kinds of weird restrictions on it, and I though it was quite ironic it required a windows 2003 vm to run its management server, and its management server was fecked it that vm died for whatever reason, I think you even had to have that management server as physical

 

But then isn't the recommendation for VCenter to have that running on a physical host in large environments.... therefore exactly the same

[oxide54]

not really no and you can have more than one vcenter server linked where as RHEV you couldn't, but they may have changed with the version that came out this year, I reckon they made it run on windows so they didn't have to release source code.

 

VCP is easy apparently just expensive because you have to do 1500-2000 training course.

[glennda]

not really no and you can have more than one vcenter server linked where as RHEV you couldn't, but they may have changed with the version that came out this year, I reckon they made it run on windows so they didn't have to release source code.

 

VCP is easy apparently just expensive because you have to do 1500-2000 training course.

 

I'm not paying for it! Just looks good being a VMware house to say we have the quals.

 

You can have more then one VCenter server but each host doesn't allow two VCenter servers to manage it - it takes over from the other when you add it to a new vcenter server.

[Guest Guest]

Citrix - free and comparable to vmware in most ways. Only bits you need to pay for is the bits you aren't going to need such as multipath IO and the likes.

 

Hyper-V - "free" in that if you buy 1 windows server enterprise licence you will get 4 windows server guests.

 

 

ESX is great but the price tag to go with it makes it pretty hard for most schools to justify.

[glennda]

Citrix - free and comparable to vmware in most ways. Only bits you need to pay for is the bits you aren't going to need such as multipath IO and the likes.

 

Hyper-V - "free" in that if you buy 1 windows server enterprise licence you will get 4 windows server guests.

 

 

ESX is great but the price tag to go with it makes it pretty hard for most schools to justify.

 

Multipath IO is a must if you are going for a SAN IMHO otherwise you are just shooting yourselves in the foot - when schools demand uptime having a SPOF is just not acceptable IMHO

[CyberNerd]

I think the management interface needed windows because of the company they bought the management software from.

The VMware essentials is too limiting for us and doesn't scale so well (financially). VMWare full feature set is way too expensive for us with servers and VDI.

[sparker]

i reckon you need to decide what kind of network availability you NEED and then work toward it. If you need snapshots and only want a single server (host) then Hyper -v is a good place to start . I wanted to be able to move live VMs around hosts for maintenance and was told that medium availability was fine - until we lost exchange for a day, now its HA all the way!

 

Amazing how fast teachers become dependent on a reliable network - it was only three years ago it was considered a good day if 3 people had the internet simultaneously..

[armadillo]

We are looking into virtualising our main servers, 2 DCs, exchange, SIMS and three others which could run from one virual machine. AT the moment I haven't decided which virtual solution to go for, I'd like high availability, good performance, future proof in case we mode to VDI inthe near future and anything that makes my life easier when people need to access the network and downtime doesn't affect anybody.

 

Your help and advice would be appreciated and thanks in advance.

[sparker]

Not claiming to be an expert but it sounds like the same route I went down. I began experimenting on an old server with Citrix Xen server but the old server was unstable and kept crashing so I moved to VM to see if that was the cause ( it wasn't) and get some further experience. I found VmWare GUI to be more complicated initially but easier to run and more informative than Citrix which rapidly ran out of options and meant faster resorting to command line - fine if you are comfortable with Linux.

I spent a year looking at it beofre commiting to production and now have 10 w2K8 servers and two linux servers all running on two new physical host servers plus an old server running as a back up DC in another location.

I would suggest that you download the free stuff and start playing . Both Citrix and Vmware ghave new versions and both have a route to desktop virtualisation so pickone and enjoy. I think Citrix full fat is cheaper than VMWare but both will be a significant investment. If you can get away with medium availability then the free versions will be fine - I ran for a year using them as medium is much better than Low availability!

I run sims printer exchange DC Lync sharepoint files WDS xibo and firewall each on their own server and it is nice! New servers and full fat Vmware cost about 10k altogether.

[2097]

Thanks for all the replys

 

Could some one summerise ?

 

servers are going to be backup DC , Exchange , Sims , Print server , and possibly a remote app server . This is going to be all on one server .

 

Backups wont be a problem , and can be sorted out in some way after ( seen a few vmware scripts + external backup software)

 

Am i right in assuming that the software i posted will do ?

[Guest Guest]

Multipath IO is a must if you are going for a SAN IMHO otherwise you are just shooting yourselves in the foot - when schools demand uptime having a SPOF is just not acceptable IMHO

 

The OP only has 1 server so why would he have a SAN?

[gshaw]

Thanks for all the replys

 

Could some one summerise ?

 

servers are going to be backup DC , Exchange , Sims , Print server , and possibly a remote app server . This is going to be all on one server .

 

 

Alarm bells start ringing with all that on one server, lots of eggs in one basket if something goes down

[glennda]

The OP only has 1 server so why would he have a SAN?

 

Ah my bad - i got the wrong thread when i posted that! I thought it was another one where we where talking about FC/ISCSI sans