[sims] Moving sims to virtual

[itgeek]

Hi

 

We are planning to move our physical sims.net server into our virtual environment. Please could you tell me what problems I could face sand if anybody has done this?

 

Thanks

[FN-GM]

We did it years ago and haven't had any issues at all.

[Abaddon]

Same here - no problems at all.

[Arthur]

Ditto. No issues either.

[camel]

Another happy customer here.

[vikpaw]

Just benefits really Details in my sig'. Snapshotting before doing an upgrade is invaluable.

You might want to take a look at the newly published white paper on virtualisation, which recently appeared on SupportNet. I'm about to take a read.

Resource #19548 (in case link fails!) : http://support.capitaes.co.uk/user/detail.asp?params=%91%D5%CB%DD%E5%F3%9D%D7%E3%DE%D9%EF%99%C4%E0%E5%A0%C8%D5%D4%EC%B0%A0%D7%E8%CC%D7%D7%DC%F1%9B%D2

[vikpaw]

My apologies, for not reading it first, more fool me for thinking it would be useful. It's just a put down. Nonetheless, it's useful to know their stance in terms of support.

[matt40k]

Thought it was rather good, points out that they support the software regardless of hardware, virtual or physical and points out that virtualization might right for your SIMS server.

[vikpaw]

I read it as a warning of the 'perceived' benefits, and how complex it is, and how although it is supported, it may cost extra and they could well insist you go to the virtualisation professional you employed for support if they can't work out the issue.

[itgeek]

What kind of spec have you given the VM? I have seen @vikpaw.

 

Thanks

[matt40k]

You'll be suprised @vikpaw how many calls I've had that SIMS has broken since the upgrade, which actually it's since they started to load up the virtual environment. You suddenly start to find it's like running everything off one server again.

 

SQL Server generally doesn't like being virtualized, it eats resources so it doesn't play well with other VMs.

[Birchy]

My Sims server has been virtualised on VMware for nearly five years, with no issues whatsoever. When hosted SLG was setup the engineers remoted in to our sims server and didn't even know that it was virtual. As vikpaw says, snapshotting before an update is a major benefit.

[jinnantonnixx]

You'll be suprised @vikpaw how many calls I've had that SIMS has broken since the upgrade, which actually it's since they started to load up the virtual environment. You suddenly start to find it's like running everything off one server again.

 

SQL Server generally doesn't like being virtualized, it eats resources so it doesn't play well with other VMs.

 

That's not our experience at all. It runs like a dream on a well-planned system. Furthermore, VMWare makes efficiency savings if you have identical guest OSes/server apps as the hosts make use of shared memory (physical page sharing).

 

One proviso - I'd build it from scratch, then backup/restore the databases. I wouldn't attempt to use a P2V utility, no matter how tempting. Furthermore, you'll have the old system intact in case things go south.

 

Here's a useful 'best practices' guide about SQL on VMWare.

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/sql_server_virt_bp.pdf

 

Also, this should be compulsory reading for any SQL bod. Pay attention to the sections headed "Poor Performance By Design" and "The Biggest Mistakes". You can ignore the advice and take the defaults, but don't be surprised when it doesn't perform well.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/28721265/Poor-Disk-Performance-Time-Outs-Database-and-the-SQL-Server-Error-Log

 

 

And for the $PROPERTY of $DEITY, size your database files properly. Don't rely on auto-grow - its function is to prevent the server from crashing, it's not a management tool.

Edited June 20, 2012 by jinnantonnixx

[matt40k]

That's the point Capita are making, doing it right can be great, doing it badly can land you in more trouble. For example, buying a "cheap" NAS then running 30 virtual servers off it, don't be suprised when you get Disc performance issues.

[LukeC]

Anyone running sims in a hyper V environement?

[matt40k]

Yes, loads are. SIMS will work with any unmodified copy of Windows, so basically hardware virtualization solution - so vmware, virtualbox, virtual pc, hyper-v, parallels, xen, kvm....

[apeo]

I read it as a warning of the 'perceived' benefits, and how complex it is, and how although it is supported, it may cost extra and they could well insist you go to the virtualisation professional you employed for support if they can't work out the issue.

 

I read it and came to the same conclusion. Pretty useless 'white paper', seems more a disclaimer...

[vikpaw]

In fact, you could pre-prepare a bunch of virtual machine files ready to go for various platforms, and use them for troubleshooting. Normally, you can't muck around with the hardware / installation over the phone, but if you could FTP them a whole new virtual server and drop a backup onto it, the support options become so much better. But you would lose the £1000 per day install fee.

I think with virtual, you could at least look at increasing RAM quickly on the fly, look at disk usage, worst case have to turn off some of the other VMs if it seems they are at fault. I'd rather favour supporting the new tech and learning to troubleshoot it, than deterring us from using it.

I'm sure there are plenty of people rushing ahead and don't know what they are doing, trying to save cash, but then i'd prefer a guide that lists things to check, minimum resources to allocate, recommendations on setup, as we used to get for single physical machines.

[matt40k]

The problem is guys, Capita is a software company, they have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise they'll have to limit what SIMS can run on. They've just made it clear and stated that if you go down the virtual route, just be aware instead of having say, 5 things that could go wrong, you have 10, BUT, you do have says 3 extra features.

 

(Personally restoring a whole server is a bit extreme cause a SIMS upgrade "failed")

 

PS: @vikpaw - that would be a licensing nightmare. Capita can't build a image using Academic license, they would have to use enterprise (or whatever it's called) which is much more then £30, so each person who bought it would have to pay £££.

Edited June 20, 2012 by matt40k

[Modey]

Anyone running sims in a hyper V environement?

 

Yeah we have run a SIMS server that was P2V'ed into Hyper-V (server 2003) and we now run it under Hyper-V on Server 2008 R2. The only real problems we had in the past was backing up the 2K3 server using DPM. There were some VSS issues and we couldn't back the server up as a whole VM without it being switched off. That isn't an issue now it's running on 2k8 R2.

 

Make sure it's well resourced and you should be fine.

[vikpaw]

I'd have thought they could build on whatever we were licensed to, but ignore that, it was just an idea. We could do that amongst ourselves if we wanted. I was just trying to show how easy it is to start again / troubleshoot.

 

A whole server restore for upgrade failure, is effectively what the snapshot does, and i've used it countless times. It's a great big UNDO button that is awesome.

[saihaynes]

Running on VMware for the last few years with no support issues at all, Capita confirmed via Email they had no issue with running it virtualized.

[PhilNeal]

We know that SIMS works well in a properly configured virtual environment. We have however had around 10 schools that have complained bitterly that SIMS is failing to run properly in their environment and there is an expectation that we will be able to resolve the problems. As much as we would like to, we just do not have the knowledge of the individual set-ups and an expert is required to balance the systems.

 

Matt is correct in stating that we are making a positive statement that we will support SIMS on these environments but we cannot resolve issues that are down to how the environment has been set up.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes been running SIMS virtualised here for yonks.

 

Basically the rules for speccing hardware are exactly the same for virtualised as they are for a normal SIMS server.

1. RAM. 8-32GB depending on how big your establishment is.

2. CPUs either 4 fast cores or 8 slower ones. I run 4 fast cores and occasionally hit 100% CPU use but it's rare and not really a bottleneck.

3. HDDs/Raid. Exactly the same consideration as on a physical server, you need lots of read AND write I/O, so don't use the usual Raid 5 (awful write I/O), use either Raid 10 or RAID 50 or even SSDs.

 

I Use Raid 50 with 5 groups of 3 disks and get some really nice performance out of that whilst still being highly available. The graph below is performance data from inside the VM.

 

I wouldnt run SIMS any other way.

Edited June 21, 2012 by PotNoodleTech

[rowed]

We moved to a Hyper V environment a few year back, with no problems.