Best way forward - Virtulisation

[fiza]

Ok - So I have inherited an ageing server environment (7 servers) with the newest server being a HP DL380 G5. There are a couple of HP MSA60 Drive arrays (with about 12Tb between them).

I need to upgrade the Servers so am looking virtualisation.

The current Servers :

DC

DC/DNS/DHCP

Curriculum Apps/Student+Staff File Server connected to MSA60 drive arrays

Sophos/Ghost/SUS/Clickview

SIMS

Intranet/SAGE 200

Oliver Library/Insight/CREO Licence Server

 

I would like to reduce the number of servers I need to buy to replace these as money is limited.

 

I have already purchased a Dell R510 (2 x 6C processors and 64GB RAM) and a smaller R310 to be used as a physical DC.

Would it be best to buy another R510 as a failover VM host?

 

Not had much experience with virtualisation apart from test environments and small deployments. Would very much appreciated some guidance.

 

How would people recommend I proceed? I will be using Hyper-V.

[fiza]

*bump*

[cpjitservices]

well my views would be use the Dell with 64GB RAM as your Virtual Server, if it's your first big Virtual deployment go with something like ESXi (if budget permits) if your an experienced Linux user though I'd look at Xen\KVM for virtualization.

 

I'd migrate all of those servers on to the new virtual server all as separate VM's, I'd then buy another server which will act as your failover, not sure how this works in ESXi as I dont use VMWare. You can get a free tool from VMWware that will convert any physical machine to a VM, you then import that into your server and away you go boot it up make sure network settings are correct etc etc! I'd use those drive arrays for your storage and 12 TB should be more than enough.

[mrbios]

Any reason you're going for 6 core processors? You're adding a shed load of money on to the cost of a server for 2 x 6 core over 2 x 4 core, considering nothing in your list is high on CPU requirements.

 

The last time i got a server quote it was nearly a grand more for 2 x 6 core over the exact same server with 4 core processors, money which is better spent on the next server. Depending on what sort of growth and size you're expecting your schools requirements to go i can't recommend vmware enoughm while other products can achieve most of the same or similar things you'd be hard pressed to find any of them as efficient and feature packed, obviously if you're only ever likely to need 1-2 well specced servers and no need the feature though then by all means stick wit hthe free alternative

Edited June 20, 2012 by mrbios

[fiza]

well my views would be use the Dell with 64GB RAM as your Virtual Server, if it's your first big Virtual deployment go with something like ESXi (if budget permits) if your an experienced Linux user though I'd look at Xen\KVM for virtualization.

 

There is no money for ESXi. I need to utilise Hyper-V purely as we will have 2008 R2 Datacenter.

I know I can use Disk2vhd to do the P2V.

So if I buy an identical server to the R510 I already have I should be able to have a virtual system with some redundancy?

[fiza]

Any reason you're going for 6 core processors? You're adding a shed load of money on to the cost of a server for 2 x 6 core over 2 x 4 core, considering nothing in your list is high on CPU requirements.

 

I had a limited budget to get 2 servers. One to be used as a DC and one to start on the virtualisation route. I tried to get the best I could with the money I had. Once the servers are bought the school do not want to spend anymore for quite a while so I had to make sure I got the best I could with the money I had. I now have some money to buy another the server to match the R510 I already have. I want to make it as future proof as I can. As I said I have not delved into virtualisation before so this is all new.

[sonofsanta]

Do the failover thing, it's not that difficult with Hyper-V Failover Clustering to be honest. I'm using SCVMM as well which should be fairly cheap on a school agreement - £30 or something - and I have that running on the physical DC here.

 

You do need a SAN to do failover clustering, though, so factor that in - iSCSI would be cheapest, so get plenty of NICs in your servers.

[mrbios]

I had a limited budget to get 2 servers. One to be used as a DC and one to start on the virtualisation route. I tried to get the best I could with the money I had. Once the servers are bought the school do not want to spend anymore for quite a while so I had to make sure I got the best I could with the money I had. I now have some money to buy another the server to match the R510 I already have. I want to make it as future proof as I can. As I said I have not delved into virtualisation before so this is all new.

 

Surprising how little CPU power is used once everything is left running (see attached) that list includes an exchange server, terminal server, multiple domain controllers, file server, print server, SQL server, web servers, proxy servers etc etc during school hours. Of course that's spread over 4 hosts each with 64gb ram available to them, but i can run all 30 odd VMs off one host quite happily without stressing out the 2 x 4 core CPUs in those. Disk IOPs are the biggest issue with lots of VM but im guessing you're going to have your virtual machines stored locally rather than on any network storage device for just two hosts?

 

Also I think it's naive of your school to think they can chuck lots of money at servers now and think "the more we spend now the longer it will last", you'd be better off giving the school the understanding that a server environment needs to be maintained and evolved as the needs of a school progress, rather than chucking away nearly a grand on CPUs you honestly don't need and are very likely not to ever need during the servers lifespan.

[fiza]

@mrbios So you recommend local storage for any VMs I need? How could I then have the failover with the other server?

 

@sonofsanta - How many NICs would I need and for what purpose?

[mrbios]

@mrbios So you recommend local storage for any VMs I need? How could I then have the failover with the other server?

 

Not recommending, was more assuming that's what you'd be using for a small deployment, not everyone is willing to go spending money on SANs for just two hosts (though both routes are acceptable within your schools requirements...a lot of differing factors to consider really)

 

If you're going for failover then by all means host your VMs on a san, in which case think IOPs

 

How many users/computers you talking here by the way? Is the infrastructure liable to grow significantly in coming years?

Edited June 20, 2012 by mrbios

[nicholab]

You could use switched SAS storage LSi do a switch to use with those MSA 60

[fiza]

Not recommending, was more assuming that's what you'd be using for a small deployment, not everyone is willing to go spending money on SANs for just two hosts (though both routes are acceptable within your schools requirements...a lot of differing factors to consider really)

 

If you're going for failover then by all means host your VMs on a san, in which case think IOPs

 

How many users/computers you talking here by the way? Is the infrastructure liable to grow significantly in coming years?

 

What I want is to be able to recover from hardware failure. If all my servers are virtualised then i have "all eggs in one basket" I want to have another basket available so I can move the eggs quickly (I missed my vocation I should have been an egg farmer!). If I dont use a SAN what is the best method of doing this?

 

At the moment we have 600 computers, 150 staff and 1200 students. I dont think numbers are going to grow much further than this in the future.

[fiza]

You could use switched SAS storage LSi do a switch to use with those MSA 60

 

Could you please clarify? I didnt quite understand.

[mrbios]

What I want is to be able to recover from hardware failure. If all my servers are virtualised then i have "all eggs in one basket" I want to have another basket available so I can move the eggs quickly (I missed my vocation I should have been an egg farmer!). If I dont use a SAN what is the best method of doing this?

 

At the moment we have 600 computers, 150 staff and 1200 students. I dont think numbers are going to grow much further than this in the future.

 

SAN is definitely the right way to go for failover so ignore my comment re:local storage

 

What disks do you have in your MSA60 currently and how many? nicolabs suggestion could be an easy cheap option if you have disks free on your MSA60 to allocate to the VM storage, though personally I'd separate VM and file storage on to separate storage devices but that's obviously incurring extra cost.

 

 

Could you please clarify? I didnt quite understand.

 

Essentially a switch with multiple SAS ports so you can connect your SAS device to multiple hosts (if i'm understanding it right, never used one myself)

Edited June 20, 2012 by mrbios

[fiza]

We have 2 MSA60 units. One with 12 x 300Gb 15k SAS drives and the other with 9 x 1Tb 7.2k SATA drives.

[sonofsanta]

@sonofsanta - How many NICs would I need and for what purpose?

 

I'm using fibre channel so this is theoretical rather than practical, but at the least you want

* 1 for host access

* 1 for live migration/cluster heartbeat (with two hosts, crossover cable between the servers and a separate IP range is sufficient)

* 2 for VMs to use (teamed for redundancy)

* 2 for redundant iSCSI paths

so 6 as a minimum, I would say. 2/4 onboard + 4 expansion card, really. You could get away with 4, technically - 1 for shared host/VM access, 1 for live migration, 2 for iSCSI - but you've got no fallback on the connection to your domain, and not much bandwidth.

 

Someone here who's used iSCSI could comment more accurately but that should be broadly correct, as I am otherwise using a SAN based Hyper-V failover cluster with two hosts and a physical DC.

[fiza]

I'm using fibre channel so this is theoretical rather than practical, but at the least you want

* 1 for host access

* 1 for live migration/cluster heartbeat (with two hosts, crossover cable between the servers and a separate IP range is sufficient)

* 2 for VMs to use (teamed for redundancy)

* 2 for redundant iSCSI paths

so 6 as a minimum, I would say. 2/4 onboard + 4 expansion card, really. You could get away with 4, technically - 1 for shared host/VM access, 1 for live migration, 2 for iSCSI - but you've got no fallback on the connection to your domain, and not much bandwidth.

 

Someone here who's used iSCSI could comment more accurately but that should be broadly correct, as I am otherwise using a SAN based Hyper-V failover cluster with two hosts and a physical DC.

 

Ok may have an issue there as the server I have only has a dual port NIC. May be able to purchase a 4 port expansion card as I am sure the server has a PCIe port available.

[sonofsanta]

Ok may have an issue there as the server I have only has a dual port NIC. May be able to purchase a 4 port expansion card as I am sure the server has a PCIe port available.

 

Check the Dell site/your friendly local reseller for compatible parts but it should be easy enough. Pro tip: expansion cards with Intel NICs are much better than those with Broadcom NICs, especially when it comes to teaming. Also be careful of what order things get installed when you're going to use teaming on the NIC ports - I think you have to add the Hyper-V role first, and then install the teaming software, I know it's written in one of my blog posts anyway (the second virtualisation one iirc)

[mrbios]

We have 2 MSA60 units. One with 12 x 300Gb 15k SAS drives and the other with 9 x 1Tb 7.2k SATA drives.

 

Are you using both for file storage at the moment?

 

I'd be very tempted to use that one with the SAS drives purely for VM storage and the other purely for file storage if you can afford to lose the space off file storage.

 

EDIT: and i don't mean to rub salt in the would regarding the network ports issue but you REALLY should have planned all this out prior to paying for anything, virtualisation needs a lot of planning to get it spot on.

Edited June 20, 2012 by mrbios

[fiza]

Are you using both for file storage at the moment?

 

I'd be very tempted to use that one with the SAS drives purely for VM storage and the other purely for file storage if you can afford to lose the space off file storage.

 

EDIT: and i don't mean to rub salt in the would regarding the network ports issue but you REALLY should have planned all this out prior to paying for anything, virtualisation needs a lot of planning to get it spot on.

 

The SAS storage is available so can be utilised.

Yep I realise that I should have planned it better but at least I only got one server so far. I can factor in the required Network ports into the next one and buy the expansion port for the existing one.

You live - You learn!

[MicrodigitUK]

I would recommended SANmelody as the ideal storage solution to use your MAS60 in a true hyper-v failover cluster. Also for full failover you would also need 2 SANs. So if you start of now with sanmelody you could bring in a second MAS60 at a later date and it will do all of the mirroring and load balance for hyper-v.

[fiza]

What about this for an iSCSI target?

 

QNAP TS-EC879U-RP TS-EC879U-RP | ServersPlus

 

I would have to add disks to it but seems cheaper then Dell or HP offerings.

[twin--turbo]

Have a look at OpenQrm, it will allow you to do HA with ESXi ( which is free ) and Xen ( which is free )

 

My testbed that I was using over christmas used a Free Openfiler NAS running Iscsi.. it was just for a bit of fun.

 

Our main Cluster used to be 3 x Dell 2950III runing ESX3.5 and a 2950III for Virtual Center, they were replaced by a XenServer Cluster Running in a HP BL7000 blade enclosure.

 

The Dells were repurposed running Xen(Free) and ESXi(Free) to do other tasks.

 

Between XEN and VMware I would go for VMware, not touched Hyper-v

 

Having started on the Virtualisation Path 4 years ago, I would never look back for servers. We still have some individual Physicals. We now have more Physical machines than 4 years ago so not an improvement in that respect, but we now have ~24 Servers mixed VM/Hardware..

 

Rob

[mrbios]

What about this for an iSCSI target?

 

QNAP TS-EC879U-RP TS-EC879U-RP | ServersPlus

 

I would have to add disks to it but seems cheaper then Dell or HP offerings.

 

If you're after something cheap take a look at Thecus.

 

We've been using Infortrend Eonstors for years here as our iSCSI devices, not the cheapest but they're reliable and do a pretty good job.

 

Infact: Infortrend EonStor DS ESDS S12E-G2140-4A - buy now on SPAN.COM I've got 2 of those acting as VM Hosts (4 x SSDs 4 x Large HDD 4 x smaller HDD tiered storage with one SAN in one server room and one in another) and they're doing a fantastic job of it.

 

EDIT: not that that's what im suggesting what you should get, we've just happened to stick wit hthe devil we know rather than the devil we don't so there may be better products out there

Edited June 21, 2012 by mrbios

[PotNoodleTech]

I've gone round robin, back to local VM storage now. Cost and complexity of multiple SANS in seperate buildings etc is just not worth it in your average secondary as sans are just as likely to fail as local storage (ask me how I know).

 

When using something like Veeam you can take daily full VM image backups and farm them out to several remote servers which negates a lot of the the "amazeballs" benefit of live migration etc so as well as saving many (tens of?) thousands of £ on SANS, you also avoid spending many thousands of £ on vmware licences too.

 

My whole outlook has changed. I think so many schools are wasting vast sums of money on infrastructure "what if" scenarios, "what if" scenarios that very very rarely ever come to frutition and thus very rarely prove anywhere near cost effective. When was the last time you had a host fail? 2007 for me, and that was because the server should have been replaced 3 years prior. I knew it was gonna fail eventually.

 

I digress... my 2p anyway.