Mids-Tech

We are a VM school see my post - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/33621-vms-where-start-2.html#post315396 We are Birmingham near city centre.

JUST THINK (CONSULTANT + TIME + HAIR GEL + BMW M5 + JOOP) = LESS RAM & You Get Your Desk Sold At Auction! There is good advice out there, don't get taken in. The best thing to do (as we did) get 3 experienced companies to come and quote for the job, explain you want to go virtual and then they will do the work for free... You then get to see what it is you really want.... sorry need! Keep getting told I cannot order what I WANT more of what WE NEED.... spoil sports!

I'll have to delve into the docs, which are a closely guarded secret round here, to compile the full costing but what I can tell you is.... VM Ware recently made there ESXi free so you can do what we have for free (excluding the hardware & Windows licences obviously)!!!! Jaw drop I know! Go to this link Free VMware ESXi: Bare Metal Hypervisor with Live Migration - VMware and you can download it. I think you have to register but there is no bombardment of emails or hassle. If you have any old servers or decent spec PC lying around like I did, you can test it out. Also this might be worth a look for you. VMware Server Features, Free Virtual Server Consolidation - VMware again another freebie! Seriously though it is easy to get set-up and I would be happy to help in anyway I can. I can say that most of our cost went on hardware and them getting a third party to put it together then I got employed and told to make it work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi Guys, I'm a newbie to EduGeek so please be gentle...... What a fantastic resource!!!! People who actually share my daily plight! Anywho, VM's - I was a bit of a VM virgin until last September when our school invested massively in new server kit and an awesome ESX box..... I have been through the mental block of, but hang on a sec 1 box 7 servers, 16 processors, 18GB RAM, how the hell will all this work! I can't touch it...... what will I do with my beloved screw driver now!!!!!! The Point.... We are running VM Ware ESX and have 5 virtual servers sitting in our magic box of tricks. We have 2 Physical rack mounted servers. Physical 1 - Management Server - Deals with network monitoring - Servers Alive & Switch Monitoring, Backup Devices. Physical 2 - ADC server - Primary Domain Server - Connected to SAN and providing primary data shares. ESX - BOX 'O' Tricks 1- Secondary Domain Controller - Helps with Logon, DNS etc. Load Balancing. 2- Print Server - err well it does exactly what is says on the box, doh! No box.... well you get it! 3- RIS Server - Our Remote Install Server - Houses all software for distribution either manually or through Group Policy. Also Provides .WIM machine images for boot installation of various OS builds direct to machines. (Really Reliable and super fast - 15 -20mins gets you a full XP machine with 20+ apps installed and ready to go and logon to) 4- IIS Server - Currently used for Policy Central, Sharepoint Test & VOIP Testing. 5- SQL Server - CMIS, Booking Pro (Resource & Lettings), Various Other SQL requirements. I really do rate the system and setup, the ability to house all of these systems and be able to segregate and alocate resources on the fly is a real plus. Obviously we do regular backups the traditional way to tapes but we also have the ability to take VM snapshots before any changes take place as a "oopps we broke it" recovery plan.... Not that it has ever happened..... we'll move on... VM is also a fantastic way of doing development and testing as you can create (as we have) a virtual network which is isolated from the production environment and test to breaking point if you want then just bin it and start again. We have a test bed virtual network of a cloned server and 4 cloned workstations which we can introduce anything from new software, hardware changes or even the latest viruses and "see what happens"! If you told anyone in the past you were going to do that then you would be shot! I'm not hear to say VM Ware is the best as I have not really sampled the alternatives on such a grand scale, but if anyone is interested and wants further info or maybe even come and see it then by all means get in touch... Sorry for going on a bit.... This is a summary not a full run down.... Now back to my group policy roll out..... well it worked virtually.... Thanks