hyper-v and a few guest for rdp

B

bobstone

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2005
Messages
361
hey all. I have been trying to introduce vm tech to my office and finally have a chance, we have a client that has all laptops but require some people to remote in to the office, we are going to use 2-4 win 7 vm's on thier existing server. thier will be brief times of all 4 running, however mostly it will be 1-2 at any given time ( it should have plenty of overhead )

what I wanted to know was what would be a good version to use, I was going to use win 7 pro for the guests, however this dynamic memory option with win 7 ultimate seems to be nice, is there a cheaper version of win 7 ultimate for use as a vm only, or is the dynamic not needed enough to justify the cost of ultimate licences.

also, while the memory and CPU are sufficient on the server, I worry about overloading the raid. it is a raid 5, and the server does run exchange and a few other lighter hdd active programs. with this in mind would I be better off getting a cheap entry level enterprise nas for storing the vm's ? if so is that easy to do with hyper-v, ( I am used to using esxi ).

Thanks in advance for any helpful info

Bob
 
whats the specs of the server ?


Why not just buy more RDP cals and run a RDP server for them ?
 
I am still waiting on hard specs of the server. as far as RDP cals, they would work fine I think, but I REALLY want to get vm's in the office and i find it really hard to convince them with out having any example of vm's in operation. and this was asked of me vs me recommending the setup. with that in mind I would prefer to do it with hyper-v to get our offices foot in the door with that tech.

Thanks
Bob
 
bobstone said:
I am still waiting on hard specs of the server. as far as RDP cals, they would work fine I think, but I REALLY want to get vm's in the office and i find it really hard to convince them with out having any example of vm's in operation. and this was asked of me vs me recommending the setup. with that in mind I would prefer to do it with hyper-v to get our offices foot in the door with that tech.

Thanks
Bob
Click to expand...

ok lemme get this straight :)

you want to run 4-5 vm's of windows 7 so, people can have their own rdp desktop ?
 
Well, I do exactly what he is asking to do, run a HyperV server with 16gb ram and hosts 4 W7 Pro VM's that get connected to via PCoIP clients in a dirty/grimy auto repair environment.

Only reason for the VM's and not server RDP is the vendors application installs to the currently logged on users directory..so it doesnt run when another person logs on, not even on the same physical PC, same VM.
They wont let me install the app...so I just let them install it on the VM's and take care of updates...one less thing I have to manage
 
dbwillis said:
Well, I do exactly what he is asking to do, run a HyperV server with 16gb ram and hosts 4 W7 Pro VM's that get connected to via PCoIP clients in a dirty/grimy auto repair environment.

Only reason for the VM's and not server RDP is the vendors application installs to the currently logged on users directory..so it doesnt run when another person logs on, not even on the same physical PC, same VM.
They wont let me install the app...so I just let them install it on the VM's and take care of updates...one less thing I have to manage
Click to expand...

yeah it's totally do able :) sounds like a fun project, however 4-5 vm's


5 vm's each with 4 gigs ram = 20-24gigs ram PLUS os ram so....
 
If you put 4GB of ram on a windows 7 VM, you are wasting 2GB of ram. We have a lot of HV servers at work, and win7 can easily run with 2GB. Host OS (assuming its win2k8) only needs ~1GB of ram. So 16GB of ram can easily handle the host + 4 VM's running at once.

The real bottleneck is going to be storage/HDD spindles. What is the storage setup on that server? You mention Raid5, but don't say how many drives there are. If you are hosting exchange on the array, I would get the external NAS. You will have to have something that can be used as an ISCSI target, as hyperV can't use shared folders for storage (Double check that though, I'm going from memory). You don't want to add extra load to the raid array and have something fail, which takes out exchange as well.

As for dynamic memory in win7 ult, I'm not sure what you mean. I'm pretty sure the only difference between Ult and Pro is that ult can use different languages and comes with bitlocker encryption. They dynamic memory allocation is on the HyperV host intself, and was introduced with win2k8 R2 SP1. This allows you to set a min/max memory allocation for each VM, and will change the ammount of ram designated for the VM on the fly.
 
Last edited:
My setup the VM's have 3.2x GB ram each, and the HyperV machine is a full blown 2008R2 box, not just the gui-less HyperV
I do have 2 VM's stored on 1 disk (raid1, 250gb, 7200rpm)...total of 6 drives in the machine (4 for VM's and 2 for the OS)
 
raid was incorrectly stated... it is a raid 1 with 2 drives, the only program that actually "runs" on the server right now is exchange for like 6 people.

the need for vm's seems to be that they will need it for some program access.

has 12 gb ram. 75% of the time there will be noone using the vm, about 2 on average the rest at any one time, and sometimes up to 4. ram is upgradable and cheap so I am not worried if this is deemed to little.

not sure on cpu yet, but seems to be a 1366 based server ( if I have my cores right ) and is at least a quad core. so I don't think that it will be an issue.

anyways, right now I am testing it on a bare metal hyper-v core install and cant get dyn mem to work, says it cant on that hosts OS, do I need a full version of 2008 r2 ( the client does have this ) and again is it worth it to use the ultimate licences or skip dyn mem and use pro licences ?

Thanks
 
Exchange !and! VM's on the same raid1 disk? ouch,

Id just go with Pro...I havent toyed with the dynamic mem feature...didnt even look for it
 
Just curious, reading your original post: Do they actually *need* to remote in to use this application?

If they have to remote in anyway, is there a reason you can't just run it on the laptop and have them VPN back in to the office?

If you want to push virtualization, why not push it on the backend? Sounds like you have a client that is putting all their roles on one machine from the sound of it. Recipe for disaster. The solution you are proposing honestly sounds a little clunky, not knowing the specifics of what prevents you from using a simpler approach.
 
So you essentially running everything off 1 drive. Does that mean the host OS will be running the HyperV role along with Exchange? Being so small that probably won't be a problem, but do not put 4 VM's on the same single spindle as the exchange server is using. Get a NAS or you are opening yourself up to all sorts of problems/performance issues that will be a pain in the ass for you and the company.
 
ok, well this client is a small company, they just actually moved to a client/server setup in the office vs a simple workgroup.

I am being told that the program needs to run on a vm or full pc, I am just handling the testing and deployment, not the reasoning, however like I said I do want to push our office towards using VM's.

I also figured out my dyn mem issue, with server hyper-v core install, it does not auto update sp1 when you use autoupdate, you have to download it and install manually.

lastly we have decided on using a nas. you all have any recommendations on how much of a nas is needed, should I get a cheap 2 drive enterprise class nas, or go for a larger/faster one? also which brand nas would ya all recommend?

Adam, most of our clients are small companies except a few, they wont see a need and honestly wont have a need for a complete backend solution. only a few of our clients will have the potential to really delve deep in to vm's and really take advantage of them; however, they will not switch inless we recommend it. We wont recommend it based on my experience, but only on our offices experience, that also goes for inhouse. I "just" talked my way in to getting a "tech demo" configured using a old amd dual core with 4 gb ram. so not like I can show a really impressive demo with just that (not that I am not trying, this is aside from the client that we are talking about here)
Thanks
Bob
 
The idea that a program needs a 'full pc' to run on is, well, vague at best. Are their laptops not sufficient to run the program? Are you expecting them to remote back in and run CAD/CAM design software in a VM? What is the exact constraint? Laptops today can function as more than capable portable desktops. You said you are handling testing and deployment, but your initiative is to run them in VMs and have people remote in. Was that handed down from above?

It seems like you are looking for something flashy, and ignoring a lot of good advice. You don't want to run VMs on a NAS. In the instance you described (without more information on what exactly you are trying to accomplish with desktop VM's) this sounds like a prime candidate for infrastructure virtualization. You are talking about running Exchange and Hyper-V VM's on the same physical box/disks. Say that sentence out loud. I assume you have Active Directory setup on another machine, a file share of some sort, etc. Why not take the opportunity to virtualize those services?

It's not going to be flashy. It's going to be functional and redundant. What would your clients say if you could reduce their 3-4+ physicals to a complete redundant 2 host solution?
 
I never implied that I did not want to use a nas, in fact in my last post it was mentioned that I was planing on using a nas now.

I am not sure on the full reasoning behind the choice to use vm's vs other solutions.

I am pro vm however.

I am also not sure what advice I am ignoring since I have yet to make any completely permanent decisions.

also while I think your idea is nice, and would work well, to go from telling a client that there over powered/underutilized current server can be adapted for next to nothing cost wise and with near 0 down time(setup wise) to fit there need, (keep in mind while it has some shared folders, AD, and exchange, it is only for 6 people at the company, and it is a setup that was purchased based on the recommendation from our company)

vs

completely redoing there backend, not much hardware cost, but a larger labor cost. and does not take in to account that while my boss has stated to use vm's I know he would NOT be willing to make such a complete jump until he understands vm tech a lot better (my direct boss on this is the head win server guy. no messing with servers at all unless he says so and he never does)


with that outlook, while it would be running several things on the server, the vm's would be an addition to the server in our plan vs with the whole of your idea the vm would go from an additional tech resource to the primary tech that the company is running on. and there fore making my boss uncomfortable with that switch.

anyways that was long and rambling, and I am sure there are grammatical errors there, and I have verbal/writing issues so if something seems like I am contradicting my self or something like that, ask about it.

Thanks
Bob



fyi, my primary source of info on this is my direct boss, but he is one of those "if I am even remotely busy with something, no one else can have something as important as me" + is really stubborn about embracing new tech type of mentalities, so getting him to sit down and discuss this stuff is REALLY difficult and I have learned to try to have several plans cause I will not get any serious answers till the dead line, ya I know it sucks but what ever, its work, and other that that aspect I really do enjoy working there.
 
Last edited:
Do you know what kind of server it is? If you really do want to load the VMs on it I would suggest adding a second mirror for the VMs. I would not under any circumstances run any sort of VMs on the system drives or ones being used for other purposes. Use the disks for one thing and one thing only otherwise your performance will be seriously degraded.

As for the NAS...it will generally be slower running VMs from it than directly on the system itself. I'd get one with a decent CPU and 2 drive capability for a mirror.
 
I cringe everytime I see someone running exchange for an insignificant amout of users. You do know that you can sign up for Microsoft Office Small business live and get email addresses, your own domain, webpage, etc for like $15/yr? I think it's just crazy to run exchange in a small office environment any longer with decent cloud based services that are cheap and reliable.

Anyway, I agree with the second RAID for datastore for VM's.
 
Is the server running small business server? If so you will need a new server for the hyper-v a you can't run on the sbs machine
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top