Is this possible with ESXi or Hyper-V ?

[mightydrake]

Noob alert: I'm fairly new to virtualization under server environnement.

I'm gonna buy a Dell T320 Server with a Perc710 raid card.

I need to build a data server, using Raid-6 and use it to store critical file on it.
The problem I have is that I have to be able to run a specific software on the server. This software would only run under Windows 7 32bit. With this in mind, I don't want to just build a Windows server on 32bit OS limiting me to 4gb ram.

I have limited space, so I can't use 2-3 computers to achieve what I need.
The software that needs to run on Windows 7 32bit will need to access my raid array to read/write data.

What I want to know is : Is it possible to use ESXi or Hyper-V installed on the server, then have like 2 VM on it. 1 for my Windows 7 32bit environnement with the specific software, 1 for a Windows Server 2012 or Centos installation (if I go ESXi) to configure my Raid6 array + Samba / NFS ??

With ESXi or Hyper-V, can we have VM running on it without having a client computer ?
If not, what would be the best way to achieve what I want to do ? Having both OS environnement under the same server would allow better drive access time + speed compared to 2 computers connected by gigabit ethernet or 1 computer + Synology Nas.

This way, I would be able to have like 16 or 24gb of RAM, 4gb allocated to my 32bit VM and the rest to the other one.

Would I be able to access my raid array within my 32bit VM ?

Thanks for your help !

 

[Grentz]

Best would be to probably look at doing Server 2012 with Hyper-V. Then you can run it without a client computer. If you run ESXi, you will need a client computer to configure it from.

With 2012 Hyper-V, you could have your main installation that uses all your resources (memory, etc.) and configures the storage. Then create a VM to your specs and place its virtual hard drive (VHD) on the RAID to get the performance and redundancy.

Another option would be to do the same thing with Windows 8 as the main OS. It has the hyper-v role as well.

 

[mightydrake]

Best would be to probably look at doing Server 2012 with Hyper-V. Then you can run it without a client computer. If you run ESXi, you will need a client computer to configure it from.

Thanks for your help,

Once the ESXi VM is configured, I can run it without any other computer right ?
ESXi is free I think up to 32gb ram, and is there a free GUI application to set it up ?

 

[extide]

Thanks for your help,

Once the ESXi VM is configured, I can run it without any other computer right ?
ESXi is free I think up to 32gb ram, and is there a free GUI application to set it up ?

Dont bother with ESX, because you will still need to run 2 instances of windows. Completely eliminate ESX and do as Grentz said. Run windows server with Hyper V on the bare metal and then run a 32bit windows VM on top of that. Done, simple.

 

[PigLover]

Thanks for your help,

Once the ESXi VM is configured, I can run it without any other computer right ?
ESXi is free I think up to 32gb ram, and is there a free GUI application to set it up ?

ESXi free version comes with a windows-based management interface called vSphere Client. You manage it from any Windows based client that can access the network. But it does not require the management "client" to operate. When not managing it you don't need any other computer.

ESXi 5.1 also has an HTTP-based management interface, but it is not as rich yet as the Windows-based client. HTTP client is probably directional for future releases, but the current version is somewhat immature.