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Need help to create my lab

P

PhatalOne

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 3, 2005
Messages
205
I primarily work with businesses to create financial/business reports and to research/develop methods to analyze business data. Over the years I've developed a number of programs in ad hoc environments like Excel or Access using VBA. The more advanced projects have started making me consider porting all of my programs to C# or Java as I see that the products I am developing would actually make a compelling business software package. However, I need to develop a lab to create it.

Here is where I am at in my planning.
1.) I believe this software would be most useful as a web application.
2.) I envision needing a database server, web server, and a storage server (at least).
3.) I'm a TechNet Pro subscriber and am considering moving to Action Pack for Developers.
4.) I'm entirely new to virtualization, but know that I need to go this route and have been trying to read up on as much as I can.

Are there any substantial trade-offs using Hyper-V vs. ESXi vs. XenServer? How many boxes should I plan for my lab? (two?)

As far as building the lab out, I was originally looking at the possibiltiy of using Sandy Bridge based hardware until it was all pulled from the market. Now I really don't know which way to go as Intel seems to be the best virtualization platform but I really don't know if going down to the old i7's or jumping up to Xeon level hardware is something I should be doing. Is AMD hardware still worth considering? My main concerns are that my applications are database intensive and I don't want to get intro excessively expensive hardware for my development lab.

Right now it just seems as though I have more questions than answers and that when I get an answer it just raises more questions. HELP!
 
I was surprised to see no one responded.
Then I realized your question is pretty open ended.

I don't know enough about the architecture of each virtualization
platform to tell you if a significant difference exist, but I know enough
to make use of them ...at least vSphere (ESXi) and XenServer.

I use both at work and home. While I actually prefer XenServer, vSphere
has maturity and huge market share and support base.

At the time I deployed my first XenServer (5.0), it seemed to allow for more
whitebox type hardware versus our ESXi (3.5) .. namely NICs (non-intel) and
SATA controllers. I do not know if this is still the case with the latest versions
of either platform. At home, my XenServers run on Dell desktops with AMD CPUs, Realtek NICs
and built-in SATA controller while my vSphere boxes run on PowerEdge T110s (HCL)
with Intel Xeon CPUs, Broadcom (built-in) and Intel NICs (add-on) + PERC H700 raid controllers.

So .. all that to say this .... jump in .....it's just a lab, right?
You can actually run it all on one server.
It will start to get expensive once you decide you need high performance IO
and 99.999% uptime.

What is "excessively expensive" to you?
 
I recognize the question was pretty open, as this is completely foreign territory for me. Excessively expensive to me is currently around $3k as its coming directly out of my pocket.

So lets start by narrowing down my scope.

Since I have access to TechNet I was planning to try Hyper-V. I'll look into XenServer further since I don't know much about it.

My database application is going to be pretty mature and database VM I/O performance is my main concern as that is where I am currently experiencing bottlenecks. Would it be advisable to use consumer grade parts or should I start building with server spec parts?

Secondly, I am having a tough time deciding to go Intel or AMD. I know AMD parts are at a performance disadvantage but I don't know if its enough for me to care at this point in time. Advice from someone with more experience would be helpful.

Lastly, since I am primarily concerned about database I/O performance would I be able to keep the storage server on the same physical machine or would it be better to have a separate box for it altogether?
 
Intel or AMD? I would go Intel, only for the triple-channel memory. With the core i7 motherboards, you've got the ability to have 6 DIMM slots. Most other motherboards will limit you to 4, unless you go server motherboard which ups your costs. With 6 GB at about $100, you can put 12 GB of RAM (great for a virtualization lab) for $200. I built out a core i7 box for about $800 (without storage) that works with ESXi.

As for Xen versus ESXi? ESXi has a huge install base, but he's right, it is finicky on the hardware. Any 'ol NIC won't work, it's typically the higher end NICs that do. I paid $40 for an Intel 1000 PT PCIe NIC card, and it works great with ESXi. Also the built-in RAID on most motherboards won't work. They're not hardware RAID (instead they're "fake" RAID, doing most of it in OS driver support), and ESXi doesn't support it. I'm not sure if Xen does or not.
 
I'll chime in because I use hyper-v for testing at my home, as you are to do.

I will talk on what I know - I have not used Xen or Vsphere. I am going to assume the hardware bottlenecks are similar on all of the hypervisors.

If you are to run databases or virtualized storage, such as Storage Server 2008 or 2008 R2, you will want to make sure to load up on arrays that high I/O and low access time. SSDs are fine, but the hardware controllers lacking TRIM, but then you will be advised to run VMs on different non-raid SSDs. Pass-through disks have better performance than VHDs, and may be a decent choice for the databases.

Memory - get a lot of it and get more than you think you will need initially. You're going to want to put 4GB+ on Sharepoint 2010, SQL, or Exchange 2010, and make sure to build out for future use.

Backup - If you are to use Hyper-V and leave VMs running 24/7, you will need to use DPM to back it all up.
 
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One more thing-

Server hardware isn't required, but I'd recommend it
 
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Thank you for all the input.

After giving everything some serious thought here is my idea:

Main Server:
Core i7 970 or Xeon 56xx
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
24 GB DDR3 1600
4x 1.5 TB Seagate 7200.11's (personally I've not run into any issues with these drives)
Rosewill RSV-L4000 4U Chassis

Is there any reason I should be looking at a 4/6 core Westmere Xeon versus the i970? I chose the board for its compatibility with 56xx Xeons.

The current plan is to run Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper-V. What trade-offs would I be making by installing Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 vs installing Windows Server 2008R2 and then running my other VMs in guest virtualization.

At this stage, I'm also planning to just give each VM access to its own disk. I'll worry about RAID implementation later.
 
From what I've read, if you go for the i7, and want to run 24GB, you'll only be able to manage 1066 or 800 on the RAM.
 
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