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Proposed Setup

M

marley1

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 18, 2000
Messages
5,447
Hey guys,

We just picked up a client that currently has 6 physical servers. They all need to be replaced.

Currently one machine is the DC with File Server, then we have a Terminal Server, then the application has 3 seperate servers. Then we have a physical server for the court, and another server floating around for some misc task. After talking to the application host we could put all 3 sections into one server.

Plan would be to have a SBS 2011 for Exchange, DC, File/Print. Then an Application Server, then Terminal Server.

We started to think about going virtual and after talking with VMWare, Dell and most importantly lopoetve over chat it seems like we could go with:
- SAN - MD3200 with one controller
- 2 x Host
- VMware Essentials Plus

We want to have support.

What would be recommend for the host machines?

Would you do this any differently?

Budget is an issue, so we are going to propose physical servers as well and then the option for virtual.
 
Do you know your I/O requirements?

Since it seems you already chose Dell as your storage vendor, why not get a couple of Dell severs..maybe get a discount? I'm told that Dell is releasing their next generation of servers so I would contact them to get some insight on what changes they made. You also may want to run ESXi on the dual SD card mirrored setup they offer as well..very nice feature.

On another note, you also may want to look into the VNXe line from EMC at the $10k mark you get a very simple to use interface with easy wizard based provisioning for things like exchange mailboxes, vsphere integration, etc.
 
not sure the best way to look at the IO requirements.

This site has 23 computers and then 10 machines that RDP into terminal server for the application.
 
Why SBS? I don't think it's a great idea, but then again I'm not alot of help given my dislike for SBS. If it's just a mail issue one could pick up something like Alt-N Mdaemon with the outlook connector.

MD3200... Great San IMO. Get the dual controllers and be done with it. Like Vader says the VNXe line could also be a great san as well. We have 18k wrapped into ours and have 4 tb's worth of sas storage and another 3 in sata storage. Also includes dual controllers with the 4x 1gb Ethernet card.

What are you thinking of for Specs of the ESX boxes?
 
I like SBS for a small site. Remember this is 25 users, but we like the functions it gives and for the cost. They would need Exchange.

I was thinking Dual 6 Core Xeon maybe 2.6Ghz to 2.9Ghz, and 32GB memory.

Any other suggestions?

I need to keep cost as low as possible.

Do I need SAS for the SAN?
1 Machine will be SBS 2011
1 Machine will be running an application with a database and 3 applications
1 Machine will be Terminal Server for 10 field users
1 Machine may be another small domain controller and file server (may be)
 
Why would you put storage on the actually machine with ESXi? Everything should go on the SAN correcT?
 
You don't need local storage at all really..you could boot ESXi from SAN or Autodeploy Stateless, although I don't think you're environment warrants that. I run embedded (not from OEM, but installed internal SD card) on my Dell Blades, love it...really like the dual SD cards mirrored that Dell offers though.
 
should i look at the dell blades? i dont see the need for them if all i will have is two host machine, but I also dont see the option to get a Rackmount without drives and with teh SD option
 
No..you don't need Blades...it wouldn't be the right compute infrstructure for your needs. Did you setup an account with DELL for the MDS or did you just speak with a CS rep? I would call them, tell them what you are planning and ask about the dual SD modules in their rackmount servers...again..it's a nice to have, but not nessesary. You could always just use a solid USB key to install ESXi on.
 
2 x Dell PowerEdge R710
- Processor: 2 x Intel Xeon 2.66Ghz, 6 Core
- Memory: 32GB
- Hard Drive: No Hard Drive/Controller, 1GB SD Card for VMWare
- Optical Drive: DVD Drive
- Other: Redundant Power Supply, Pro Support Next Business Day Warranty Service, Rack Rails, 8 Gigabit Network Cards

1 x Dell PowerVault - SAN
- Hard Drive: 6 x 300GB SAS 15K
- Other: 3 Year Pro Support Next Business Day

VMWare Essentials Plus Kit

Anyway to save some cost here?
 
I don't think the R710 is necessary nor 6-core for what you are saying you want to do. Check out the R410's, go with dual Quads, don't skimp on memory, and do you really need 8nics..you could get away with minimally 6,

2- TEAMED -management
2- TEAMED -VM traffic
2- iSCSI

Forget the SD card and get some solid USB keys.

What are they charging for the MDS?
 
Thanks Vader. going with teh R410 I don't think will save all that much. The MD is around 13,838.00 WIth Pro Support Next Business. This is dell.com pricing. I have premier pricing but public is pubnlic pricing.

What proc would you recommend for the R410?

Right now it is 3 virtual servers, hopefully a 4th for the court.

The SD card isn't a big price option either.
 
Doesn't seem to save much. I can remove Pro Support which would save some money. Don't know if I really need any software support through Dell, if I have support through VMWare?
 
Probably get away with a couple of E5620's..but you'd have to guage it..see if it makes sense in price/performance and where you need to be in Application CPU requirements.
 
I would drop the 6 cores and go with 64 gig of ram a good set of dual quads should do just fine especially if you have 2-4 hosts.

I'm old school so I would buy 2 of the cheapest drives available and run raid 1 for the OS.

Also have you looked into VMware's storage appliance I have not played with it but I believe this is what its marketed towards.

I'm sure you could load disk into the servers cheaper than buying a san.
 
we could load disk cheaper but it seemed good to have that high availability.

seemed good to have it be able to swap VM's around.
 
marley1 said:
Doesn't seem to save much. I can remove Pro Support which would save some money. Don't know if I really need any software support through Dell, if I have support through VMWare?
Click to expand...

You won't need Dell's support for anything other than the hardware if you're going to run ESXi (assuming you have VMware support). I wouldn't pay for anything special for dell support unless you have expediency requirements that would dictate your redundancy can't be unavailable for a short while.
 
Yeah we removed that. Saved some. It just seems the SAN kills the cost for this. We are like 20 grand difference in between doing virtual verses physical servers.

Can we get away with doing a NAS like Synology for this?

If we have 2 of them couldn't we use the VDR backup to backup to the second nas and have all our redundancy?
 
Why not get a server to run FreeNAS os something of the likes?
Would be cheaper, and still offer some upgrade options.
 
That's why we aren't understanding. This site is roughly 35 users. 10 of that are field rdp users.

We don't understand te difference in using a NAS with iSCSI like a symnolgy or by doing a dell SAN.

We like the HA option in essentials plus.
 
You could, not sure if I would though.
If budget was a major issues I would focus on one good server with a few NIC's Dedicate one to each VM for now and allocate each one memory etc as needed. add internal drives and run VMWare from USB or SD cards. Make sure you go for the fastest drives budget allows.

While one machine is all the eggs in one basket I would then build a server as a backup. Nothing major, but something so if the crap meets the fan you can get something running while the main is fixed.

This second server is then where to backup to.
cheaper, and then when budget allows add a second high end server in a couple of years.
 
Digital-Vortex said:
Why not get a server to run FreeNAS os something of the likes?
Would be cheaper, and still offer some upgrade options.
Click to expand...

Not supported, which can get you in trouble. If you want to do something like this, linux with straight NFS is the only supported whitebox solution.
 
I looked at VSA. But adds like $3500 in software the plus costs of disks in the server.

Ran Dell DPack and it came back with at peak 588 iops. This was around 7pm so I figured from backups. The domain currently doesn't have Exchange but it's a small site.

Dell suggested with going with 10k sas 300gb drives.

Will I be okay with quad core proc instead of 6 core? Going with r410 may also save some money.

Or do we just use one of the Synology units that claim block iscsi?
 
Where does Hyper-V fall into comparison? Is it as reliable as VMware? Seems like it could work out cheaper license wise?
 
You could put all of that on one server but it depends on what they need I guess. I'd probably go with 2x 5640s, 64GB, 4x300GB 15k and 4x900GB 10k but that's just me and I've never really been big on hot spares.

I kind of like HP DL380s as well since you can stick 16 disks in them...I like my disks
 
marley1 said:
We don't understand te difference in using a NAS with iSCSI like a symnolgy or by doing a dell SAN.
Click to expand...

The difference? About $13k+ and REAL support. beyond that, the only small NAS/SAN product that I know of that it VMWare certified is the higher end QNAP stuff.

Other than support for HA, if it's just virtualizing 6 Servers for 35 users and cost is a big factor, why do you need a SAN? Why not do 2 Servers with Decent Local Storage and cold replication of the VM's. I realize this isn't ideal. But, either cost is a big factor or it's not... Having a true SAN in the picture will almost double the project hardware cost.

So you are looking for the most cost-effective solution with shared storage to accomodate HA?
 
marley1 said:
Where does Hyper-V fall into comparison? Is it as reliable as VMware? Seems like it could work out cheaper license wise?
Click to expand...

In a sbs environment I think Hyper-V is better for your money than Vmware.
Hyper-V is included for free with server 2008 so no added cost there. You can purchase or use optional management software, however if you do a full server install, you can use the built in manager to do everything. You do take a performance hit with full vs a core install, but full is much easier to manage than core, esp when you would only have 2 or 3 servers to begin with. Just RDP into the Hyper-V server and open the Hyper-V manager to setup VM's etc.
I would buy 2 Dell or HP servers and put your own ram in after you get it. Your price on RAM is going to be a heck of lot cheaper then their price. As for drives, I would nix the SAN and run with 8x or 12x 2TB-3TB drives on both servers. One small Raid 10 array for the OS, and the rest in another Raid 10 for storage for the VM's. Make vhd's as needed for the VM's.
You won't be able to do live migration without a SAN (correct me if I am wrong) in Hyper-V however if you run 2 of each of your servers and set them up for HA you should be set. Run 2 file servers with DFS and you are good there too.

If Dell / HP support was not needed, you could really save money and just build your servers with Super Micro Chassis, and Mobo.
 
You won't be able to do live migration without a SAN (correct me if I am wrong) in Hyper-V however if you run 2 of each of your servers and set them up for HA you should be set.
Click to expand...

How would HA work without shared storage?

If you want HA, you need shared storage. You would setup a Hyper-V Failover Cluster which can all be manged via the Failover Cluster Manager plugin via the RSAT tools.

Bottom line, if you want High Availability for your VM's, you need shared storage.

We use CSV's for ours..and they work out great.
 
Last edited:
Vader said:
How would HA work without shared storage?

If you want HA, you need shared storage. You would setup a Hyper-V Failover Cluster which can all be manged via the Failover Cluster Manager plugin via the RSAT tools.

Bottom line, if you want High Availability for your VM's, you need shared storage.

We use CSV's for ours..and they work out great.
Click to expand...

I meant HA on the server level not the vm level. For example having 2 sharepoint servers, with one on each physical server. If one Hyper-v server goes down, the sharepoint site is still up.
Not as great as real HA however it is doable if you don't have shared storage. I don't know if SBS supports this, as I have never used it.
 
We're talking about Hyper-V here. Hyper-V would be setup in a Failover Cluster, which, for the guests, would require shared storage.
 
Vader said:
We're talking about Hyper-V here. Hyper-V would be setup in a Failover Cluster, which, for the guests, would require shared storage.
Click to expand...

You can set up Hyper-V as stand alone and not use shared storage. There are a number of benefits for shared storage and clustering in Hyper-V of course, however it does not have to be setup that way.
 
Your quote:

I would buy 2 Dell or HP servers and put your own ram in after you get it. Your price on RAM is going to be a heck of lot cheaper then their price. As for drives, I would nix the SAN and run with 8x or 12x 2TB-3TB drives on both servers. One small Raid 10 array for the OS, and the rest in another Raid 10 for storage for the VM's. Make vhd's as needed for the VM's.
You won't be able to do live migration without a SAN (correct me if I am wrong) in Hyper-V however if you run 2 of each of your servers and set them up for HA you should be set. Run 2 file servers with DFS and you are good there too.
Click to expand...

I'm going to say this again..you NEED shared storage for HA. When you setup clustering for Hyper-V you have to have shared storage. How else are the other nodes going to start the VM if it can't access the .VHD?

The OP is requiring HA, and you yourself mentioned HA. You needed to be corrected. You can't run Hyper-V in a Highly Available Failover Cluster, without shared storage.
 
Last edited:
Vader said:
Your quote:
I'm going to say this again..you NEED shared storage for HA. When you setup clustering for Hyper-V you have to have shared storage. How else are the other nodes going to start the VM if it can't access the .VHD?

The OP is requiring HA, and you yourself mentioned HA. You needed to be corrected. You can't run Hyper-V in a Highly Available Failover Cluster, without shared storage.
Click to expand...

Sorry for not being clear, but I know you can not run Hyper-V with HA and Failover Cluster without shared storage, nor am I saying that you can.

What I am suggesting is to use 2 Hyper-V servers, and run 2 of each VM you need, one on each Hyper-V server. For DC, run 2 DC servers one on each Hyper-V server. While it is not as good as running clustering, if a Hyper-V server goes down you still have a DC VM running on the other server.
 
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