Request comment on overall platform setup direction

[lightp2]

Hi Greeting to all, I've been reading various Hardforums for sometimes. This is my 1st post after joining today.

I am 99% a text poster so apology if I am not using any layout or formating in my replies.

1. My background is in infrastructure, server/network/windows/linux/solaris/virtualization/misc.
2. My current software related is Business Support,SQL and reporting.
3. I have some understanding and running of ESXi 3.5/4.x
4. No experience with Hyper-V 2008 R2.

The scenario: Looking to deploy a complete setup for a subsidiary:

1. 15-25 users ERP. Windows-based. MSSQL 2008 or 2008 R2
2. Currently 2 sites access, maximum 3.
3. No http-based web access. Must access through Terminal Service.
4. The WAN VPN link is through ADSL. I have experience building an openvpn-based setup. A commercial solution is also nice

Things that I have designed:

i. A fully physical server-based setup.
ii. A hybrid physical/virtual setup

Different setup impact how we do backup recovery, costing, software and whole bunch of other issues. Additionally, my current place does not believe in continuously updating platform. So once set, this platform setup will likely run for 7-12 years.

Finally, asked to minimize solution cost. With cost contraints and reading on the web, I am tempted to build I/O on several units of Intel/OCZ SSD with spares and hope for the best with nightly cloning to remote home-built NFS store. I am told data volume is relatively low so IOPS is more of a concerned.

Request for your comment:

Based on all stated info, your kind insight and suggestion. I am leaning toward the hybrid but may have overlooked other critical things. For example, virtualization does give me flexibility but the fully physical may be cheaper to boot overall using low-cost server. I am especially interested in I/O because knowing data volume is not a huge concern, the cost of enterprise 15K SAS drive against Solid State Disk makes SSD seem doable in this case. However, I am unsure about the virtualization platform support for SSD

Thank you for you kind comment.

 

[sabregen]

I am hoping that I understand you needs, based on what you have said. I will say that your English is pretty good, but it obvious that it is not your first language, so I am hoping that there is not a language barrier that has caused me to misunderstand your intentions. Here's what I got:

1.) You have ESX(i) 3.5 and 4 experience
2.) You need to build a low cost solution that, once deployed, will need to run for 7-12 years
3.) You have 2, possibly 3 remote sites where useds will be connecting from, to the virtual environment. The WAN link is ADSL between the sites
4.) Remote users will access VMs via VPN + Terminal Services client
5.) You are evaluating VPN/router solutions, both software and appliance based
6.) Data will be more I/O constrained than size constrained in the environment, so IOPS over size is the consideration
7.) You'd like to know whether 15k spinning disk, or SSDs are more cost effective for your I/O needs
8.) You are also considering deploying this in an all physical environment

Is that about right?

 

[lightp2]

Yes, you are absolutely correct in your overall assessment.

Generally there are pros and cons for each approach. Since I don't get much chance to revamp system easily down the road, I would like to get experience opinions before committing to a final setup.

Currently I have available one unit of Dell PowerEdge 2900 III,2x5405 Xeon,8GB RAM, 4x146GB 10K-SAS on integrated Perc-6i as test system.

 

[J-Will]

I may have missed it, but how many VMs do you plan on running? I only saw MS SQL listed as a service you plan to offer. If this is the case, then it can be run in a single server system, without the need of any VMs.

On the other hand, if this is only one of the services you want the server to handle, then VMs may be the way to go.

 

[lightp2]

Hi, My apology for this late reply. I just came back from a long trip yesterday.

To clarify, I will summarise the hybrid setup.

1. One VM with SQL Server and ERP App combined.

2. One VM with AD and misc operations (background/automatic job server). For example if I need to write custom scripts/applications to compliment things not avaiable on the main solution. Reporting operation also perhaps.

3. One VM with Terminal Service for remote client to login (15-25). All solution offers 2-tier access for now because they are rich windows-clients. 3-tiers will need additional layers and solution costs which my subsidiary does not agree.

4. One physical host to handle the security separation between ADSL WAN connection and interfacing to the Terminal Service host. Usually I prefer this to be physical due to so many potential WAN/security issues that I need maximum flexibility to make quick changes at will. I have done an actual implementation for Clipper Application access over ADSL using openvpn.

5. I will configure an additional Remote NFS data store over Gigabit ethernet connection as well.

To explain my main thinking about this whole thing

1. As a start the hybrid VM setup could be more expensive than the slimmest all-physical setup if you factored in all the software/hardware/training/labor. I am still learning VMWARE on my own and will be the only person initially supporting this operation.

2. The number one gain is VM flexibility. I can move the VM around easily. Since I need to run the solution for very long time, longterm hardware support,problem,availability and cost is now less concern. I can adapt to most economical hw solution at the time by moving the VM into it if required.

3. Another issue is how software license control is configured, it becomes very complicated in case physical host experienced problems. It may even incur heavy fees in migrating and reconfiguring the relevant components. I hope VM-based setup will reduce the complications and enable quick recovery.

4. Obviously Disaster Recovery is so much easier with VM-based solution.

With the reasoning fully explained, I guess I see it this way:

1. With everything thrown into single environment, I need strong host with a lot of redundancy resulting in higher spec/price machine.

2. Since data volume is initially not high, I can reduce cost by using SSD. SSD will solve the IOPS problems without paying for a lot of equally expensive SAS 15K drives, enclosure, controllers/misc.

3. When the data volume becomes an issue years later, high capacity SSD should be commodity quality part by then so I can move the VM into it without too much hassle, I hope.

So finally, you can see this scheme relies heavily on SSD delivering on its promise. Do you think the setup reasoning is sound? or perhaps wait until SSD improves further?

Also, just in case it wasn't clear, I obviously could not afford EMC/NetAPP type of setup that's why I kept coming up with this kind of scheme

Thank you

 

[J-Will]

IMO- for a production server you might want to stay away from SSDs. They are still an emerging technology, and while the trend is to move toward them, they have yet to be proven for the long term. SSDs in general seem to still be a little quirky.

On top of that, if you were to go with SSDs, you would be at a lower capacity in which case you would need to use multiple drive in a RAID configuration. One RAID controller might still prove to ineffective at delivering the capacity you want, in which case a second card would be needed... with more drives. This is just getting to a capacity you want, plus backup drives if you're doing internal backups as opposed to network backups.

Now with that said, I do believe that using SSDs will achieve the goal you are looking for from them. I just do not know for how long you will be able to keep a full production server using the drives before you start to see HDD related issues.

 

[lightp2]

Yes, after reading so many horror stories about recent SSD problems. I think I will take a more cautious route with them. If they experienced one or two times unexpected major failure in actual operation, my supposed saving will be gone.

In addition, it seems currently only Windows 7/Server2008R2 has special support for SSD. I am still not sure on the ESXi side for consumer-level SSD support and optimization.

Also, the local retail SSD price has appreciated another 20%. It alters the cost balance again. I will restrict the deployment for now. Thank you for your kind observation and generous comment.