Virtual Machine Server

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Klynt

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 17, 2005
Messages
85
Hello, everyone. I've been tasked with setting up a server to host at least 4 virtual machines that will be running our Anti-virus, web-server, file server, and possibly another.

I've been looking at some of my options but can't really decide on anything. This is a small-medium sized business so cost is an issue ($1000). I would really appreciate any advice that you all might have.

Processor, X3220, 2.40, 2X4M, Xeon3200 Kentsfield, G0
2 gigs of memory
capable of virtualization

Thanks,

Clint
 
2gigs mem to run 4 virtual servers?
anti virus and file server should be aok on the same VM Id think
virtual file server though...your going to need some large and fairly fast drives
 
Check the ESXi compatibility charts too, to make sure you are choosing a server, or hardware compatible with it. I just ordered a server that's going to run EXSI and possibly 6 virtual servers.
 
Save some cash and get a regular consumer processor (i5 or i7) quad core, they are all capable of hardware virtualisation these days.

Also I don't know what you are looking at software wise, but Hyper-V is great, in my experience it handles certain things way better than VMWare such as disk fragmentation and dynamically expanding disks, I also prefer the way it bind to physical network adapters in R2 and backup now works well too.

as already mentioned, you will need more ram for sure, I'm hitting the wall at 8GB with 3 VMs (Domain controller, Exchange etc etc) it makes life difficult if you want to migrate to newer software, for example, I am wanting to migrate to Exchange 2010 but due to the amount of ram I have, I have to set it up on a seperate machine first if I want to maintain performance...
 
Oh and you may not want to go this route but I'm using my host as a file server, and have a dedicated 4 disk RAID 10 array just for the VMs, it runs quite well, all on consumer hardware.
 
Well, I would say that it depends on how intensive the web server is, but for what you describe, the specs almost sounds like too much.

You could probably get by with dropping the processor to a more consumer level one, bump the RAM up, as this will more than likely be your real pinch point.

Get ESXi (or Hyper-V or whatever you want, I'm a fan of ESXi), set up your machines, and just keep tabs on the usage logs. If things get used too much, split it off or upgrade.

I have seen it too often of too much power being thrown at the issues. The place where I work had 2 servers when I got here for internal application support. We bought a third, which I put ESXi on and made into 6 machines and during that time, I traced usage of the other two physicals. I then made a virtualized image of one of them and then put ESXi onto the physical and put the virtual plus 3 other machines back onto it. I'm about to do the same to the final one. The cost savings last year was astronomical. I only used 17% of the planned budget and got a way bigger bang than was planned before I got here.
 
As others have said -- 2GB isn't enough RAM. You'll want quite a bit more.



As far as anti-virus on a VM -- just be careful. A large site can cause problems during update time when many clients start pulling new definitions. Just make sure you're prepared for that.
 
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