What Server For ESXI Running Windows 2012 and Moodle

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rosco

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I'm looking for recommendations on what server you would recommend for running ESXI 5.5 as a host with two virtual machines:
1) Windows server 2012, second domain controller, not much else
2) Ubuntu Linux with LAMP running MOODLE

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with moodle, but it's a CMS designed for schools. We will have probably between 50 to 60 students connected to it at any one time.

So, I was thinking a Dell Poweredge T320 as Dell has some good pricing right now. Seem like an OK choice for the hardware platform? Which processor would you recommend?

We have a NAS that we will be using to backup the virtual machines to but the storage would be local storage.
 
Basically, you can use a lot of system, best based on Intel server chipsets, nics and ECC RAM.
Dell T320 may be an option as well as a more flexible SuperMicro system build based on needs.

What I would declare a problem is backup to a NAS.
While you can copy a VM in offline state, you cannot do online.

You have three options:
- A backup solution based on a license version of ESXi + commercial backup software

with free ESXi
- Power down a VM, copy/backup
- Replicate a VM based on ESXi snaps

What I (would) do:
Use All-In-One (ESXi server with a virtualized ZFS SAN, for ex my napp-it storage appliance)
with a Xeon, 16-32 GB ECC RAM and a dedicated HBA controller for storage like a IBM 1015 or LSI 9211/9207 + SSD storage
running your VMs from NFS storage with ZFS security and performance enhancements:

- a storage VM (I prefer a Solaris/OmniOS based ZFS storage virtual SAN)
- your two VMs located on a NFS datastore provided by the SAN

- replicate the NFS datastore to a second machine WITH combined hot memory ESXi + ZFS snaps as this is the
only options to replicate (near realtime hot-sync) a running machine to another ZFS storage,
this can be for ex a cheap HP microserver or any other ZFS NAS.

This works with ESXi commercial and ESXi free
 
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I know SBS Essentials 2011 runs fine even on a HP N40L as a VM. I assume the G8 version would be even better.
 
If your an edu and qualify for the proper grants run server 2012 with hyperv. it will integrate well with your future hyper-v cluster that you will be using because of the extraordinarily high vsphere licensing costs for edu's.:D

Microsoft edu licences are dirt cheap. $370 for server 2012 datacenter or $53 for standard.
 
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I guess I was thinking ESXI because of the linux virtual machine. I thought ESXI might be a better bet although I know that hyperv can do linux VMs also. I just thought ESXI does them better.

As for backups, I was planning on using the free version of veeam. I believe that should take care of online backups but tell me if I'm wrong on that.
 
rosco said:
I guess I was thinking ESXI because of the linux virtual machine. I thought ESXI might be a better bet although I know that hyperv can do linux VMs also. I just thought ESXI does them better.

As for backups, I was planning on using the free version of veeam. I believe that should take care of online backups but tell me if I'm wrong on that.
Click to expand...

Both will work just fine for Linux for a single guest like that.

You can also coordinate snapshot/scp copies in a poor-man's backup, but that's painful to manage long-term.

Hell, all you need to back up is the linux VM - just schedule SQL dumps to somewhere offsite and you're golden, if you have a single image backup of the machine stored somewhere. Anything else is probably overkill :p
 
Which Xeon processor would you recommend?

UDIMM or RDIMM?

I'm thinking RAID10 with 4x 300GB 15k 3.5 SAS drives.
 
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