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IBM System x3500 M3 Server Configuration
I would like some feedback about this server configuration, hopefully some easy points for the IBM experts!
This server will be used for:
Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Host
Virtual Machines
Exchange 2007
Domain controller, DHCP & DNS, Sharepoint Intranet, File & Print Server
SQL Server
IPFX Phone System Server
Approx 100 users
Server hardware:
Tower Server
2x Intel Xeon Quad Core Processors @ 2.4GHz
16 DIMM slots
32GB (8*4GB) memory
6Gbps ServeRAID-M5015 SAS/SATA controller with 512mb cache & battery
IBM Serve RAID Manager
8x 3.5" Hot Swap SAS hard drives
2x 146GB 15K SAS 3.5" hot swap HDD (RAID 1) Operating System
6x 300GB 15K SAS 3.5"" hot swap HDD (RAID 10) Virtual Machines
Integrated dual port Gigabit ethernet
Additional dual port gigabit ethernet card
2x Hot swappable redundant power supplies
IBM UltraSlim Enhanced SATA Multi-Burner
Integrated Management Module (IMM)
Virtual Media Key (web based out of band control)
IBM Systems Director
Some questions:
Is the server hardware OK for the workload it will have
Are 3.5" hard drives cheaper than 2.5"
Is it worth spending the extra $ on 15K drives or would 10K be OK
Is the ServeRAID-M5015 a good RAID controller
Is the RAID 1 for OS RAID 10 for Data the best RAID configuration
How does remote management of IBM System x servers work
What are the features of the IMM vs the Virtual media key
Can I install IBM Systems Director stand alone just to get hardware email alerts for this one server
What are the IBM warranty & support options
Any other feedback would be appreciated
Thanks
This server will be used for:
Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V Host
Virtual Machines
Exchange 2007
Domain controller, DHCP & DNS, Sharepoint Intranet, File & Print Server
SQL Server
IPFX Phone System Server
Approx 100 users
Server hardware:
Tower Server
2x Intel Xeon Quad Core Processors @ 2.4GHz
16 DIMM slots
32GB (8*4GB) memory
6Gbps ServeRAID-M5015 SAS/SATA controller with 512mb cache & battery
IBM Serve RAID Manager
8x 3.5" Hot Swap SAS hard drives
2x 146GB 15K SAS 3.5" hot swap HDD (RAID 1) Operating System
6x 300GB 15K SAS 3.5"" hot swap HDD (RAID 10) Virtual Machines
Integrated dual port Gigabit ethernet
Additional dual port gigabit ethernet card
2x Hot swappable redundant power supplies
IBM UltraSlim Enhanced SATA Multi-Burner
Integrated Management Module (IMM)
Virtual Media Key (web based out of band control)
IBM Systems Director
Some questions:
Is the server hardware OK for the workload it will have
Are 3.5" hard drives cheaper than 2.5"
Is it worth spending the extra $ on 15K drives or would 10K be OK
Is the ServeRAID-M5015 a good RAID controller
Is the RAID 1 for OS RAID 10 for Data the best RAID configuration
How does remote management of IBM System x servers work
What are the features of the IMM vs the Virtual media key
Can I install IBM Systems Director stand alone just to get hardware email alerts for this one server
What are the IBM warranty & support options
Any other feedback would be appreciated
Thanks
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You havn't said what you are going to do with the system, but I would want more RAM. What sizes are you goint to make the individual VMs. What level of over-committ is there.
You have lots of teir-1 apps on this server if it fails you are going to have 100 very unhappy users, especially if they loose telephony as well because that depends on IPFX. You only have one RAID partition so you can't put the SQL or Exchange logs on separate physical drives as is considered best practice.
Yopu probably don't have enough spindles at raid-10 to deliver the IOs per second you need for 100 users with 32gigs of RAM.
The remote managment is a web app. The virtual Media Key adds full remote console control and is usefull if the OS has crashed or being un-responsive.
You can install IBM systems Director for one host.
IBM have a range of support options. Download the IBM Standalone Solutions Configuration Tool (SSCT) from :-
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/configtools.html
(its towards the bottom of the page). This has list prices for all IBM kit and shows the support options for each country. It also shows which hard disk configs are allowed.
You have lots of teir-1 apps on this server if it fails you are going to have 100 very unhappy users, especially if they loose telephony as well because that depends on IPFX. You only have one RAID partition so you can't put the SQL or Exchange logs on separate physical drives as is considered best practice.
Yopu probably don't have enough spindles at raid-10 to deliver the IOs per second you need for 100 users with 32gigs of RAM.
The remote managment is a web app. The virtual Media Key adds full remote console control and is usefull if the OS has crashed or being un-responsive.
You can install IBM systems Director for one host.
IBM have a range of support options. Download the IBM Standalone Solutions Configuration Tool (SSCT) from :-
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/configtools.html
(its towards the bottom of the page). This has list prices for all IBM kit and shows the support options for each country. It also shows which hard disk configs are allowed.
Thanks for your comments - and the link to the IBM tools page.
Attached is a list of the VMs workload/resources I plan to allocate.
Agree that I will have 100 unhappy users if the server fails - when are users not unhappy!
Plan is to get 2x of these servers over the next 2 years and spread the high workload across the 2 physical host servers & implement MS VMM for management but there is no real redundancy.
I will have to rely of good support from IBM 24x7 and good backups (using shadow protect) to be able to recover VMs to another physical host. I also have an older System x3400 (with 7200 SATA disks) that this new system is replacing so I can test that and keep it just in case I need to recover VMs if one of the x3500’s has a major failure.
Not sure if Exchange or SQL will need separate log disks. I know its best practice but will have to do some performance monitoring to see if there are any issues there. ATM Exchange is running on the System x3400 with 7200rpm SATA disks so 15K SAS drives should improve performance a lot.
So in general terms
- disk performance of RAID 10 is better than RAID 5 (reads & writes)
- more disk spindles (more drives) are better than fewer (so maybe 8x 300GB drives?)
How do I work out how much memory to allocate to get the disk performance, memory is not that expensive so should I go for 48GB?
Thanks again for your help
Microsoft-Hyper-V-Host-Server---.xls
Attached is a list of the VMs workload/resources I plan to allocate.
Agree that I will have 100 unhappy users if the server fails - when are users not unhappy!
Plan is to get 2x of these servers over the next 2 years and spread the high workload across the 2 physical host servers & implement MS VMM for management but there is no real redundancy.
I will have to rely of good support from IBM 24x7 and good backups (using shadow protect) to be able to recover VMs to another physical host. I also have an older System x3400 (with 7200 SATA disks) that this new system is replacing so I can test that and keep it just in case I need to recover VMs if one of the x3500’s has a major failure.
Not sure if Exchange or SQL will need separate log disks. I know its best practice but will have to do some performance monitoring to see if there are any issues there. ATM Exchange is running on the System x3400 with 7200rpm SATA disks so 15K SAS drives should improve performance a lot.
So in general terms
- disk performance of RAID 10 is better than RAID 5 (reads & writes)
- more disk spindles (more drives) are better than fewer (so maybe 8x 300GB drives?)
How do I work out how much memory to allocate to get the disk performance, memory is not that expensive so should I go for 48GB?
Thanks again for your help
Microsoft-Hyper-V-Host-Server---.xls
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Thanks for your comments - some useful info and links there!
-D
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Thanks heaps for your help
Server Hardware
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Servers are computing devices that are similar to desktop computers in that they have the same basic components, but are significantly different in size, configuration and purpose. Servers are usually accessed over a network, and many run unattended, without a computer monitor, input device, audio hardware or USB interfaces. Many servers do not have a graphical user interface (GUI), and are configured and managed remotely. Servers typically include hardware redundancy such as dual power supplies, RAID disk systems, and ECC memory, along with extensive pre-boot memory testing and verification. Critical components might be hot swappable, and to guard against overheating, servers might have more powerful fans or use water cooling.