Question

Vmware or Not? - Branch Office Configuration

Asked by: thegewse

I am going to be setting up a new branch office shortly. This office requires Exchange, SQL, Domain Controller and File+Print services.

I cannot use SBS as i wish to integrate this into our existing domain.

I can plan the physical solution without issue.

Regarding the virtual solution, is it feasible to host all of the above services on one server? Im thinking 3 VMs One for Exchange, One for SQL and One for DC and File+Print.

If i was to try to put all of these VMs on one server how should i create the disks arrays? Would you have say one big RAID1 array that has 3 OS disks and then another 3 x RAID 5 arrays one for each VM?  (One for Exchange DB, One for SQL DB and one for Data files).

Im thinking i could get a Dell 1950 Server with lots of RAM and Quad CPUs plus an MD1000 Disk array for storage. Can the VMs all access different arrays on the MD1000 over the same Perc card in the 1950?



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Asked On
2007-10-31 at 21:44:11ID22931609
Tags

vmware

,

md1000

,

dell

Topics

VMware

,

Windows 2003 Server

,

Storage Technology

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Answers

 

by: Jay_Jay70Posted on 2007-10-31 at 23:51:26ID: 20191132

i would be going a bigger server than that...the 1950 is a baby limited to 2 disks....

Take a look at vmware ESX server...this runs at a hardware level and removes the potential of OS cutting out all your servers....You can also assign hardware to each server as it views hardware as a pool, you can have them all on the same array, and just build the servers as you see fit partition wise....I am looking at a similar solution so have been researching this a lot...before you go anywhere, look at ESX

 

by: st_stevePosted on 2007-10-31 at 23:55:42ID: 20191145

Virtualisation is good, but don't forget, you're introducing an abstraction layer into your solution. Because of this, there is now one more layer that can go wrong. Also, you lose performance because some clock cycles are taken up by virtualisation and also house-keeping within VMWare.

Sharing a RAID1 disk for the 3 OSes wouldn't be a good idea, as you will now have 3 systems contending for the same disk reads and writes. VMs are good in test and dev environments, but I wouldn't run them on PROD environments. Until recently, I worked for IBM and they are pushing VMWare like crazy and I have seen many perculiar problems on VM machines than on physical hosts.

If you can afford a beefy physical hardware to run ESX, then just break up the budget and invest in smaller physical servers. The hardware is not expensive these days (I got myself a QuadCore with 4GB RAM - and other components - for Aus$1200 and I'm only using it to browse the Net!)

 

by: st_stevePosted on 2007-10-31 at 23:58:35ID: 20191155

More on the ESX 3 (and also ESX 2.5), Virtual Center and Virtual Console is a nice thing but I have seen many VMs go down because the ESX needed to be rebooted (for many reasons not known to me - I'm a Windoze guy, not a Linux specialist). It might have been system-specific but IMHO, I think you should go with multiple physical servers, rather than a virtual server.

 

by: rindiPosted on 2007-11-01 at 00:47:17ID: 20191262

I'd rather go for a faster raid system, like raid 10, You could use that for the complete system (OS and DATA). Otherwise I agree with jay-jay.

 

by: MarkMichaelPosted on 2007-11-01 at 02:15:08ID: 20191473

I would have reservations putting a VM box out in production, even though 'everyone' is doing it.
If you've set your mind on it I'd be thinking of RAID 1ing each OS (3*2) disks plus one for hotspare for all arrays; it's enough of a performance sapper without introducing disk contention.

 

by: st_stevePosted on 2007-11-01 at 04:18:34ID: 20191886

In my opinion and experience, VMs are good for testing and when something does go wrong, you can just revert back to your good known image. I guess you can do the same thing in PROD environments as well, but it's a risk and there's definitely a performance hit.

 

by: thegewsePosted on 2007-11-01 at 05:02:52ID: 20192081

Thanks for the great comments.

General consensus seems to be that VM for production is an added risk and layer of complexity that it might be best to do without..

St_Steve: I think you highlighted this best.. it is an extra layer of complexity..

Its a hard call though..Cost wise i would have to probably purchase 3 physical servers: Exchange, SQL and File+Print+Domain Controller..

Jay_Jay: I was thinking of a 1950 with a Dell Powervault MD1000 attached via SAS contoller.. this is a disk array capable of holding upto 15 300GB disks.. space wise i would have plenty to play with.
Would a better option be having a RAID 1 array for each OS and then maybe a RAID 1 (2  x 300GB 15K SAS )array for each VM.. Exchange DB, SQL DB and Data.
Then i could also have another RAID 1 array for transaction logs for Exchange and SQL..
Would be expensive to have all of those disks..

Still everyone is saying to virtualise these days...

 

by: rindiPosted on 2007-11-01 at 05:17:50ID: 20192141

No, in my opinion VMWare (at least ESX Server) is no extra risk. It is even better than using stand alone systems as the VM's aren't hardware dependent. If the ESX server goes down you can just move the VM to another ESX server and it'll run. You'll just have to get a powerful, multiprocessor server so that when you run 3 windows servers on it it won't be underpowered.

 

by: Jay_Jay70Posted on 2007-11-01 at 05:50:30ID: 20192320

My turn to now agree with Rindi....the latest version of ESX is extremely reliable, now getting to the point where it is almost more redundant to virtualise due to the ability to mobilise VM's and simply drag them to another server.....two servers and you are almost 100% redundant....unless of course your server room is filled with water, in which case, most companies will have an off site data centre to kick in....I know here I am talking on a large scale, but there is nothing to stop a small organisation taking advantage of the capabilities and doing a very similar path....If i had the money and the go ahead, i would be virtualising my production environment tomorrow....

The NAS device makes more sense :) But, i still dont think you need to outlay that much hardware....sure, exchange runs better when the logs are stored on a seperate array from the the DB and Logs, but unless you are talking thousands of users, having them on a seperate partition is fine....I would struggle to justify the cost of so many disks in your scenario......

I would be looking at either a SAN backend (stay tuned in the next couple of months, DELL are releasing an entry level/priced SAN solution that will rival IBM's for redundancy (It will be the second SAN solution on the market with 100%$ dual redundancy on every component)) and then just controlling the RAID and Partitions per server within vmware....

Though saying above, its all based on if you actually choose to go vmware....and if i were you, i would get a consultant to at least come and advise your options and take you through it, I will be getting a couple to assess my environment and help me choose a path.....

Virtualisation IS the way of the future and now becoming very popular in the market...the results speak for themselves

 

by: arrkerr1024Posted on 2007-11-01 at 07:37:45ID: 20193255

I haven't seen you mention the size of this branch office, or the volume you expect to see on the exchange server and file server.  People tend to way OVER buy hardware for VMs too.

If you can't go with ESX, consider at least something like CentOS and do a bare (and I mean custom, uncheck everything) installation for the host.  Dell's support for most harware is great for RHEL/CentOS so you can still monitor server health.

Can't comment on whether you really need a RAID1 for each VM or not until we see the volume.  A beefy raid card with some good memory might be a lot more cost effective and have the same result on RAID5, depending on the situation.

 

by: rindiPosted on 2007-11-01 at 09:12:48ID: 20194246

I still think raid 10 would be the way to go. Disks aren't that expensive anymore. With raid 10 you get the redundancy of raid 1 and the speed of raid 0, which can be important with SQL and Exchange.

 

by: ericdalyPosted on 2007-11-01 at 13:00:35ID: 20196183

I have implemented SQL/Exchange/Active Directory to name but a few in Vmware ESX . To date I can hold my hands in the air and say I have had no major issues. Performance is great (Once you have planned correctly!) and customers havent come screaming back to me..

My advice..... Move with the times and embrace virtualization. From experience, the people who tell you NOT to run servers as VM's have never actually sat down and used virtualization products such as Vmware.

 

by: thegewsePosted on 2007-11-01 at 14:41:49ID: 20196901

Its great to hear from the wealth of experience above..

I think in the end VMware has it.. im going to get a consultant to look over and tweak my plans.. but a 3 VM solution is pretty attractive!

Points to be split between many good bits of input..

 

by: jasonwilliams74Posted on 2007-11-01 at 14:46:53ID: 20196926

Some things to think about
How many users will be in that location?
How large will Exchange grow?
Your SQL Server. Any idea how large it will be?
Do you anticipate adding any other servers down the road?
What about redundancy and high availability?

I ask these questions because it starts out as just a few things, then grows to more when it was never anticipated to do so. Just something to think about.

ESX server is the way to go. Runs on bare metal and has lots of very enticing features.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you do use multiple servers running ESX, they will need access to the shared storage. I use a mix of iSCSI and NFS and the performance is fantastic.

If you need High availability and maximum uptime, look at two physical servers running ESX with a combination of HA and vmotion.

HTH.


 

by: thegewsePosted on 2007-11-01 at 15:02:05ID: 20197019

Hi Jason,

This is a branch office, so im talking around 15 - 20 users at this stage.. I would anticipate growth of a couple of users per year.. nothing major..

I would like to let all users have an exchange mailbox size of atleast 1GB.
SQL Database wise total DB size wont be more than 3GB.

At this poiint i cant see the need for more than 3 separate servers.

Redundancy and HA is a good question. On physical servers throughout my organisation i currently backup files and databases to tape and have DR software in place to create nightly images of the OS partition which i also send off to tape.

I could do the above on the virtual machines but im guessing VMware must have a better way to backup built in?

Also if i attach a tape drive to the physical server, can i expose that drive to just one VM?

Redundancy wise ill probably rely on being able to setup another server quickly and drop in backups of VMs.. as the site can handle a short outage..





 

by: Jay_Jay70Posted on 2007-11-01 at 15:26:18ID: 20197140

answer is yes, you can expose to just one VM....But this is again where the beaty of a SAN based solution comes in where the Drive can attach direct to the SAN removing and host based backup solutions....that or Double Take or a similar product to replicate the VM's

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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