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lost_in_data

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Virtulization Advice - San etc..

Hi,

Been asking questions here recently bout a new network build, but I am being sold with going down the virtulization route.  Would just like some advice on SAN hardware choices and virtulization software choices.

Will be look to run at least 2 servers, want to take advantage of HA. Uptime is critical.

Probably running server 2008.  Running SQL, Exchange, File, Print, AD and RDS (terminal Services)

For HA been told SAN is essential, been looking at different sites, dell, hp, etc etc, not finding much information.  The above platforms will be running in there own enviroments or through EBS + RDS (terminal Services), we are getting very good pricing on licensing microsoft products.  Looking to have some sort of back up via Back Up Exec.

Usage is not going to be heavy, 50 users, I understand Raid configurations and already worked out how they would be configured in the SAN.

Just dont know where to look, few I have looked at seemed to be for high end usage, we're just a small business.  Hearing lots of good things about vsphere and reading bout ess +, vmotion etc... would hyper V suffice for what we need ?

Any suggestions ?
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Paul Solovyovsky
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For SAN take a look at Netapp, EMC, Dell.

The HP's are either low end or high end (MSA2312 or EVA).  The EMC and Dell product a decent product but in my opinion (and my opinion only) Netapp has a lot more features for Netapp than most SANs.

Netapp will do NFS, ISCSI, FC.  With NFS you can dedupe your virtual machines and save around 40% on storage.  It will do CIFS and will act as your file server and will dedupe at around 50-80% on most office files.  The Snapmanager for VI will backup your VMs to the SAN.

You can use Backup Exec agent for VMware to backup to tape if you wish or backup.

Remember than in any virtual environment you usually get less users per server TS and Citrix but you can scale horizontally.

If you're not looking for all the bells and whistles with VMware take a look at vSphere Essentials Plus.  It will give you HA but not items such as vMotion and DRS.
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lost_in_data

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lots of jargon there! but thank you..

Can you (are we allowed) to link me to a item of netapps ? I get bogged down in stupid information pages whenever I access these sites at the moment, I just want to see a product.

I think I misunderstood vmotion i thought that came with ess +
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Paul Solovyovsky
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thanks man !