Virtualization

Can you tell us anymore about the kind of use the file server will get?  is it only for user profiles or ???

AD, DHCP, DNS - all these roles are one server.

You would want another server for AD (two DCs is a good idea).

WSUS and File Server for 3,000 users, you would need some suitable memory for this.

So, yes in thoery, one host, but it would be practical, becuse you would want some resilience for the DCs, you wouldn't want all the DCs on one single server.

Memory is normally the bottle neck, and we work, on 6-8GB per core.

Danm66,

File server is just storage for users documents...

hanccocka,

Does this 6-8GB per core applies to WSUS and File Server too? You said I would need a suitable memory...
Well, if you said yes in theory, so I cant do in practice....
I told you that I would have 2 Power Edge R900 with the same configuration exactly for this redundacy so is this applicable? =)

The memory guide we go by, is for the Host server.

So with 4 Quad Core Processors, 16 Cores x 6-8 = 96 - 128GB in the Host server.

Now if I was designing such a system, I would use such a large host, because you pay a heft price for Quad Core Servers, and they don't scale uniformly. What I mean by that is, if you managed to get 48 VMs on 2 Processors, it's not double, when you have a Quad.

So the smart move, is to purchase, two smaller servers, Dual Processor Quad Core with 64GB in each, and that then meets your DC resilience issue.

However, that does mean double the ESXi license, but if you were using the free lixcense there's no cost.

That also benefits you SAN, because you connect both Servers to the SAN, and although you need licenses for vMotion, HA, DRS. Without them, if one server broke, you could easily add the other servers to the Host Inventory, and get them up and running very quickly.

You need a hole lot of server for 3000 user
we have a HP ml350 G6 for 100 users and this server has 128 gb of memory.
Of course we have overhead, but the server does exactly the same you won't to do

that should have read

"I would not use such a large host....."

Personally I wouldn't use a Windows File Server, to Server 3,000 users, I would use a NAS (SAN), with CIFs. e.g. NetApp Filer FA3200 series (dual heads).

for file serving for that number of users, I would probably skip using a VM disk as the storage and go with something like a NetApp with CIFS enabled that you setup within DFS.  If you do that, then you can skip the overhead of file serving through the virtual servers and your 2 host environment would be more than enough to handle the load of all of the remaining servers.

lol hanccocka beat me to the punch by a minute again!  >)

Alte17,

In my company (50 users in one office and 35 in another), they ran a HP DL 380 G4 each with nothing more than 4GB ram and it is running very good o.O

hanccocka,

I didnt understand the part: if you managed to get 48 VMs on 2 Processors, it's not double, when you have a Quad.
BTW I checked at the prices and looks like a 4 quad core will cost more ~U$ 2,100 dollars. Buying 2 quad cores will cost much more and I wont be using a free license for VMware.
Suppose I would be using 2 quad cores like you told me, where WSUS and FS would fit? Did you understand the part I told that I would be "mirroring" two 4 quad cores servers for redundancy? Is it not enough or a bad solution?
About the Windows File Server - NAS, well I would have to read about that you wrote because I am kinda young and I dont have all this knowledge...=/

Okay, let me try and explain. Memory is often the bottleneck on VMware Host Servers, not CPU.

Windows by nature require memory, newer Windows 64 bit Operating systems, minimum requirements are often 4GB.

However, I also know some organisation, that run very small infrastructure, and use DHCP, DC, WINS and use 512MB for Windows 2003 Servers.

What I mean is, the bottleneck in larger servers, the memory bus, data bus, disk i/o, networks start to have bottlenecks. So it's not necessarily true, that 48 servers on 2 Processors, if you purchase a 4 processor machine, you can double the number of servers.

To get back to your question:-

"My question is: Can I use a Dell Power Edge R900 (using 4 quad core) as ESXi host and virtualize AD, DHCP, DNS, WSUS and File Server in a environment with 3000 users or one server is too weak for that?"

AD, DHCP, DNS, WSUS and File Server, 3,000 users - yes, but you would need to provide more than one file server for WSUS and more than 1 File Server for 3,000 concurrent users.

You don't specify how much memory you are going to use in this R900 server.

and if you had two servers, then that would be okay, you could use clustering techniques to spread the requests.

AD, DHCP, DNS, WSUS and File Server, 3,000 users - yes, but you would need to provide more than one file server for WSUS and more than 1 File Server for 3,000 concurrent users.

Hmm I got it! When u say that I have to provide more than one server (for WSUS and FS) in case I would be using a 4 quad core, we are speaking in vservers right?
In the other hand if I use two clustered servers, that would be enough for these services...
Ahh about the memory, I would be using that math you told me (6-8GBs per processor)...

Thanks very much hanccocka! All those informations were very useful! I am closing this question.

Good Luck with the College work, I expect at least 90%!