Replacement Hardware for 2003 server (x86)
I have a customer who needs to replace the hardware that their 2003 server is running on. For multiple reasons, they cannot upgrade this system to 2012 currently (or anything else for that matter), but they need to be able to run this on a system that supports dual screen functionality. I had thought about P2V'ing it, but to purchase an HP microserver with ESXi free installed on it, with 6GB of ram, just to boot one virtual machine so that they can then remote desktop to, seems messy and excessive...
Does anyone know of any relatively modern kit that will still support 2003, to keep them ticking for a few months, until the system can be replaced with a newer server?
Does anyone know of any relatively modern kit that will still support 2003, to keep them ticking for a few months, until the system can be replaced with a newer server?
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You make a valid point, however the customer has 30 ish servers on multiple vlans. To buy a virtual host that could ultimately cope with that infrastructure would be massively out of budget for this project. It may be that a simple desktop would do for now until their budget allows for a mass system upgrade.
I put the ESXi on a DELL Optiplex780 and it's running the Windows 2003 Server without any issues. Of course it goes without saying that the power in today's workstation are much more capable than servers from a decade ago.
Used server
Look at HP G5 servers
DL360 G5, DL380 G5 etc..
ServerSupply.com has them cheap
Look at HP G5 servers
DL360 G5, DL380 G5 etc..
ServerSupply.com has them cheap
The reason I chose to P2V the Windows 2003 machine is because I didn't want to deal with hardware incompatibilities. Also, it may be less work for you in the future. Due to the age of the O.S, older hardware may be harder and harder to come by and I suggested something more universal.
Finally, virtualizing the W2003 made more sense because it's a production server and I wanted to flexibility to be hardware independent in case if the server break down. All I had to do is throw the VM into another host and be up and running in very short time.