How to determine hardware for a VMWare project? 2

[davidchardonnet]

Hello,

I would like to know a method to know what kind of hardware i need for a Enterprise VMWare project.
What kind of server, how many processors, how many physical memory, disk storage, how many virtual machines on a physical server...

Do you know where i can find more information about that?

Thank you very much

David

 

[Scotsdude]

Best place to look is

http://www.vmware.com

essentially, ESX server, which is the Enterprise version of VMWare, is certified to run on certain hardware. You can find the list at the vmware website.

it all depends what the project is for. is it consolidation? is it for a specific product? we have several ESX servers here. 2 are funning at the maximum capacity of their storage, but processor and memory are running approximately 60%. I have another ESX box which only runs 4 servers, but the memory is maxed out, and the CPU is quite heavily used as well.

I run all mine on HP Proliant DL380G5 servers. All use local storage, all have 16Gb RAM and at least 2 x Dual Core Xeons running at 1.8Ghz per core. It would probably be more efficient to have the datastore located on a SAN, but I can't convince the boss to splash the cash

------------------------------------------------------
Matt
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I am running two Dell 2950 ESX servers (dual quad core Xeon with 32gb RAM) with a 3.5tb EMC SAN. I am running about 15:1 (15 virtual servers for 1 physical so I think right now I have 28 virtual servers with a few more planned) including 4 SQL DB servers, 3 Linux mail servers, 4 web servers etc.

Our biggest problem is drive space. We are just about at max but we are running just under 50% utilization of the physical servers. Which is good for fail over. We'll add more space (I'd like to get at least 6TB to allow for growth) and another server for HA when we do our budget next year.

The biggest thing you need to remember no matter what brand of server you go with is to keep it all the same architecture (all Intel or all AMD.) For starters get a dual quad core processor (going to 4 physical processors means you'll need 2 ESX licenses)and get as much RAM as you can get, as you can see from my experience we are getting 15 virtual with plenty to spare from our set up. Good luck!

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!