Server Consolidation (home...)

[ADB100]

Over the past few years I have accumulated several servers at home. Two are specific hardware platforms for Cisco CCM (DL380 & DL320), others are just (big) servers (full list is Compaq ML370, ML330, DL320, DL320-G2, DL380, Dell Poweredge 2650 & 6650....). These are taking up a lot of space and are god-awful noisy.
Anyway after playing with VMWare & MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 for a year or so I decided it would make sense to consolidate the physical servers down to virtual machines on one or two physical servers running either VMWare or MS Hyper-V.
So I have initially got a Dell XPS 435MT (Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM & 2*1TB disks mirrored, 3*10/100/1000 PCI-E NICs). I have tested Vista & Server 2008 64bit and it all works perfectly. I have a few MS Virtual Server images that I need to keep and I can easily migrate these to Hyper-V as I have already tested it. I also think migrating them to VMWare would be easy with the converting tools, however I haven't tried yet?
So the first question is should I go with VMWare (probably ESXi) or Windows Server 2008 & Hyper-V?

One thing that I am struggling with is how to handle my main home server. This is an old (big and noisy..) Compaq ML370 G1 (dual 933MHz P3, 4GB RAM, 2*18GB Mirrored OS drive and 4*72GB RAID data drive). It is running Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise and is my DNS, DHCP, AD, ISA 2006 & main storage (only 205GB though....). I know I could migrate the data and services onto a VM (or split the services over two or more VMs) but is this wise? Are there any performance or functionality issues that are likely to cause me problems? For example I transfer a lot of data to and from the server currently. If this was a VM would I get the same performance? Would it be best with a dedicated NIC? Or should I keep a physical server for this role?

I know its a bit vague but I would be grateful of any advice.

Thanks

Andy

 

[Roadki11]

I would move it all to ESXi. I would make sure ESXi supports whatever I/O device you have in that Dell XPS before i got to carried away. With VMWare virtual switches are a snap to setup. The VM tools are easy to use and intuitive.

RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[58sniper]

I'd move it all to Hyper-V, except for the server containing the PDC emulator role. There are known issues with that role being virtualized because of the way time slicing works in virtualization vs. the PDCe being the time keeper of the domain.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

Thanks Roadki11, thats one answer to the 1st question. From speaking to other people it seems VMWare ESXi is probably a better option than Server 2008 & Hyper-V, but I am keen on keeping it all MS. I played around with Virtual Server 2005 R2 for a long time and was fairly happy with it. It's only recently I have tried VMWare and with ESXi being free it looks a good option for home. There are limitations with the free license though aren't there? - maximum CPU's and memory?

I am still unsure about what to do with my main AD server though and would be nervous migrating this to a VM?

Andy

 

[ADB100]

My current desktop PC at home is a Dell Dimension 4600 (P4 3GHz, 2GB RAM, 320GB IDE). I could upgrade this with memory & HD to replace the 'PDC' but I am a bit worried that the redundancy I currently have with the ML370 won't be available on the Dell. Both have been running for about 3-years problem free but I know if a drive fails in the ML370 I can just swap it out with a spare I have. If a drive fails on the Dell PC then it's gone (I don't think the motherboard supports RAID).
I was considering replacing the ML370 with the Dell PowerEdge 2650 as it is more of a 'natural' upgrade but more powerful and if I get another 146GB drive it has enough storage for the time being (3*146 RAID5). However the 2650 is as (possible even more) noisy than the ML370 which is one of the reasons I want to get rid of them.

I wasn't aware of timing issues with Windows as guest OS's, however I know I had some issues with Linux under MS Virtual Server 2005 and the clock slipping quite badly.

Andy

 

[Roadki11]

There are no limits with ESXi that would affect you in a home network. If i remember the CPU limit is 32 logical CPUs and 256GB RAM. Limits you will run in to are VMWare options like High Availability and VMotion, but with only 1 ESX server you cant use those features anyway. Im not a MS hater by any streach, but i dont understand why anyone would want to run VM's on top of a windows platform, just seems counter productive to me. But opinions vary. VMWare requires far less patching than MS resulting in much less rebooting of the host. I run DC's in VM with no issues. Just want to make sure your NTP is working well so the time doesnt get to far out of wack. Like i said my DC's run fine, always right on time. But it could be an issue thats for sure.

RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[58sniper]

i dont understand why anyone would want to run VM's on top of a windows platform

You don't have to. Hyper-V Server is a bare metal hypervisor. And free.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[ADB100]

My router is a Cisco 877 and is sync'd to three NTP servers on the Internet, my DC is set to sync of this so I have no issues with a reliable NTP source. With MS Virtual Server & Hyper-V I can easily copy the .vhd images around making it easy to back them up. With the Windows version of VMWare I assume this is the same? What about the ESXi barebones version? How do you copy virtual HD images around?

I am also concerned about network and storage performance on the VM's. If for example I decide to move all the roles the current DC is handling (DNS, DHCP, AD & ISA 2006) to two VM's will I have any bottlenecks due to the servers running on virtual hard disks on a hosts physical hard disks? The same question about the NIC performance - if I transfer large files to/from one of the VM's will I see a drop in performance over a physical server?

Thanks for taking the time to answer by the way )

Andy

 

[58sniper]

With a properly configured and equipped server, you shouldn't have any performance degredation. I have virtual hosts that have ~100 guests on them. They run fine.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Roadki11]

I stand by my statement that hyper-v runs on a windows platform. It is installed on a stripped down version of windows 2008 or "core" if you will. I would relent the windows platform argument if you concede its at least installed on DOS because without the GUI windows is just DOS, all be it more robust than the good old days of DOS. I do agree with Pat on the performance aspect. Disk performance should be good unless you are running something that is just a monster I/O hog like a heavily used SQL server or you are doing some hard core video editing/converting. I think any NIC performance degradation would not be noticeable or negligible at worst. As for backups i use vRanger(which isnt free) but you do have other options like Veeam, i havent used it but the company has some interesting products.

http://vmblog.com/archive/2009/02/17/veeam-backup-3-0-for-vmware-first-to-support-free-esxi.aspx

RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[Roadki11]

Sorry after reading through my last post i kind of implied that the Veeam backup was free and its not. They do have some free stuff for ESXi you might find useful. Also i had this bookmarked as interesting, i havent utilized any of the scripts but you could, they do have a free backup solution and tips for turning on services that are not functional on ESXi with the default install.

http://engineering.ucsb.edu/~duonglt/vmware/

RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[ADB100]

With a properly configured and equipped server, you shouldn't have any performance degredation. I have virtual hosts that have ~100 guests on them. They run fine.

By this do you mean you have physical servers with up to a 100 Virtual Machines running? Is this in MS Hyper-V

Andy

 

[58sniper]

Yes

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/