Virtual Center server installation query 2

[Stevehewitt]

Hi guys,

I'm planning a migration from ESX3 to 3.5 (using VI3) as part of our 3 year hardware refresh we're now doing.

Currently, we have our Virtual Center server setup as a physical box. It's using MSDE locally for the datastore.

We've already had problems with it running out of space (2Gb limit on MSDE), which is crazy as we have a SQL 2005 Server on the network!

However the SQL Server IS a VM Guest....


So my question is what do I do in terms of implementing a new Virtual Center? The server itself will be physicaly, however should I use SQL 2005 Express (4Gb limit) stored on the same physical server, or should I look at using our VM Guest SQL Server 2005 to store the configuration for Virtual Center....?

I've been told that it's recommended to have the DB as a physical server, whilst the Virtual Center server is a VM Guest - however in my case the Virtual Center server is going to have to be physical, and I need to chose to either use SQL 2005 Standard Edition hosted on a VM Guest for my database or to use a local copy of SQL 2005 Express....

Whats your view?

Cheers,




Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[TheLad]

What you have to bear in mind is that if you have a major problem with your virtual infrastructure, you will still need to be able to manage/fix the system via the VI client. If the Virtual DB server is down, you cannot do this.

Personally I would advise that you stick with a physical configuration for your VI server and database. With proper DB maintenance, you should not go over the 4Gb limit (depending on how many hosts and VMs you have of course).

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[Stevehewitt]

It's only 4 hosts and about 25 guests in total so not huge. Good point about the maintenance preventing the DB from getting too big...

Cheers for the feedback



Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

Per VMWare:
Note: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express is intended to be used for small deployments of up to 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines.

You should be fine.

 

[TechyMcSe2k]

VMWare also has a nice SQL database calculator

http://www.vmware.com/support/vi3/doc/vc_db_calculator.xls

Not really for SQL express, but it may be cool to find out the limits.

 

[Stevehewitt]

Cheers for the calculator - nice tip.

Thanks to all. I'll liase with the boss and let him make the final decision as it really depends on how strict we are going to be about scaliability and future expansion I think.

Thanks again,



Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson

 

[Arisap]

Just my two cents: I have run VC on a virtual machine and the performance is terrible. Specifically when trying to bring up performance statistics of hosts or guests. For that reason alone I would stick with VC as physical.

Ari

 

[Stevehewitt]

All,

Thanks for the input. In the end we brought SQL 2005 Workgroup edition - which appears to be like Express but with some more advanced features are no limit on DB size (though 2Gb RAM, 2 CPU's etc.)

That way both the VC Server and DB are physical whilst our actual production SQL Server for applications in the business is virtual still.

Cheers,



Steve.

"They have the internet on computers now!" - Homer Simpson