VMWare ESXi 3.5 for a small office best practice

Question

Hello,
I'm an administrator of a small office.
We have about 20 users.
And have the following HW:

Dell PE2900(Domain Contoller,Exchange,SQL2000):
-Microsoft Small Business Server R2 2003 Std.
-1x Xeon Quad Core E5320 1,86Ghz
-4GB Memory
-8x 73GB SAS 15K rpm (Raid 5)
-Intel 10 Gigabit XF SR Server Adapter (Uplink to Switch)
-Quantum LTO2 Tape Drive 200/400gb

Custom Build(Terminal Server):
-Microsoft Windows Server R2 2003 Std.
-1x Intel Core2Duo 6400 2.13Ghz
-4GB Memory
-1x 250GB
-Intel Gigabit VT Quad Port Server Adapter

Switch: Dell PowerConnect 6248

We have 1 other old server wich wil eventually be removed.
And 2 (Pentium 2) workstations for the control of the airco and an RFID Door Access System.

The Terminal Server is basically a workstation with extra memory.
We have 2 types of users: Sales (all the sales employees have a laptop) and internal (own pc or thin-client)

15 Internal
5 Sales
-----+
Total of ±20 users

We want to get all internal users to the terminal server(s)
The sales users also occasionally log in the terminal server when they are working from home.

I think it best to have 2 terminal servers for fallback or for maintenance.

I would like to buy 1 new server and upgrade the PE2900 with more memory ±16gb
And use ESXi 3.5 on both servers to virtualise:
1x Small Business 2003 Std (exchange,domain controller)
2x Windows 2003/2008 Std (Terminal Servers)
2x Windows XP (Airco, Door Access)
1x Windows 2000 Server (Old Server app)
and maybe a Windows 2003/2008 Server with SQL 2005

What is the best way to store the Virtual machines?
Use the internal harddisks or a separate SAN,NAS or NFS server?

We don't have a big budget so i must be creative.

Thanks!!

Gr. Stephan

MarcusW01 · Answer

also, if going to be virtualized, check if USB devices or RS 232 connectors are needed for virtual machines or ISDN, if so there are very good solutions to virtualize serial connections, USB or ISDN on the market.
Another very cheap and "DO IT YOURSELF" solution might be to virtualize local harddrives as an ISCSI storage via software with tools like STARWIND, OPEN FILER, but it limited and can cause performance issues, support limitations if there are problems, another more expensive solution is called SAN MELODY , full supported of VMWARE worth to take a look and suitable for small enviroments
I recommend to take the oppotunity and call your DELL sales representavie and ask for a small VMWARE solution with a MD 3000I.
The MD 3000I has a fair price and you can define the needed storage, but limited in expansion , snapshots, limited host access and scalability, if want more features like automating snapshots, scalabilty, more performance , more host access, more performance, ask for the Equallogic Ps series like the 5000E or , if too expensive, aks for the AX 4/5I
I hope this helps you for you next steps

Best regards

Neph aka Marcus
If you need more infos how to virtualize serial connections , ISDN or USB, please post

MarcusW01 · Answer

Hello svanheest,

the best solution to store VM`s also depends on VMWARE usage like V-Motion, High availability , if you want to use that features please consider a SAN solution (blocklevel based traffic), NAS (file based) cannot work together with V-Motion, if not not using that features, you can use internal harddrives, but you need to copy and move the copies to another ESX server, with the newest update you can create clones of VM`s without powering down the VM, then be creative, you need to find a scripted solution perfom clones and move them to 2nd ESX server , a possible solution is to implement a virtual center foundation to your enviroment, but you are limited to 5 esx hosts and 50 VM`s, more expensive, but good to go is to use ESX HA version with standard virtual center, but no v-motion to move VM`s automatically on failover or for power savings reasons, the next thing is decide FC or ISCSI ? I recommend on your case an ISCSI solution, ISCSI can handle the database, ESX and windows traffic of 20 users, a good and fair price entry is a MD 3000I, robust, stable, supported with vmware usage, 15 hdds and expandable up to 45 hdds, 2 raid controllers with 4 usable ISCSI ports, you can setup different raidlevels with sata and sas drives, in example 1 raid with 2 sas drives for the databse, 1 raid 5 for files with 3 sata drives and so on, but you cannot mix the sas/sata drives in a raidlevel; the MD has a java based management software for managing the LUN`s, but the MD has no replication possibilites with a 2nd MD 3000I, you can take up to 6 snapshots (needs to be licensed) manually for backup reasons, also remind for esx you will need up to 6 nics , 2 switches for full redundancy, also consider backup. will continue on next post

MarcusW01 · Answer

Hello Svanheest,

just read your answer and got another link, on http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/md3000i/en/index.htm you will find the docs for using MD 3000I, the guides gives you a good picture what the storage can perform and what not and , of course, more exact infos than a datasheet.

I havent got not exact infos about performance issues, most issues were caused by misconfig, not enough RAM, lack of cpu usage, I recommend to use 16 gb with 2 quads per server, make sure the cpus are v-motion compatible, also ask your sales rep to engage a TSR (if the sales rep has got the ressource, he should give you all necessary infos), have one machine ready for virtual center (you can virtualize it, its currently supported or use a backup server an combine it with VC or use a workstation, ask the sales rep and/or the TSR for recomendation), at last another info; about 2 weeks ago Microsoft validated ESX 3.5 which means that with the newest esx 3.5 update 2 exchange, SQL virtualisations on ESX hosts are now supported. one important thing have 6 nics ready in the server, you will need it.

Well al in all, 2 servers with 2 quads like 2,3~2,5 Ghz and 16 gb ram are a very good and solid start into the virtualisation, shared storage, a good backup strategy, I think you wont regret it and makes it easier to you to administer your enviroment

Best regards

Marcus

svanheest · Answer

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for your reply.
I will call the Dell sales department for some info about the MD 3000i.

Another question:
Are there know performance issues with Terminal Server 2003, Exchange 2003 and SQL2000/2005 on ESXi 3.5?

Thanks!

svanheest · Answer

Hi Marcus,

I was planning to use the ESXi (free version) to get started. And use the VMWare Infrastructure Client instead of Virtual Center.
Also because V-Motion is only part of the Enterprise edition of ESXi and thats far over my budget right now.

Do you know if i can use my Tape Drive in a virtual machine?

Thanks!

MarcusW01 · Answer

Hi there,

thats good to know, with the free version of ESX 3I you can test the enterprise options up to 60 days like V-Motion , HA and so on, also you can use the virtual center for 60 days, give em a try *g

Okay, well currently only adaptec controllers are supported of the VMWARE kernel and "virtualizable", no other controllers, but I recommend to not virtualize the tape drive , you limit yourself in case that the esx server is not reachable, a good mix of costs and usage might be to take a look on the foundation version of vmware, it comes with VCB , with these collection of scripts you can create with your backup software a backup solution, i.e. you purchased the md 3000i, got one LUN for the virtual machines and one LUN as file area (sata drives are very suitable for that), with the VCB scripts you can copy the VM`s or parts of them (in VCB a proxy is incldued to be used in a virtual machine), with the scripts you can copy the VMs to the file area, map the file area to the backup server and backup them with your backup software to tape, but be safe to use NTFS on file area, VMFS (the filesystem used with VMWARE cannot be mounted to servers who are running windows as host.
for testing purposes you can use the VCB within the 60 days of testing and if useful , think about to upgrade your free version to foundation level.....
it is also possible to install backup agents in virtual machines (like symantec ones) and collect data to backup server and archive them to tape, I always recommend , if possible, to use the backup to disk to tape method to limit backup windows

best regards

Marcus

shoes3 · Answer

We are about to start testing the virtualization of a set of applications that need both serial and usb connections. The information you have on virtualizing serial or usb would be helpful.

MarcusW01 · Answer

Hello Shoes3,

please take a look on http://www.digi.com/products/usb/anywhereusb.jsp , a nice solution to "virtualize" USB Devices, its fully supported by vmware, technical white paper which can be found at http://www.digi.com/pdf/wp_ESXServer_AnywhereUSB.pdf is very helpful.

to virtualize serial adapters (i.e. to virtualize a phone software server) this link might be helpful http://www.serialgear.com/Industrial-Serial-Adapters-MSD-SRF4X.html , there are some vendors who provide a solution , another example is http://www.networkserial.com/Industrial_Monitoring_Control_usb_serial_serial_to_ethernet.html , there also software solutions available.

Cheers

Marcus

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VMWare ESXi 3.5 for a small office best practice

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