WSUS in a virtual machine or not ?

[klimer0]

Hi allase,

I need to deploy a WSUS 3.0 server on my network !! As I try to host every new server in virtual machine hosted on ESX 3.0.2, I'm wondering if WSUS could be virtualized too.

I've more than 10.000 desktops that will be managed by this new WSUS 3.0 server and more than 600 servers.

The project manager wants me to deploy a VM on each site which will host the WSUS service, database and patches repository. I would prefer the repository to be hosted on a NAS on the network and the WSUS service and database in a VM.

Do you have any suggestion for this deployment ?

Do you have any similar experience and can you tell me which architecture you have chosen ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

[khughes]

We p2v'd our WSUS server when we went virtual. We aren't as large as you are but it seems to run fine without any problems or hickups.

• Kyle

[IB_IT]

So if you plan on running a WSUS server at each site, how many (roughly) clients will each WSUS server support?

[klimer0]

Hi

There are almost 5000 desktops in our main site. And something like 2500 desktops on the two other sites.

Regards

[rmacdonaldnai]

I recently installed WSUS 3.0 on a VM and it works great. Granted we are a small shop with about 100 desktops but all is working fine. My only suggestion which you already seem to have in mind is to keep the repository out of the VM's local storage. This has caused our VM's disk usage to baloon.

Rich

[chandlm · Accepted solution]

We currently run WSUS on a VM for probably about 6k clients. However, in our case the SQL database is on a separate shared SQL server (physical)....

[williambishop]

Another site, we're running nearly 5k no issues. 2 years now on virtual.

[klimer0]

Thank you William for your answer.

Can you tell me where you store the Microsoft patches ? (in the VM, on another virtual or physical server) ?

I'm afraid that the network bandwidth consumption on my ESX box will drasticaly increase if I store the patches in the WSUS VM.

Another question : If the patches are stored on a NAS on the network, will the client downlaod the patch directly from the NAS or will the patch be sent to the client through the WSUS VM?

Regards

[williambishop]

I keep them in the VM, and haven't had any issues with performance. Keep in mind that the WSUS server doesn't try to kill itself or the network in distributing the updates. You shouldn't have any issues.