Two ESXi Hosts with all Live Servers.

[johnabraham]

Hi guys

I  have a requirement to simulate an Enterprise level network as far as  possible, with two ESXi5 Hosts & on those I want to install all OS  like Linux(CentOS, Debian), UNIX(Solaris, FreeBSD) & Windows(server  2003, server2008), integrating all those. And on those OS i want to  implement all servers & applications as real time environment, like  Mail server, FTP server, web server, LDAP server, RADIUS server, DHCP,  DNS, AD server, Exchange server, MySQL, SAP etc. I want to make it  heterogeneous network. And i want to implement all the functionality as  far as possible like on ESXi5(FT, Migration, Load Balancing, Clustering,  DirectPath I/O etc), on Linux(RADIUS, LDAP, Mail, web, FTP, DNS, etc),  on Windows(AD, Exchange, etc) with all server replications. And it  should be accessable to the public world.

My 1st system:

CPU: AMD FX-8120 (8 cores, 4.0 GHz)

RAM: 8GBx8(32GB) @ 1866MHz

Mobo: ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 (with IOMMU enabled)

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A99FX_PRO_R20/#specifications

HDD:

Seagate 2TB, 7200RPM, 64MB cache

My 2nd system:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 (8 cores, 4.2 GHz)

RAM: 8GBx8(32GB) @ 1866MHz

Mobo: ASUS M5A97 EVO R2.0 (with IOMMU enabled)

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3Plus/M5A97_EVO_R20/#specifications

HDD:

Seagate 2TB, 7200RPM, 64MB cache

I hope i can run 20 to 25 VMs on each host.

The remaining thing is that i have to buy NIC cards according to the requirements.

How many Ethernet Ports do i need to have for this can anyone tell me?

I  hope you people can guide me how can i do it. I know its very hard to explain  me at once but tell me plz which must i start firstly. after that i'll  keep on implementing step by step discussing with you.

thanks

[a_p_]

RAM: 8GBx8(32GB)

That's an interesting calculation.

Assuming you will be able to install and run ESXi on this mainboard, you won't be able to put much workload on it. Memory and CPU may be ok but think about the disk IOPS you need. It's not only the capacity of a HDD that matters , it's also it's throughput. For the scenario you describe, I'd guess you should consider a hardware RAID (1 or 5) with at least 5 disks (SAS 15k). In addition to this, some of the features you mentioned are only possible in a cluster with shared storage.

André

[johnabraham]

oh sorry for that mistake. thats 8GBx4(32GB)

It seems heavy for me now that kind of env. well i wish to implement a testing environment for now to get through all the concepts. Afterward i'll bring it to the production. i guess it needs much investment to go for Server Computers & storage env. & anyway i'll buy servers & disk array if my project goes well.

is there any emulator just to get through the concepts how does it be implemented?

I think in my testing env almost all the servers will be idle mostly because i'll be only the user who'll use this or test this.

so from where must i start my implementation plz guide me?

And the most important thing is that how many ethernet ports do i need, can you plz estimate it?

thanks

[TomHowarth]

What are you doing for storage, and what is your switching capacity, 1GB 10GB??

[johnabraham]

Hi tom

My switching capacity is 1GB, my intention is to provide cloud access to very small clients like schools & to provide online training. so in that case is my hardware sufficient or i've to buy server computers can you tell me plz?

i provide you some links below, can you explain me what it is saying about maintenence & is it really $1,650.00?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1-Year-of-Maintenance-for-EMC-CLARiiON-CX300-CX400-CX500-CX600-CX700-/140614...

what does this means?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-EMC-KTN-STL4-4Gb-Fibre-Channel-Storage-Array-CX-4PDAE-DE-/330860277841?...

can you please find me any cheapest used storage solution for my project?

thanks