Hardware Recommendations (VM Server & Workstation)

[Ecolo]

Hi,

I thought this question would be popular but there was no answer on a search on the keyword "Hardware recommendations".

I would like to use VM Server 1.x and/or Workstation 5.5x to evaluate some development environments composed of Windows 2003, Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005, Sharepoint 2007. I am the only user of these VMs. Most of the time, only one VM will be running. The host OS will be Windows XP and the physical desktop computer has 4 GB of RAM. What are the other hardware or host OS factors which could impact the performance of the VM? I am looking for the best performance / cost ratio, NOT the absolute performance.

More specifically:

- Processor: Would a quad core processor be better than dual or single core? Would the VM run 30% faster on a 3 GHz processor compared to a 2 GHz processor?

- Is one single SATA disk enough (no RAID) ? And more generally, is the disk an important factor?

- Is it OK if the host OS is Vista SP1?

- Current VMWare Workstation is 6.x, what is the main improvement over WS 5.5?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

- Processor: Would a quad core processor be better than dual or single core? Would the VM run 30% faster on a 3 GHz processor compared to a 2 GHz processor?

Quad Core could not hurt....

- Is one single SATA disk enough (no RAID) ? And more generally, is the disk an important factor?

No.... Yes it is a major factor. I have a server with RAID 5 SATA and disk IO is the pits, but its what we have to use for that server.... SCSI or SAS is MUCH MUCH better.

- Is it OK if the host OS is Vista SP1?

Probably but I would not. Vista has huge bloat and will take up a fair amount of memory itself. I run VMware Server under Linux as its cleaner and uses less memory.

- Current VMWare Workstation is 6.x, what is the main improvement over WS 5.5?

Support for Intel-VT chipsets. Snapshots, etc. I would move to Workstation 6 if it was me. There are quite a bit of improvements. Too many to really list.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[aguacero]

For pure testing, definately an XP machine would suffice for yourself.

quad-core will definitely help. As per running %30 faster, I can't clarify that on your behalf. Faster would just help in general.

memory is suffice.

single ata is fine. It's actually faster but you just won't have protection should the hard drive fail.

Vista SP1 I would not recommend due to the overhead Vista puts on the machine. Stick with XP.

Don't know the main improvement with 5.5. I'm currently running 6 on my laptop and desktop it runs nice.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

[Ecolo]

Thank very much for answers. So then I will go with quad core, 4 GB Ram, Host = WinXP (that's our company working environment), and VMWare Workstation 6. As for the disks, it's a little bit more delicate. The cost of 2 SATA disks in RAID 0 configuration (stripping) is marginal. But they make more noise and heat so I will consider this option if it is really necessary.

Providing the host OS is well maintained and disk are defragged correctly. And also that I am the only user of the VM (which make the network requirement less important I guess), can you estimate the percentage of each of these factors that contribute to the overall performance of a VM?

• Processor

• Memory

• Physical Disk

• Host OS

• Others?

Thanks

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Unfortunately we can not make such an estimate without knowing the application. If its a network intensive app that could be the big issue, etc.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[azn2kew]

Well, for testing, I'm a big fan of VMware Workstation 6.0 due to many features that can be utilize. If you have limited with disk space, use Linked cloned features to linked your existing windows 2003/2008 gold image and clone it as it goes. You can group the VMs together and team them as well. I'm running bunch of VMs out of my Dell XPS M1710 with 4GB of RAM 120GB internally but has USB 500GB drive use it for data and external cheap OpenFiler SAN where you really have fully function ESX 3.0.2 environment under VMware workstation 6.0 as well.

I'm been testing Windows 2003/2008 and Exchange 2007, MOSS 2007, SQL 2008 and Oracle VM as well. Trying to get Xen Server to run on it but still having trouble :(.

Unfortunately, your MS servers are new releases and it requires great amount of resources especially memory. I would run 2-3 VMs at once if you really need to have full lab.

1. Domain Controller ->2003/2008: 512MB should be fine.

2. SQL05/08->1024MB should be good.

3. Exchange 2007->512/1024MB should be ok.

4. MOSS 2007->512/1024MB should be okay.

Since you have 4GB dedicated 512/1024MB for your Windows XP host. 3GB left for 3-6 VMs running. I would run 3 VMs simultaneously with 512Mb each should be fine.

Get a free iSCSI/NFS SAN like OpenFiler or FreeNAS even Fedora Core IET as well. Your network should be 1GB switch efficient enough. At least have dua NICs connection for teaming of going through iSCSI traffic.

For VMware Server the ratio is 2->4:1 per core and for ESX 3.5 ratio is 4->8:1 per cores depends on roles and functions of server.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[Ecolo]

Hi Stefan,

Is it Ok to run:

Choice 1: ONE heavy VM, 3 GB RAM dedicated. The VM is loaded with MOSS 2007 + Visual Studio 2008 + SQL Server 2005. (It's a MOSS DEV machine)

Choice 2: TWO VMs. VM1 (1 GB Ram) with SQL Server 2005. VM2 (2 GB Ram) with MOSS 2007 + VS2008. And BTW is the Ram distribution 1GB / 2 GB OK?

Ideally I would prefer choice 1. Because there is only 1 VM to start.

For VMware Server the ratio is 2->4:1 per core and for ESX 3.5 ratio is 4->8:1 per cores depends on roles and functions of server.

What is the meaning of "2->4:1 per core" ? 2 to 4 VM runnable per CPU core? So on a dual core, I could potentially run 4 to 8 VMs?

Talking about processor, does VMWare Workstation 6x or Server 1x really make use of Intel VT instructions

Thanks in advance

[azn2kew · Accepted solution]

As far as I know my laptop has VT enabled, so under VMware Workstation 6.0 when created VMs for ESX 3.0.2 or Oracle VM, Xen Server on top of it, it will enable it and allow you to run it otherwise you wouldn't be able to run any. The ratio per core is between 2-4 for VMware Server and 4-8 for ESX 3.x servers environment and of course depends.

Neither choice should do just fine, but you might want to have bigger hard drives .vmdk for it because it uses alot of spaces when you combine all high end servers. I suppose you need VS 2008 extension plugin to develop your MOSS 2007 environment and by default it is required by Microsoft and every developer should have their own MOSS server like you're trying to do.

I'm curious you don't deal with AD ->domain controller and DNS and suppose you're dealing with locally install server for testing. I think choice 2 is more professional and easier to manage and work with. If you need help let me know via my email anytime. I had same situations for my MOSS developers wanted to have their own lab for VS 2008 plugin so let me know.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Choice 1: ONE heavy VM, 3 GB RAM dedicated. The VM is loaded with MOSS 2007 + Visual Studio 2008 + SQL Server 2005. (It's a MOSS DEV machine)

Choice 2: TWO VMs. VM1 (1 GB Ram) with SQL Server 2005. VM2 (2 GB Ram) with MOSS 2007 + VS2008. And BTW is the Ram distribution 1GB / 2 GB OK?

From personal experience, SQL and VS2008 are both disk intensive, so disk I/O will make a huge difference. I am unsure about MOSS as I do not use it. In this case I would make sure you have a very good disk layer or you will be waiting on the VMs more than anything. For example, the dev db we reun within VMware Server (same for workstation) takes roughly 2x longer to run complex tasks than a physical box. So we spend quite a bit of time waiting for the job to finish. If the Disk I/O is high, then everything takes longer.

Personally I would go for Choice 2. CPU should not be an issue with a quad code but disk will be. I would consider assigning more vCPU to the VMs depending on how the application responds to this. SQL does but if its a light load then its not an issue. More vCPU for VS2008 will not make a difference unfortunately.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[habibalby]

Hi,

If I were you and I have this configuration. I would buy another P.C "WorkStation" or Small Server", run ESX on it and Install OpenFiler or any Free SAN Storage. Then build your Machine.

I think with ESX Server, you would be getting more perforamce rather than VM WKS and VM Server. IN Additional to that you will be playing around ESX for Learning Porposes.

BR,

Habibalby

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Habibalby is correct. ESX will get you better disk IO than using VMware Server or Workstation. However, it is quite a bit more expensive.

Minimally I would invest in 15K RPM SCSI/SAS drives with a very good controller. Make sure the VM/VMs are running on a LUN that is separate from the Workstation OS and you may wish to use multiple LUNs, one for disk intensive 😧 drives (SQL for example) and one for the other drives for the VMs. If you have 10G capability or FC-HBA in your system, you could connect to a NFS/iSCSI NAS device or a SAN device and increase your disk IO throughput as well. This of course depends entirely on the speed of the remote storage.

It really depends on whether or not performance is what you need, or just another dev box or two and you do not care about performance.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[Ecolo]

Thank you very much for all your help. You are right, I plan to set up a MOSS 2007 dev test environment. Active Directory is not a concern. I'll make sure I get plenty of disk space and will try to increase disk I/O by setting a RAID 0 using two SATA disks. I am mainly looking for an acceptable "working" VM dev test environment. Because currently, I have a big VM that includes everything (AD, SQL 2005, MOSS, VS2008) which runs on a laptop having 2 GB. Needless to say, it is very slow.