ESXi 4.1 Recommendation

[JohnCTP]

I want to consolidate the following, and would like some input/recommendations on resource allocations:

1) Windows Server 2008 R2 - Primary Domain Controller / File Server / Print Server

2) Windows Server 2008 R2 - Secondary Domain Controller / Exchange 2010 - Hub Transport/Client Access/Mailbox

3) Windows Server 2008 x32 - Standalone Application / Java Based - MySQL Backend

4) Windows Server 2008 x32 - Terminal Server / 25 Users Max - General Remote User Environment - Office 2007 - Java Application Frontend

Server Specs:

Dell PowerEdge R710

2 x E5530 Xeon Processor, 2.4GHz 8M Cache, Turbo

16Gb RAM 1333Mhz Dual Ranked RDIMMs

PERC H700 Integrated RAID Controller

8 x 300GB 10K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 6Gbps 2.5in

Storage is a RAID-5 configuration

Thanks

[AntonVZhbankov]

I would definitely recommend to split roles and have dedicated domain controllers without combining DC role with public access role such as file server and Exchange. Since DC require only a little bit of resources it can be easily done.

1 vCPU / 256 MB / 8GB is enough for DC in small network.

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MCSA, MCTS Hyper-V, VCP 3/4, VMware vExpert

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[Jain]

John, what is your main goal ? Availability of the servers or Just consolidation ?

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Jain | VCP4 | Please award points, if you found answer useful

[JohnCTP]

That will require another license, I will consider it.

[JohnCTP]

Availability and Consolidation

I did forget to mention that this is a ~50 user network.

[Josh26]

without combining DC role with public access role such as file server and Exchange. Since DC require only a little bit of resources it can be easily done.

Microsoft strongly recommend against operating an Exchange server as a Domain Controller. There are several reasons this can cause you issues. A file server is debateable since it doesn't really operate any services, but definitely do not operate Exchange and DC on one VM.

Edit: I would also state that for that many users on a terminal server, the RAM limitation of a 32-bit OS will be limiting. I would opt for a 64-bit edition of Windows, and ensure a minimum of 6GB is allocated for this number of users.