New server, how many cpu's should I purchase?

[severt]

Hi,

We're going to purchase a new HP DL380 G8 server.
Now, I can buy this server with 1 CPU or 2. (XEON E5-2630)
Each CPU has 6 cores.

We want to host 3 VM's on this server.

1) Windows Small Business Server 2011 running Exchange 2010 and Exact accounting software as the most critial applications.
2) Windows Server 2008 R2 (or 2012) as a remote desktop server (Terminal Server). Only 2 or 3 people will use this server actively.

3) Just a Windows 2008 R2 server to host Veeam (Backup Software)

Since the Veeam software is licensed per CPU I really like to know if we can handle this all with just one.
The total amount of employees is about 10 people.

Thank you,

Dennis

[a_p_]

I'm pretty sure one processor will be sufficient unless you have power users. Anyway, Unless I'm mistaken Veeam requires a licensed vSphere version (e.g. Essentials). If you plan to use essentials, you may also check for Veeam's Essentials Kit. Unless something changed in licensing, each kit includes licenses for 2 CPUs and costs a lot less than a full CPU license.

André

[Sawkat]

I would say one as well

[sparrowangelste]

two cpus provides for future growth and flexibility in case you wanted to add more servers later

its easier to buy the cpu now and have it then try to get more processing power later.

[severt]

I can safely say that there will not be an increase of VM's in the future.
If we purchase 2 CPU's, we need to purchase more Veeam licenes, perhaps more VMware 5 Essentials licenses.

Another €1600 we can safe if we just go with 1 CPU.

This CPU has 6 cores. How many of them do you normally give to a VM that runs SBS 2011 ?

~Dennis

[a_p_]

If we purchase 2 CPU's, we need to purchase more Veeam licenes, perhaps more VMware 5 Essentials licenses

The vSphere Essentials Kit contains licenses for up to 3 hosts with up to 2 CPU's each as well as a license for vCenter Server to manage these hosts. A Veeam Essentials Kit contains licenses for 2 CPUs. So with these two Kits you already have all licenses you need, as well as the option to add a second CPU to the host - in case you need it.

This CPU has 6 cores. How many of them do you normally give to a VM that runs SBS 2011 ?

With HyperThreading enabled the CPU provides 12 threads. I'd probably start with 2 vCPUs for each of the three VMs. This should work well as he backup server usually "works" at times when the other two server's are idle and vice versa.

André

[adrianych]

I thought I saw something like the application lists

- Exchange Server 2010 on Win 2K8 SBE + Accounting software + "critical applications"

- Terminal Server Win 2K8

- Win 2K8 backup server

A few questions.....would you have spare budget for the following ?

- More Windows Server OSE licenses

- More Windows 7 OSE licenses

- 1 or 2 more servers

- Storage Applicance for backup

To answer your question I think more information is required such as :

- what are your applications running on now

- how do you find the performance on your current system(s) now

- what is the load on your current system(s) now

- have you ever thought of using Cloud services ?

IMHO, for 10 users, in a long run, probably moving to Cloud services for email to probably Google Apps is a better option as you do not need to maintain email servers and probably not even backup for email server, less hassle & less licenses.

IMHO, One usage of Virtualisation (VMware or Hyper-V) is to enable certain benefits to smaller organisations is the ease of hardware upgrades eg, when your staff size grows by 20% or 50% which could mean 2 or 5 more staff, you can easily resize your servers' resources.

Another would be the ease to move "critical" servers to another hardware during hardware maintainence.

I think your main intention is not to buy and keep the 4x or 5x 1U or 2U server hardware and by using virtual servers you only need to buy 1 box.

But whatever you have in-house, you will need a backup solution/license and a backup storage. In some cases like yours, you might even need a backup of the backup or have a copy of the backup in a seperate/remote location.

In an overview, I would propose the following if possible:

1. Move email server for 10 users to the cloud if possible

- You will free up resources required for Exchange

- You will free up resources required for Backup of Exchange Server

- You will free up resources required for Backup of emails

2. Forget about Terminal Services for 3 users.

- Install VMs running Win 7 and have users directly remote in to these VMs or vPCs

3. Do not lump all your applicatiosn such as Exchange, Accounting and "critical" applications into 1 OSE.

- Split applications into different VMs

- If due to cost constrains, use Win7 instead of Wik2K8 if possible

4. Purchase 2x Servers each with 1x Mid-end CPU + 3/4 of the proposed RAM required by all VMs + 3/4 of the total proposed storage required.

- VMware Essentials Plus allows you to vMotion VMs across to the other hardware in case of hardware maintainence (HDD fails)

- But in order to vMotion you must ensure that you have enough RAM + storage to move, although servers will be slow for that 1/2 day or few hours when the applications are squeezed from 2 boxes into 1 box.

5. Do not place backups in the same hardware unless you have the backup Time Window available.

- Consider having a copy of the backup in another storage, but you will need to consider the Time window (backup + copying)

[adrianych]

André Pett wrote:

If we purchase 2 CPU's, we need to purchase more Veeam licenes, perhaps more VMware 5 Essentials licenses

The vSphere Essentials Kit contains licenses for up to 3 hosts with up to 2 CPU's each as well as a license for vCenter Server to manage these hosts. A Veeam Essentials Kit contains licenses for 2 CPUs. So with these two Kits you already have all licenses you need, as well as the option to add a second CPU to the host - in case you need it.

This CPU has 6 cores. How many of them do you normally give to a VM that runs SBS 2011 ?

With HyperThreading enabled the CPU provides 12 threads. I'd probably start with 2 vCPUs for each of the three VMs. This should work well as he backup server usually "works" at times when the other two server's are idle and vice versa.

André

I think you might want to confirm the license again.....

- vSphere Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

- vSphere Essentials Plus kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

Also, do not worry about how many CPUs per OSE, you can tweak that at a later stage. I would focus more about RAM and storage.

- Throw in more RAM

- Use fast storage (15K rpm SAS if possible)

- Use Servers that can boot from SD cards so you do not waste HDD on VMware ESX(i). Eg Dell R620 with RAID 1 SD cards to boot the ESX(i).

[a_p_]

I think you might want to confirm the license again.....

- vSphere Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

- vSphere Essentials Plus kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

Sorry, but that's not correct. Both vSphere Essentials Kits come with vCenter Server for Essentials and 6 CPU licenses

from http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/compare-kits.html

Included Entitlement - 3 servers with up to 2 processors each

André

[adrianych]

André Pett wrote:

I think you might want to confirm the license again.....

- vSphere Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

- vSphere Essentials Plus kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

Sorry, but that's not correct. Both vSphere Essentials Kits come with vCenter Server for Essentials and 6 CPU licenses

from http://www.vmware.com/products/datacenter-virtualization/vsphere/compare-kits.html

Included Entitlement - 3 servers with up to 2 processors each

André

Sorry about that mis-info. But is VMware 5.1 on sale yet ?

The VMware Downloads still having 5.0.

Old scheme

- vSphere 5.0 Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

- vSphere 5.0 Essentials Plus kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

New Scheme

- vSphere 5.1 Essentials kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

- vSphere 5.1 Essentials Plus kit is for up to 3 servers with 1 or 2 CPUs each.

[a_p_]

vSphere 5.0 Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

Where did you find this information? Maybe there's an incorrect reference somewhere on the Internet!?

Both Essentials Kits - ever since they were introduced, i.e. even in version 4.x - always contained 6 CPU licenses.

André

[adrianych]

André Pett wrote:

vSphere 5.0 Essentials kit is for 1 server with 2 CPUs

Where did you find this information? Maybe there's an incorrect reference somewhere on the Internet!?

Both Essentials Kits - ever since they were introduced, i.e. even in version 4.x - always contained 6 CPU licenses.

André

ok....my bad....sorry....

My main idea was that VMware = vMotion, else why use Virtual machines at all, unless very small setup.

So I thought essentials was like free ESX with VMware support and Essential Plus was like for Small Biz Edition.

For the past 3 yrs I had been using only 1x server for 2x branch offices and 3x servers for HQ.

- 2x essentials (one per branch office)

- 1x essentials plus (HQ using 3x blade servers)

Only recently upgraded HQ yo Std AK as increased the HQ to using 8 blades (fully populated blade chassis).

[adrianych]

severt wrote:

Hi,

We're going to purchase a new HP DL380 G8 server.
Now, I can buy this server with 1 CPU or 2. (XEON E5-2630)
Each CPU has 6 cores.

We want to host 3 VM's on this server.

1) Windows Small Business Server 2011 running Exchange 2010 and Exact accounting software as the most critial applications.
2) Windows Server 2008 R2 (or 2012) as a remote desktop server (Terminal Server). Only 2 or 3 people will use this server actively.

3) Just a Windows 2008 R2 server to host Veeam (Backup Software)

Since the Veeam software is licensed per CPU I really like to know if we can handle this all with just one.
The total amount of employees is about 10 people.

Thank you,

Dennis

So Dennis....hows everything so far ?

Are you really considering hosting everything in 1 box and backup into the same box ?

BTW, wats ur average per user mailbox size, expected mailbox growth rate and retention period for user's emails (as in do users keep very old emails) ?