City Wide Virtualization Project

[SuperDave1971]

Greetings all.

I have been put in charge of a city wide project to move our datacenter to a more centralized location. This challaenge, like all others, is limited to budget constraints, as well as learning more about our options in virtualization. We have probably 90 physical servers in one location that we want to virtualize. We are currently in the process of meeting with vmware about the most viable options yet I would like to get suggestions on what we might need to purchase for our virtual services to be hosted as well as storage space.

Could someone be kind enough to suggest possible configurations that your current business model is using? I am not new to virtualization but I am new to starting from scratch. This project is a BIG one and I figured I would turn to the experts. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. I will be more than happy to supply more detail as needed.

Sincerely,

Dave P.

[Kahonu84]

Aloha,

A breakdown of what you have now would be a good start.

Bill

[azn2kew]

In order to start with virtualization project, it requires great planning and collaboration with storage, network, database and security teams involved in the implementation. I would have VMware VAC or PSO to come in a do a presales analysis of the environment and use VMware Capacity Planner to analyse if your 90 physical servers are good candidate for vmware if not they can plan for details. You should consider the following:

1. Plan your storage vendors and solution (FC, iSCSI, NFS) and disk space requires for all VMs.

2. Types of physical hosts (Dell, HP, IBM, etc..) Blades or rackmount 2U etc..

3. Types of networking involved (FC HBAs, 10GBe or 1GB connections) and Cisco 3750 or HP Procurves etc...

4. Types of database MS SQL or Oracle and redundancy solution

5. Types P2V product to use (VMware P2V Converter, Platespin PowerConvert or Vizioncore vConverter) P2V converter is free and good

6. Plan with your application/server owners to start the conversion and plan for cutover. (remove zombie devices quickly using script tool)

Other than that, you should be fine so hope that get you start to think about the project.

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

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[Texiwill]

Hello,

One companies consolidation workload is different than another so examples while helpful may not give you the full picture of what you require.

azn2kew has some good advice. First you need a Capacity Plan. I.e. of those 90 systems how many ESX hosts do you need? What 'type' will work best? I have seen some companies do 30 to 1 consolidations, others 20 to 1, and still others only 2 to 1. It all depends on workload as well as how many eggs you like in any given basket.

Are you considering redundancy within the same datacenter? Considering a hot-site? Is your hardware new enough you can reuse some? etc.

All this figures into your needs and requirements. But it all starts with what you want. And then what the Capacity Plan tells you.

Plan, then plan some more.

Best regards,

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[SuperDave1971]

Thank you guys so much for your replies. As soon as I get more specs from my superiors, I will let you know. This shoudl be within the week.

I really appreciate your replies and advice. I will update you very shortly on this matter.

-Dave P.

[s1xth]

Where are you located btw? Jw. Can't wait to hear more details about your project.

[azn2kew]

How large is this project? Do you need any help let me know I'm hungry and homeless now should work for food anytime just email me if do!

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

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[s1xth]

Yeah...I wouldnt mind donating some of my time to assisting in this project if its near me....let me know if you need anything, I would love the experience..

[ConstantinV]

Interesting to see your specs...

StarWind Software Developer