Newbie - HELP

[kityo]

Hi,

I'm looking to introduce my company with 21th century wonders - virtualization. Now, problem is that I don't have much of experience with it and I was hoping you guys can guide me on right path!

We do have 8 server. 2DC, Exchange, Sharepoint, Backup, Apps, Shares, SQL. Whole storage data approx 900 GB.

My plan was to go with 2x DELL R710 rack 2CPU (X5670) 16 GB memory, ISCSI broadcom etc connected via ISCSI (Dell PowerConnect 5424 ISCSI switch) to ...one of the following

MD 3200Vi (DSP)

AX4-5 (DSP)

Equalllogic PS4000XV

I think server bid and switch I got right, the problem I have is with choosing right SAN for me. Obviously I don't want to over spec but at the same time I don't want to under spec and regret in future. Can one of you nice gentleman's explain to me what are the major differences between these three SUNs and is there anything else I should consider doing this virtualization project of mine?

Many thanks for all your help!

Mike

[idle-jam]

I would suggest of running vmware capacity planner or windows perfmon no the existing server. in that in place we would know the actual disk iops needed and from there we will be able to suggest the right SAN. without those it would be just a wild guess.

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

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[kityo]

Hi,

correct me if Im wrong but Capacity Planner is not free? Anyways, below hdd IOs of our crucial servers. Many thanks!

DC

http://img137.imageshack.us/i/dcio.png/

Exchange

http://img838.imageshack.us/i/exchangeio.png/

Sharepoint

http://img710.imageshack.us/i/sharepointio.png/

MainShares

http://img232.imageshack.us/i/sharesio.jpg/

SQL

http://img232.imageshack.us/i/sqlio.png/

Mike

[mlubinski]

I would strongly advise to put at least 32GB in each r710. that should be enough to host what you mentioned.

as storage, you can think about this EQL device, or maybe something else (depending on your budget).

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[idle-jam]

Hmm .. You could try Novell Platespin Recon trial, and then from there you can simulate your consolidation scenario.

iDLE-jAM | VCP 2, VCP 3 & VCP 4

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[SeagleEqualSeag]

Some friendly suggestions. 16GB is not enough for an ESX server. You will run out of memory while still having lots of CPU reserved.

And make sure your intel/amd CPU support VMWare features as EVC...

[AndreTheGiant]

correct me if Im wrong but Capacity Planner is not free?

If free for authorized partner.

But if you have few servers, you can simple try to evaluate the RAM usage of them.

Depending on the required RAM, 16 GB could work, but I suggest to put more RAM (24, 32 or 48 GB).

Note also that, depending of the type of hardware, there are some RAM size better than others...

Also spend some time on the storage, to choose one that can give you enough IOPS.

Andre

[kityo]

I would susppect that high end Xenon X5670 would support EVC....

As far for memory DC currently running 1 GB on core W2k8 R2 with no problem, SQL 4, APPS 2, Exchange 8, Sharepoint 2, Shares and Backup 2 which gives me in total of 24 GB, 12 per server with 4 GB left. We have only 500 Mailboxes so exchange memory is an overkill anyway, looking perfmon Exchange is running on max 5 peak time. But maybe you are right, whole idea of virtualisation is to reduce the downtime, obviously if one physical server will fail it would be good to use vmotion. With 4 gb left per server it may be difficult Thanks for suggestions!

Mike

[mlubinski · Accepted solution]

yep, you are correct, these CPUs will be very good, even you should be fine with lowest HT CPU like 5520 for r710. And in your scenario you should have this 32 GB as:

1. there is ESX memory overhead

2.you should have on one host (if you plan to have only 2 esx hosts) enough memory to handle ALL your VMs in case one server crashes

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[kityo]

Thanks for all your help!