VMware Cloud Community
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor

Questions regarding adding another Server Farm + VDM pilot project

Hi,

We currently have 2-esx 3.5 servers in a cluster with a physical license server and physical VC(all one box).

Everything is working great at our corporate office.

We would like to replicate the same setup at our our Co-location where all our critical servers are.

That means buying 2 more servers for esx , one more physical server for license+vc.

Do you guys agree that I should buy VC server for the other location?

Lastly I am pilot-projecting the VDM product and have bought the starter kit.

The starter kit includes one ESX server license. My question is does this server end up being added to the VC cluster at corporate office where I'm testing?

0 Kudos
3 Replies
Rob_Bohmann1
Expert
Expert

One reason to add another VC server would be if you need the functionality that VC brings (DRS, etc), but do not have connectivity from your other office (which is unlikely). If you have connectivity and it is fairly reliable and not completely saturated, then you should use your existing VC server.

Even with a minimum VC config (2 procs and 2 GB of ram) you should be able to many more hosts than you describe above. Many large environments use one central VC server and manage hosts in other countries and other continents. At a former shop I had my VC server near Chicago and managed hosts throughout Europe, North America, India and even a couple in Puerto Rico which had a problematic connection. The amount of network bandwidth for most VC activities is minimal. If you will be deploying from tempates in one location to another or cloning between them, then you will probably have problems, but the routine communication between VC and an ESX Host is small.

So check with your network people if the connection is nearing saturation, maybe try copying a few files over to each location at different times of the day to test what kind of performance you see.

The only reason I can see is if you were looking to have both sites available to each other for using SRM for DR/Business Continuity.

Rodos
Expert
Expert

As mentioned if you have a reliable connection to the colo site one VC is most likely going to server you better. The influence here will be how you need/want to cater for a failure in the link or the site where the VC resides. If the colo is more important you may want to move the VC over there. What do you do when the link goes down? Things will still run but no DRS etc, how much does that matter to you? How long can you live without it. Will to DR your VC to the other site or have the bits in place to quickly build a new one. Thinking though these should lead you towards a solution. Its not a big environment, keep it simple and build for the day to day and prepare for the once in a few years event.

Let us know how you get on.

Considering awarding points if this is of use

Rodos {size:10px}{color:gray}Consider the use of the helpful or correct buttons to award points. Blog: http://rodos.haywood.org/{color}{size}
GFFG
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks, for the simplicity of it we may as well have two fully running standard setup's at each location.

The use for SRM or DR is in the future plans.

Thanks!

0 Kudos