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guitarman75
Contributor
Contributor

VI for several AD Forests; Which SAN Server? ; Which ProLiant Server?

Hello,

is it possible to implement one Virtual Infrastructure for several Active Directory Forests.

Meaning one ESX host contains several Domain Controllers (Forest A, Forest B, Forest C....etc) as guests.

Should work, right? Must be a matter of network configuration.

If this works then we can use one SAN, which is also backed up from one backup server. Backup server will be connected via HBA directly to SAN.

Which SAN Server of HP would you recommend (about 6 TB) ?

We have to implement about 30 virtual Server and 30 virtual Clients. To fullfill scalability we need additional 30 virtual Server.

So I assume we need 90 GB RAM and also 90 CPU if they all work 24/7. But I think only 30 virtual Server and 15 virtual Clients are on all the time. Which and how many HP ProLiant Server would you recommend?

Thanks in advance,

guitarman

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merse
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

  • No problem with the multiple Domain Controllers on the same Virtual Infrastructure, if your subnets are on seperate VLANs you could easily trunk the switch ports and assign portgroups on the Virtual Switch to the individual VLANs to save on the number of physical NICs you will need.

  • Are you doing anything else with the SAN or is it just for the VI? An EVA 4100 gives you the capacity you need and is expandable up to 28Tb but you're best off talking to a SAN person from HP and tell them your requirements.

  • Are your 30 Virtual Servers existing physical servers or are they all being built from scratch? If existing you would benefit from running something like VMware's Capacity Planner to get a picture of the performance. Are they all Domain Controllers?

  • What are the Virtual Clients - are they additional Virtual Servers or do you mean the Virtual Infrastructure Client software run from a workstation to administer the VI?

  • I think your memory estimates are too high, have a read of which explains how memory works in ESX.

Difficult to recommend much without knowing your budget or the anticipated load of your machines. I am currently running 2 x DL380 G5; 2 x Quad Core and 16Gb RAM for a proof of concept system and running 30 servers comfortably as a rough gauge.