bran New VDI Setup

[SirExilon]

Hello, I need soem help getting started.

I want to set up this company with VIEW 3 for their on site Desktops.

Tha qill let them keep older hardware and use newer OS and applications via the Virtual machines.

Pleasetell me if is too soon to jump into a full working enviromet of 25 PC runing on virtual Machines

Here's the Detail:

Clients Virtual PC's planned 25

Local Servers 2 Data File Server and Email Server

Servers Host Financial files runing PeachTree in only 5 PC's Some Client Applications for Machinery control. Word Excel and Outlook and Time Clock (Prety basic )

I need to know:

1 - how many new servers do I need to setup this 25 Virtual PC's

2 - What specs on the servers I need

3- What redundancy should I plan on it?

Thank you for the help. I've been looking into many PDF's and some assume I have this and that installed and some are not clear on specs I need. SO I'm confused.

[Vitaly91]

Could you please provide a little more detail? In order to help you size your servers better, it would be helpful to know how heavy these PCs will be used? What kind of applications users use? Is it just accounting software, email and some Office productivity stuff or are there some heavy database use or, for example, Power Point presentation creations or graphics creation?

Generally, if it is a light use desktops (email, word processing), you can put about 8 VMs per core (being conservative here).

If it is a heavy use desktops (database administration, graphics creation, etc.), you can put about 4 VMs per core.

Considering you have 25 users, lets assume that you could do about 6 VMs per core (average usage case). So I'd say you'd need at least 2 ESX servers with 4 cores each (balance VMs across 2 servers and provide HA and DRS)

Again, this is all very much a guess. A lot depends on usage and applications.

Hope this helps at all.

[SirExilon]

Hi there,

Well, there's no much more than what I said, already.

maybe a couple of them do Power point but there's no Graphics at all.

They connect to a databas in one server but is a small database and just maybe 10 of them

Load is not really big at all. Their main program is web based.

So, I'm planing to deply View 3 but I'm really knew to the Virtual Enviroment. I tested long time ago and never had the needs to have Virtual servers.

I guess the ESX servers can be added as needed right?

If I decide to start with half of them or something like that?

BTW Thank you for your time and knowledge.

[Vitaly91]

Well, if you plan on virtualizing all users and considering you need failover, you need at least 2 ESX servers. I would prefer 3, but at least 2.

Are there any budget limits? Also, what servers do you use now? What are their specs? Maybe it would be possible to virtualize them and re-use them as ESX servers to minimize the investment needed.

Also, do users save their files locally or is it all on file servers that you mentioned?

If you could give us the picture of what you have to work with (money and business needs), we can then try to give a more acurate advice.

[SirExilon]

Well Budget is not too big, but I wanna do it right, Maybe increase them next year and have ahlf the company this one if it goes up too much.

NO about the actual servers NO WAY. They are so old and outdated. Running 2000.

They wanted to wait unti they needed to be replaced. So I'm replacing them and the idea is to get the VDI going so they can still use the old Desktops they have and not change Workstations too.

So 2 ESX and a 3rd one during the year. I can do with having 15 PC's if I have to. and make plans for next year.

2 Quad Core 2Ghz Minimun right?

RAM ?

What else?

What about the Server for the Images Storage?

[Vitaly91 · Accepted solution]

Yes. 2 ESX servers to start then. I would say for them, at least 2 quad-core CPUs each.

If you will allocate 1GB of RAM to each desktop, you would need 25GB. However, since VMware has over-subscription feature, you may be able to get away with about 8 GB of RAM in each ESX server and host 12 VMs per server.

It may get tight if one of the ESX servers goes down. So it's your call if you want to put a bit more RAM in ESX servers above 8.

Storage is critical. You should look into a cheap iSCSI or, possibly, a NAS solution. You will want to setup vmotion, so it must be something decent.

NICs - if you can, I'd recommend at least 4 ports. You can do it whichever way - dual port NIC plus built in ports or 2 single port NICs plus built-in, etc.

Of course you will need to buy licenses, but you know that already.

Hope this helps to get you going.

[SirExilon]

Hey man Thanks it really does help.

I'll look into what I understand from all of it and draw my pre config tomorrow.

I'm almost possitive I will have another answer, since I want to be sure before I make decisions.

Some times might sound dumb but I prefer to make an extra question than make a mess when I'm getting into something I'm a roockie at it.

Again thanks. I'll post tomorrow, or Close it with your Solutions.

[SirExilon]

OK I don't know if the VMotion would be a viable Budget solution for them. But do you Think Dell Servers and/or Storage will be up to the Challenge?

My option is IBM, but price is different.

I plan to build up on this, so maybe I can start with a standard package and move some PC's to VM and next year make a phase 2 and implement more VM's and upgrade to the VMotion,

It certanly seams the option to sleep confortable at night not worrying about the storage failling.