Help with Design for small private cloud

[ahart814]

We are setting up a small private cloud. I would like to speak further about my setup and was hoping you could give a little guidance on design. We are planning on using ESX with VCloud Director. Basically we are going to have the following equipment:

(3) Dell PowerEdge R620 Servers (((x2) Intel Xeon E5-2690 2.9GHz, 256GB Memory w/ (x4) Brocade 10GbE)

(1) Dell Equallogic PS 6110X 28.8TB – Primary VM Hosting

(1) Dell Equallogic PS6110E 96TB – Backup Storage

(2) Brocade VDX 6740-24 Port Ethernet Fabric Switches – For iSCSI Connectivity / Collapsed Core

(2) Dell SonicWALL NSA 4600 Firewalls - 1 Primary / 1 HA

Basically, we are a VMWare VSPP which is VCloud Service Provider and we are going to be using the VCloud Service Provider Bundle Premier which includes:

VMware vCloud® Service Provider Bundle - Premier: The VMware vCloud Premier Service Provider Bundle provides the key components required to deliver an enterprise-class, Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service. Components include: vSphere Enterprise Plus, vCenter Server Standard, vCloud Director (which includes vShield for vCloud Director), vCenter Chargeback, vCloud Networking and Security, vCloud Connector, vCloud Usage Meter and Production Support.

Our primary goal is to create a small private cloud which will enable us to host server VM’s for our customers and some new clients, host VDI, and act as an offsite Veeam replication target. What I would like to discuss with you is how you feel using the equipment that we are starting off with and the software licensing options available to us that I mentioned above, what you feel would be the best way for us to architect our setup and network and VCloud.

We have a pretty good idea for right now but we would love to see what peoples thoughts are.

Thanks!

[cfor]

Lots of ideas   so I will start with something that will get you bad later if you don't think about it...  What will run your management systems (the vcenter,cells, vshield manager, ect)?  Are you looking to use the 3 hosts and make a single cluster for everything?  (If so this can be done, but make sure to use resource pools to split out function) -- The vCloud Architecture kit will suggest you use a different cluster - and that is best, but if you have limited resources you have other options.

[daveshel1]

Five or six servers would be better. Two of your Dell PowerEdge R620 Servers are well suited for your computer cluster. As cfor mentioned, you will ned another pair for your management cluster. They don't need as much RAM as those in the computer cluster. I like having a physical server for the vCenter server - you can use a VM on the management cluster, but it's kind of easy to pull the rug out from under yourself with a virtual vCenter server. As for the database server, this is nice to have physical as well (the database needs to be up and running when the vCenter server boots or the vCenter service wil not start) but can be virtual.

[ahart814]

Cfor,

For now until we have more customers and bandwidth ($$$), we are looking to start off with just the 3 servers.

Would it be possible for us to discuss for a few....it would be greatly appreciated.

[ahart814]

Does someone know if it is possible to control all firewall rules and VPN's for each of my tenants in the cloud by using per se a Sonicwall firewall vs using vshield edge firewall?