What to Make a VM??

[prutter]

We are in the process of converting to VMware and i have a few questions on what to vitualize and what not to. in our planning we figured (based on our size and what we do) that we can VM just about everything we have. I do have a questin for teh GURUs out there. I would like to know if it's a good idea to convert Sharepoint, Webserver, and Termnal Server to a VM? Just about everything else is a VM now (still testing things prior to production) and i need to know the issuse of converting the others. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Perry

[jpoling · Accepted solution]

What to virtualize really depends a lot on the application, usage, and environment. But in our environment, we are running SharePoint, our main web servers (IIS and Apache), and one terminal server on ESX3. SharePoint is relatively lightly used, but our web servers see a pretty good amount of traffic. The terminal server sees maybe 10-15 concurrent users during heavy periods (so, lightly used as well). They all work well in the virtual environment. The only issues we are running into is performance overall because our consolidation ratio is pretty large (4+ VMs per core).

Jeff

[prutter]

How large is your environment?? We are about 120 users and it seems like we have a similar usage on some servers. Our TS is about 10 - 15 users at the heaviest time and thats only a few months out of the year. The others are also lightly used. Did you create new VM's or did you convert them? Thanks for the reply.

Perry

[dpomeroy]

I don't think you will have any problems with those, except maybe support from Microsoft as they seem to frequently change thier mind on what is supported in a virtual environment. The best thing about virtualizing an existing environment is you can always turn the old hardware back on if the VM doesnt perform the way it should.

Don Pomeroy

VMware Communities User Moderator

[prutter]

I'll bet if it were a MS virtual server they would support it. Thanks for the info. Are there any known issues converting those machines with Converter??

[jjpatel]

We have windows 2000 systems as terminal server with concurrent 10 to 15 users daily as VM. it is running good without any problem. so i guess if you only have 10 to 15 users max. for terminal server then go for it...

regarding your second question... if your system is nt or 2000 then make sure that you have enough registry size . also check that your file systems doesn't have any garbadge files i.e. files with name longer than 255 characters, because it will greatly slow down the convertion process.

besides all these converter process is easy and fast...:8}

[jpoling]

Our environment is about 600 users, but only a small subset of those use the terminal server and SharePoint. The max number of users right now for the terminal server would be about 30. SharePoint is probably between 15-20 concurrent users. Our web servers are much busier since they are our public facing presence. I would need to talk with our web team about number of hits, page loads, etc. The web servers also use a content management system which has a SQL server backend. We do not have any performance issues (at least not related to VMware ESX).

All of the VMs I mention were created from scratch. But I've used Converter successfully with other servers. It works really well for the most part. I've had to manually configure network settings some times. And I did run into a problem trying to converta Dell system that had an OEM version of Windows Server.

from what you posted, you should be fine running the terminal server, sharepoint, etc on ESX.

From the Microsoft support stand point, I've rarely (if ever) called for support on those systems.

Jeff

[Dave_Mishchenko]

I'll bet if it were a MS virtual server they would support it

Yes and no. In part it depends on what version of software you're running. See the link below for Sharepoint support. There are some products not support on MS Virtual Server as well but that list is shrinking (see 2nd link). The 3rd link is regarding MS policy to supporting products on VMware - essentially unless you have a Premier support level contract you would be required to duplicate an issue on physical hardware.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909840

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897614

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615

[prutter]

Jeff,

Thanks for the great post. That is exactly what i was i was looking for. That gives me a little more confidence with this project. I'm new to VMware but i love what i see so far. At this early point in VMware this forum is just as good. Thanks again for teh info!!

Perry

[jpoling]

Not a problem. The communities are a great way to share information and experiences. There are many people far more experienced than me who provide great feedback and information. I've asked many questions and hopefully as I learn more can be a better contributor as well.