vCenter

We are running VC 2.5 U3 and the physical server lease is coming up. I'm thinking about what replacement hardware to get. Currently we have a WIndows 2003 Standard Proliant DL360 2GB RAM and 2 (single core) processors. We support 26 Hosts and ~ 150 VMs. Our database is on seperate physical server (SQL2005).

The next lease will run 3 years so, projecting 70 Hosts and 500 VMs in addition to vCenter upgrades and additional features/ add-ons, I'm thinking I'd stay with the newest model Proliant DL360, dual proc quad core and beef up the memory.

I guess the question is OS.

1. Should I go 2003 Enterprise to access more RAM (or is more than 4GB ovrkill here)

2. What about going 64bit over 32bit OS? Any notable advantages or disadvantages.

Hello.

I would stick with Windows 2003 Standard 32-bit and maybe put 4Gb of memory in it, depending on how much utilization you are currently seeing. The Install Guide says 2Gb is the minimum.

"VirtualCenter 2.x installation is not supported on 64‐bit operating systems." p.18 of the ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter Installation Guide

Good Luck!

1. Should I go 2003 Enterprise to access more RAM (or is more than 4GB ovrkill here)

Unneeded. 4Gb is plenty.

2. What about going 64bit over 32bit OS? Any notable advantages or disadvantages.

Unsupported, 64-bit won't work. The Virtual Center won't install on anything but 32-bit.