vCenter 4.1 on Windows 2003 or 2008R2?

[irobot88]

What are your views on the best platform for vCenter 4.1 (Windows 2003 or 2008R2)?

We'll be migrating from 4.0 on 32-bit Win 2003 to 4.1 on a 64-bit O/S.

Seem to remember some significant arguments for 2003, mainly due to lower footprint (8GB vs 32GB).

Any other arguments for this, performance, best practices etc?

Thanks in advance,

IR88

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

for us, we like to stick with 2008 when possible.  Support for 2003 is coming end of life.  Also a good thing about running W2K8 R2 as a VM is if you need to add CPU/RAM it can be done hot.

2008 is the OS of choice, I would say stick with 2008 R2

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_compatibility_matrix.pdf

[a_p_]

IMO, the footprint is the last thing to look at. I would make a decision depending on the current environment. If you already have Windows 2008 R2 in place you may also already have the additional CAL's you need to purchase along with it. If you only have Windows 2003 in place and don't want to spend the money for the 2008 CALs, stick with Windows 2003. Regading MS support for the Server versions, take a look at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3198

André

[irobot88]

Many thanks both.  Good points re: support, CALs, hot-add etc.

I'll go with Win 2008 R2, as we have R2 Datacenter licenses and sufficient CALs.

Thanks again,

IR88