Setting up vSphere LAB at home

[gujjugujrati420]

Hi,

I am new to VMware and new to this community. I am looking for some help & guidance with setting a lab environment at home. The reason i like to do this as i like to gain some hands on experience with vSphere and other new technologies.

I have once desktop computer that I built in December 2009: Basic specs as follow:

Asus P6X58D Premium Motherboard

Intel i7 920 CPU

12GB of RAM (G. Skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 (6x2GB)

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4670 1GB GDDR3

Enermax EMD625AWT MODU82+ 625W Powe3r Supply

Cool Master HAF922 Mid Tower ATX Case

2 x on board Marve Yukon 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet.

Running Windows 7 Pro.

1 x Linksys Dual band Gigabit Router (WRT320N)

1 x external USB 1T HDD

I have setup one ESX4.0 server and its running in VMware Workstation 6.5.2 build 156735. There are no other VMs that i have built in either in ESX server or in VMware Workstation.

I like to setup at least two or three ESX 4.0 server in VMware Workstation. and then i like to create few VMs that will have vCenter server, DB server, and Domain control, DNS DHCP server and File & Print server., exchange 2007 and may be SharePoint server.

I do not have NAS storage or any other high end SAN or other type of storage. Is there any other way of setting up an shared storage that I can use for all my VMs that i like to setup. I also like to achieve and learn VMotion, VM HA, DRS, Storage VMotion, etc..

Is this possible for me to do all this with what i have?

Thank you,

[brettparlier]

At the link below you can find the minimum requirements for running the vCenter Server you mentioned. I don't think you will have a problem with the amount of storage you have, but I would look closely at the resources required to run the servers and compare it to the amount of memory (in particular) you have. I believe you will be able to accomplish what you are trying to do I would just go about it carefully.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsp40/install/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm#href=c_vc_hw.html&single=...

[Kasraeian]

Hello and welcome to forum

You can install two or three VMware ESX/ESXi in VMware workstation on your system, each of them must have at least 2GB of ram and 2 vCPU which means 6GB RAM and 6 vCPU totally. (I think 2 would be just OK for learning and while you have only one system)

Then you can create the following VMs (1)

VMware vCenter server (2 vCPU, 3GB RAM)

DB server (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM) (2)

DC, DNS, DHCP, File & Print server (1 vCPU, 1GB RAM) (2)

MS Exchange 2007 (??)

MS SharePoint server. (??)

If you want to power on all of them the final result would be some thing like this: 10 vCPU and 11GB RAM (without MS Exchange 2007 and share point).

(1) If you want to run these VMs on the ESX VMs, you must increase the amount of RAM and number of vCPU on each ESX VM. (for example 4 vCPU and 5GB RAM (for each ESX vm)).

(2) As long as it's not operational project and you just want to work and learn, I get the low spec for these items, you can increase them if you need.

For shared storage, you can use NFS feature on Windows Server 2003/2008 as long as NFS is supported by VMware ESX/ESXi.

Also you can use some other software like "[Starwind|http://www.starwindsoftware.com] (free edition have some limitation)", "[Openfiler|http://www.openfiler.com/]" and "[Freenas|http://freenas.org/freenas]".

All of these three can provide you iSCSI which can be used by ESX/ESXi and "Openfiler and Freenas" both can provide you NFS too.

If its possible for you to add one other system (no like this, may be a little cheaper one ) you can move some of your services to the other box (something like Exchange, SharePoint, Storage server) so you will get a better performance and better opportunity for learning.

For using and working on vMotion, HA, DRS and ... you can down the evaluation version of VMware vSphere from VMware site.

I hope it helps a little.

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[ChemaRB]

For shared storage, just use a iSCSI tarjet on Linux. I usually use OpenFiler as virtual iSCSI appliance

[Kasraeian · Accepted solution]

By the way, you can find Openfiler and Freenas as VSA (Virtual Storage Appliance) for VMware so you can import them to your VMware Workstation or VMware ESX/ESXi.

And also you can test "[EMC Celerra VSA|http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/04/new-celerra-vsa.html]" or "[HP Lefthand VSA|http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/vsa/index.html]" which have 60days-trial.

By using EMC Celerra VSA you can work/experience VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager) latter.

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[golddiggie]

I've heard of a lot of people (well, several at least) using the starwind product... Just be aware that you're limited to just TWO concurrent connections to the target(s) while using the free version. If you plan to use more than two VMware servers/hosts, then you'll either need to use the 30 day trial, purchase a license (starts around $400) or use something else.

I'm getting ready to pick up some (older) inexpensive 1U servers to use as SAN's... I'll place starwind on one, and Openfiler on at least one other (depends on how many devices I pick up). The servers have two (onboard) 1Gb NIC's in them. The starwind free is limited to just one NIC (ghetto) so I could end up just using the Openfiler software instead. I'm not in a position to purchase licenses for $400 right now (hence the reason I'm going with this kind of configuration).

I'm planning on picking up at least two to turn into SANs (I have six 1TB drives that I can use inside them, but they only accept up to two in each box). Possibly more, depending on how many are available. I might bring two online, and have a couple more in reserve (powered off) for later (or to sell to others)...

Does anyone that uses starwind know if you can use two of the free licenses, each on it's own box, and manage them both from a seperate system? I'd prefer to still used my regular desktop for the administration, leaving the boxes "headless"... Although, with the dual NIC's in these boxes, I'm probably better off using Openfiler...

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[Kasraeian]

I'm still didn't work with "EMC Celerra VSA", although I had downloaded it but I didn't find the time for it.

Did you try it? does it support more than two concurrent connections?

I would check Starwinds tonight to see if I can run to copy of it in two separate system with free license and would post the result here.

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[golddiggie]

Do post up about starwind... Although, it's limitation to just one NIC is pretty much a deal-breaker for me... I might test with it to compare against Openfiler, but I have a feeling it will lose.

I'm picking up some Dell PowerEdge 850/860 servers tomorrow (fairly local source is unloading a bunch of them)... Need to see how strict the 2GB of RAM requirement is on that... Still, being able to use both of the onboard NIC's in these boxes is important to me. I still have 8 ports open on my Gb switch, so I'm not limited there (looking to get two or three of those PE servers)...

As for the EMC VSA, I'm looking to go with a hardware solution, not a virtual one. using software directly on the hardware makes more sense to me, especially when I plan to populate each of the boxes with 1TB drives (a pair in each)... I have these on hand, so it's not going to cost me anything to use them.

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[Kasraeian]

I'll post the result for sure but I find something interesting (at least for me).

While searching for Microsoft Storage Server 2008, iSCSI target configuration (like this one OR this one) and some other search, I find a comparison chart which compared different iSCSI target software.

Source:

According to this chart, I checked two FREE software (other than Starwind free edition) which have less limitation, "[Nimbus MySAN iSCSI Server Software|http://www.nimbusdata.com/products/mysan.php]" and "[KernSafe iStorage Server|http://www.kernsafe.com/product.aspx?id=5]"

I'll go and check Nimbus MySAN iSCSI Server too, of course after checking Starwind ;).

I would be glad to hear if anyone have any experience with these two Server. thanks.

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[golddiggie]

I'd triple check the information on the sites they mention, since they are very wrong about the starwind free product's "Number of supported concurrent iSCSI connections"... They claim "unlimited" when in reality it's limited to two... I really only care about presenting iSCSI targets/LUNs to my ESX/ESXi 4 environment... I expect to have three 1U boxes at home come tomorrow evening to start messing around with. I just hope they're not too loud...

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[gujjugujrati420]

Thank you all for your replies. I will go through all of your replies and try your suggestions

[Kasraeian]

That's one of the reason I said I would check MySAN iSCSI Server myself (not just trusting the information taken from chart)

As I used Starwind for a while I know this Concurrent and port problem too (we are in the same boot)

If you have small rack for them (I think it would start from 27 for accepting Server) with some sort of cooling for it, may be you can close it's door (seal it) if the fan/cooling don't have noise itself

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[golddiggie]

My rack is only a 4U model (made more for AV hardware than servers, so the depth isn't there)... I do plan on getting a 12-18U rack in the near future. Especially with picking up the new SAN servers. At some point in the future, I'd like to pick up some 2U servers to shift my ESX environment onto. Of course, I also expect to move to a place where I can allocate one room to all things IT/technology and not have to worry about the noise level when trying to have a phone conversation, watching TV, or playing on the xbox 360... I don't even have an option of using a closet, since it's not deep enough, and there's not really any good power close enough to make it work.

Right now a higher priority is getting the SAN solution online. Even if I need to use more than one to get the job done. I do want to use more than one, so that I can also use some of the backup and recovery solutions in the lab. Right now if I want to do something, I need to use my desktop's local storage, or a connected USB drive to perform the backups. Not really what I want to do... The USB device option isn't all that good, since I then need to leave my system powered up while it goes through the processes. I'd rather just have the iSCSI SAN's and my ESXi host running and not worry about it.

I believe the servers I'm picking up tomorrow come with rail kits, so at least I'm ready for when I get a real rack...

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[Kasraeian]

Happy to hear that they may have rail kit and I'm crossing my finger for you to get your Storage Server sooner as it's one of most important thing (at least from my side of view)

I'm actually dealing with to whitebox at home and no storage server yet (using Starwind and NFS), but in near future I've plan to move to some cheap and good server for my works.

Again I'm hope you get your Servers, Storage and Rack sooner.

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Sohrab Kasraeian Fard

[golddiggie]

Thanks....

Just for giggles, I decided to build my target ESX/ESXi host server... With using the iSCSI SAN (so no longer caring about amount of local disk) I can get it for about $3450-$3580 (USD). That's with a pair of E5520 Xeon's, 16GB RAM, four Gb NIC's onboard (TOE ready/enabled) I didn't add any more NIC's since I have two Intel NIC's on hand (plus a spare Broadcom) that could be shifted over (dual and quad port Intel, single on the Broadcom), a single 160GB SATA drive (might yank that and go to a USB thumb/flash drive for ESXi), rack rail kit and such... It's a Dell R710 server (which I'm familiar with, including that processor)... The price is lower with the 3.5" hard drives compared to the 2.5" hard drives. I'm thinking of the 2.5" option, since I have a pair of Seagate Constellation SAS drives on hand... It would be nice to put them to good use... 16GB of RAM (per host) should cover my needs for some time. Especially if I end up with a pair of them. I will need to get another network switch, since I don't have enough ports free to cover the new servers. If I was installing this anywhere else I would go with the redundant power supply option. BUT, since I already have two spare power supplies for that model server (and at the correct power rating) I don't need to. I'll install the additional PSU's once I get the servers.

I'm going to have to watch the dell outlet site once I'm close to being able to get the new hosts. Since my needs have changed, I will be able to get servers without a lot inside them for storage, just as long as they use the correct PSU, and something in line with what I want for a processor.

It's amazing how adding something so simple as a SAN changes the entire configuration needs. Of course, it does help that I'm getting these SAN servers damned cheap. They have no drives in them now, but that doesn't matter since I have drives on hand.

-edit-

Was able to tweak the configuration a little and get it down to just under $2700 per host.

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