We did discuss hardware partitioning but came to the point that we didn't
feel comfortable enough with it yet. Too new and too many unknowns. If we
were doing the consolidation a year from now then perhaps. Plus the CPU
limitation was a serious limitation for all but some of our DEV servers and
so not a big enough help.
We are concerned about support. We are in the situation that you, Joe,
described about the vendor. Not putting a whole lot of faith in it. Just
hope we don't need it. Our talks with Microsoft have been a bit more
positive regarding assistance in resolving issues that come up on a VM.
Haven't tested the situation yet though.
I'm not going to be successful arguing to put all DC's on separate physical
machines unless I can prove that the VM solution doesn't work properly.
We're under too much pressure to eliminate physical boxes.
I think the best solution to recommend may be to have the root DCs (just a
couple of them) on physical boxes and to have one DC per datacenter for the
user domain on a physical box and if we need more than one DC in a
datacenter for the user domain then to allow it to go on a VM.
Alternatively, put the role masters and GC's on physical boxes and the rest
on VM's?
Thanks,
Mike Baudino
Roger Seielstad
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DC's on
VMWare
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
tivedir.org
01/14/2004 07:31 AM
Please respond to
ActiveDir
I also wonder if the virtualization platforms are a dead end race. Looking
at the newer 64-bit-for-Windows systems, many of the vendors are building
partitioning into the hardware platform - where speed ceases to be an
issue.
However, that still has the minimum 1 CPU per partition limitation, at this
point.
I wonder if it would be possible to build a hardware level abstraction
layer
that does what the software virtualization platforms do now. I wonder if
that kind of technology is somewhere in the pipeline....
--------------------------------------------------------------
Roger D. Seielstad - MTS MCSE MS-MVP
Sr. Systems Administrator
Inovis Inc.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: joe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 8:20 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DC's on VMWare
>
>
> I am not saying VMWare isn't very cool. I enjoy it immensely. Just
> indicating the limitations for Windows support. I think
> anyone who would
> consider using a product in a production environment in a way
> that isn't in
> the end completely supported by the people with the source
> code are slightly
> insane. However my view of production may be slightly
> different and more
> critical than others.
>
> I would like to see MS actually add VMWare to the HCL
> certification process
> and lists. I think that would be a good way to tackle it and
> probably the
> right way, they certify specific versions and don't even have
> to worry about
> underlying hardware, VMWare has to worry about that. However,
> realistically,
> I don't see it happening. If they hadn't gotten into the
> virtualization
> business I don't think they would have had much choice for
> much longer, but
> they did and some of us just said, duh, about time.
>
> Yes I would like to a very stripped down OS with the guests
> running on it
> like ESX. They may be thinking about that but more likely
> right now they are
> thinking about how closely they can tie it to the guts of a full blown
> Windows OS and make it integral to the core for speed and to
> get away from
> it actually being a separate product. Then after that they
> may look at how
> to strip the host (or someone else - maybe you - will figure
> it out for
> them).
>
>
> joe
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> Roger Seielstad
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 7:54 AM
> To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DC's on VMWare
>
> The big thing that VMWare has going for it, and in my option
> it's a big
> thing, is the way they've built ESX server.
>
> The problem with using Virtual Server (or GSX Server from
> VMWare) is that
> you're still running a full blown OS underneath the virtual
> machines. This
> really causes a problem in which a single OS patch which
> requires a reboot
> means that all your VM servers also need to be rebooted -
> even if they're
> not Windows.
>
> ESX server uses a highly stripped down version of the Linux
> kernel[1], and
> few ancillary services. This architecture should result in
> significantly
> fewer issues in which the virtualization platform
> necessitates downtime. I
> lump the virtualization engine more in the hardware than
> software side of
> things - hardware should not require significant maintenance except in
> break/fix scenarios.
>
> Now, maybe I need to see how hard it is to get Virutal Server
> (or the PC
> equivilent of it) running in WinPE. Maybe that's the fix to all these
> problems. Of course, there are all those pesky licensing
> issues to deal with
> then.....
>
> Roger
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> Roger D. Seielstad - MTS MCSE MS-MVP
> Sr. Systems Administrator
> Inovis Inc.
>
> [1] My thoughts on Linux in general are relatively well
> known[2] [2] I've
> been quoted as saying "BSD Skunks the Penguin" on more than
> one occasion
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: joe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 7:51 PM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] DC's on VMWare
> >
> >
> > Well right off the bat... MS doesn't support Windows on
> VMWARE; it is
> > best effort unless Microsoft can determine that the issue can be
> > reproduced on physical hardware. VMWARE claims this is because of
> > competitive reasons but MS never supported it even before
> they bought
> > the Connectix product.
> >
> > >From what I have heard, our dev guys have actually hit
> > things that they
> > couldn't reproduce.
> >
> > Personally I would run Windows on VMWARE all day in a lab (we
> > do) or at home
> > (I did). I wouldn't even start to consider it for production (never
> > ever ever). If you want to look at virtualization software
> for running
> > Windows, get into the Virtual Server preview program that MS has as
> > obviously the Windows products will be fully supported on that
> > software.
> >
> > IBM and HP both claim full support for Windows on VMWARE.
> > However you have
> > to keep in mind, what can they really do? If there is a
> problem with
> > VMWARE they can send that info back to the vendor. If they find a
> > problem in Windows they can send that back to MS. They have
> no power
> > to really fix anything. I have had a conversation with one
> of the guys
> > at IBM concerning the support model and in the end he said,
> there is
> > no SLA for software support from anyone - no guarantees...
> Great! He
> > mentioned that all of their VMWARE contracts are one offs
> negotiated
> > specifically with the customer at hand. But again, in the end, all
> > they can do is pat your hand and say, we understand, yes that does
> > suck that it doesn't work, but don't worry we sent someone
> a note - if
> > we could fix it ourselves we would, but we can't.
> >
> > I actually stopped using the VMWARE products at home about 3 months
> > ago and switched to the MS products as I figured I might as
> well get
> > used to it.
> >
> >
> > Here are some links worth reading:
> >
> >
> > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;273508
> > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=%2Fservicedesks
> > %2Fbin%2Fkbsea
> > rch.asp%3FArticle%3D320220
> > http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/server/st
> > ory/0,10801,87
> > 185,00.html
> >
> >
> > joe
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> Mike Baudino
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 3:12 PM
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: [ActiveDir] DC's on VMWare
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > All,
> >
> > Server consolidation has us heading towards putting
> production Windows
> > Server 2003 domain controllers on VMWare VMs using ESX. We
> > have not yet
> > deployed AD widely (some business units have it and some
> > don't) but are
> > working on a new design that will handle all business units.
> > Our lab is a
> > combination of physical servers on workstation-class hardware
> > and VMs on
> > VMWare Workstation4 and on ESX.
> >
> > However, our direction for production DC's is VMs on ESX
> > unless we find that
> > it doesn't work properly or well enough. We're going to be
> > testing this in
> > the lab. I've seen recent emails about using VMs to spin off labs.
> > But does anyone have experience running production DC's on
> > VMs or any known
> > "gotcha's" that they're willing to share?
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Mike Baudino
> >
> >
> >
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