Hi Steve CPU: VMWare lets you assign GHz per Virtual Server and they won't go over that. So if you have dual 2Ghz CPU's then you safely run 3 Virtual Servers at 1GHz each. You need to keep some core processing capacity available for the host operating system.
RAM: Correct, you assign RAM per Virtual Server and to run more Virtual Servers you need more RAM. Since with VMWare Windows is not your base host you don't need to consider STD versus Enterprise. But VMWare does have three versions to choose from with various Virtual Server feature support in each. For example VMotion is only in the Enterprise edition. SOFTWARE: Again you're correct, each VM is just as if it were a physical server in the eye's of software licenses, even Microsoft still expect a Processor license per Virtual Server even though it's only one physical CPU underneath it all. OTHER: Yes you can run VMWare "farms" and you can have things clustered, the best way to setup VM's is to have consolidated central storage, i.e. a SAN. Then the actual server doing the "front-end" delivery of your services is not the same hardware housing the virtual machine images, means you can "image" and "move" virtual servers from hardware to hardware without shifting the (what could be) 100GB virtual machine image. Enterprise edition VMotion allows you to shift servers from hardware to hardware whilst still in production, I've seen this done and the process dropped 3 packets in the process and no users noticed. Without enterprise edition you can still do cool stuff like move a VM to another server for the sake of performance without a rebuild, but because the VM needs to be offline for imaging you'll have several minutes down time in the process. Cheers Bruce ----------------------------------------- Bruce Trevarthen, CEO ZeroOne (NZ) Limited --- DDI: +64 4 4714444 Mobile: +64 21 567967 ------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: cfaussie@googlegroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Onnis Sent: Friday, 29 June 2007 3:02 p.m. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; cfaussie@googlegroups.com Subject: [cfaussie] Virtual Servers 101 I have posted this in both the water cooler and in cfaussie cause I don't know who's in who :) And it sort of follows on from the whole licensing costs topic and I guess optimizing cf server setups. Couple of questions RE virtual servers CPU --------------- If the CPU maxes out in a virtual server, does it max out in all the others? I mean it is after all the same CPU being used across the virtual servers. RAM --------------- I have played with the VMWare locally and I had to split my ram up into blocks for each VM to use. This means a healthy machine with say 4 gig of ram, to be able to run multiple VMs would have to have, I would say, at least a gig of ram each. Is that right? Then you could run 4 VMs on a single box? So if you wanted more VMs then you would need to get more RAM. Depending on the initial OS your running, you would probably have to upgrade your OS to be able to use the extra RAM you put in as well. Software --------------- How would running VM help with software licensing? You basically run each VM as its own independent OS don't you? So if you had 4 VMs running, that means 4x OS licenses, 4x CF licenses, then FTP servers and any other stuff you need to run on it. Wouldn't that then increase the cost? Or is it for the machine itself? So could I install and run a single CF license on multiple VMs legally without having to purchase a new license for each VM? Not to mention the initial OS license cost for the machine itself. I know you have the advantage of quickly being able to set up new VMs by duplicating an existing one, but at what cost to the server. I wouldn't imagine you could run VM server farms, although that would be good if you could. 2 VMs on a single machine clustered. Mmmmmmm interesting for my feeble mind. Mind you, this whole topic of VMs is out of my realm of experience, so would be great to get some feedback/advise/pointers/corrections on what im saying Steve --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "cfaussie" group. To post to this group, send email to cfaussie@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cfaussie?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
