More RAM. As much as the hosts can hold. Lots of NICs. You will eventually want to isolate traffic and the more NICs you have the easier it will be. Architect storage carefully. Disk I/O, being the slowest link in the chain, can really put you behind the 8-ball. Leave room for test environments.
Why so much for Exch/AD? Are you having a vendor do that or are you doing it? I've done a bunch of those. They're not that complex... *********************** Charlie Kaiser [email protected] Kingman, AZ *********************** -----Original Message----- From: David Mazzaccaro [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 12:36 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: moving to virtual Greetings, Getting very close to moving into the VM world, and have a couple of questions. 1) I am trying to figure out if I should go with 8 core or 6 core processors in my 3 hosts for my upcoming VMware environment. The price is about double. And I'm not sure I need 8 cores. The layout that has been quoted is as follows: 3 hosts connected to a PS4100XV SAN running VMware Essentials Plus Kit. The host servers I am looking at are either: HP DL360 G8 2x IntelR XeonR E5-2640 (6 core, 2.50 GHz, 15MB, 95W) $5356 each HP DL360 G8 2x IntelR XeonR E5-2690 (8 core, 2.90 GHz, 20MB, 135W) $10,061 each I currently have 8 physical servers (Win2003, E2003, Citrix 4.0) that we will be P2V'd. After I P2V the servers, the plan is to begin creating new Windows 2008 R2 VMs and migrating each server's role (2008R2 domain, Exchange 2010, and Citrix XenApp 6.5). I want enough power to be able to run my existing 8 servers in a virtual environment and migrate them to AD2008/E2010/XenApp as well as leave some room for testing and growth. 2 of the vendors said 6 core is fine, another vendor is quoting 8 core processors. 2) The quotes I have for the "services" part of this are: $40,000 ($12k for AD/Exch, $8k for XenApp 20k for VMware) $38,000 (not itemized) $28,000 ($11k for AD/Ex, $6k XenApp, $11k for VM) Do these sound legit? I have ~190 users if that helps. I really think 28k is either too aggressive or simply not realistic. This is the same vendor who quoted me (3) single processor servers, so I have to go back to them and tell them I want dual proc. 3) For the SAN, I have 2 options: PS4100XV (12 600GB 15k SAS) $23,000 NetApp FAS2240 (12 600GB 10k SAS) $22,000 I have 2 vendors pushing the PS4100XV, and the other pushing the NetApp. >From what I have been told, I'll get better IOPS w/ the 15k drives in the Equalogic. And fuller feature set. Any one w/ experiences w/ either of these models want to add their $.02? This is a completely new world for me, so any help is appreciated! . ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
