To piggy-back off of what Andy has stated - remember, even if you can't get multiple virtual systems on a physical box -you're getting other intangibles with it. For example, having an SQL app that simply won't allow (for any number of reasons) any other guest on the same physical box, you get to use VMotion/HA/DRS on it to make it much, much more valuable. In my experience, that is priceless. Almost everything can be virtualized.
From: Andy Shook [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 9:52 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Virtualization Questions Roger, Opinions on this will vary, however, my responses. 1. Yes. Centralized storage that all hosts can see and access is a must for Vmotion/HA/DRS as well as backups. Needs and budget will dictate, however, I would have local storage only for the host OS (ESX, etc.) and a SAN for all the VMs\vmdk files. 2. Acceptance of a dedicated VM is growing. I've personally run many, many (police academy joke, if your didn't get it) applications with no issues raided from the vendor, YMMV by vendor 3. Load and amount of data usually dictate this. I've seen every mainstream app virtualized and dedicated server, here in the datacenter. 4. I would say load and functionality. If you have ESX with HA/DRS, then I personally don't care where the VMs are just as long as they are up. I have seen where shops will specify that a DC\GC has to stay on the same host as an Exchange server, as an example. Forget everything you know about server provisioning. In my experience, dedicated servers that were running with dual procs and 4GB of RAM ran wonderfully with a single core and 512MB in a VM environment. This is one of the many, many (see above reference J) beautiful things that virtualization brings to the table. Feel free to ping me off-list if I can help in any way. Shook From: Roger Wright [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 9:30 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Virtualization Questions Taking a look at the potential implementation of virtualization and have several questions: 1. Does/should utilization of a SAN have a direct impact on virtualization decisions? Is it better to go with local or SAN storage? 2. Do vendors who normally require a dedicated server accept a virtualized server as equivalent? 3. What type of servers (DB, Oracle, F&P, etc.) don't make good candidates for virtualization? I would think that SQL/Oracle would probably be least recommended. 4. Is clustering still possible with VMs? 5. What kind of logic determines the best combination of host/guests? IOW, is it recommended to put all F&P servers together on one host, or should it be a combination of F&P, DB, etc.? TIA! Roger Wright Network Administrator Evatone, Inc. 727.572.7076 x388 ET E-mail Signature Logo _____ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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