We have both older IBM blades and newer HP blades to hold our virtualized environment. Roughly 150 + virtual servers. All SQL servers are true iron with 4 16 core CPUs and 256 gig of ram. Sans maintain both virtual systems as well as SQL luns.
Our licenses are probably more than the hardware. We move resources to help any app server if it is under too high a load. On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Dave Crozier <[email protected]> wrote: > Ken, > Seven Virtualised servers on one box take a fairly beefy machine to give > acceptable performance and certainly not a desktop type machine. We started > with about 20 physical servers and we rationalised first (amalgamating > servers where possible) and now have those resulting 7 VM's virtualised on > one HP box using Hyper-V. The VM's run a mixture of server 2012 (hosting > SQL 2012) and server 2008 hosting the dual exchange boxes. Probably your > biggest decision is whether to add a SAN into the mix to hold your data > which is cost effective where you need lots of data store. > > Performance is excellent and the big advantage is that you can easily spin > up a new server in minutes or clone an existing one very easily. > > Biggest problem now is the reliability of the RDS/RDP server which > controls all the Terminal Server sessions which seems to have a mind of > it's own when it comes to going wrong. The problem seems to be with > Microsoft RDS itself but various patches from them have improved the > reliability. > > All in all the transfer to VM status was fairly painless and we did it > over two weekends. > > In addition we have now installed a 3 cluster system with one of the > clusters permanently doing backups of the live VM's using Veeam so we can, > if we wish go back incrementally to any moment in time we wish on any > server - Veeam is really good and we are impressed. > > So, my advice, invest in one good hardware box, bags of memory and > processing power and do it. If your hardware maintenance contract is good > (HP are brilliant in their same day business hardware support) you won't > look back. > > Allocation of resources to the VM's once they are up and running is a > breeze and you can really allocate processing power and memory where it is > needed most. You also don't need clustering, but it adds a nice warm > feeling - and really works well. > > Dave > -----Original Message----- > From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble > Sent: 13 April 2016 15:57 > To: [email protected] > Subject: [NF] Your Experience with Virtualized Networks > > Have any of you had experience working with (rather) large virtualized > networks? > > It's been suggested that I virtualize my network. To me the advantages are > not clear but the risks are. Since I am old-school and highly risk-averse > when it comes to computer technology, I need to hear different perspectives > from people who are not trying to sell me anything. > > We have 7 servers that are candidates for virtualization on a single > hypervisor. > > - Domain controller (currently Linux but may be replaced with Windows) > - Heavily used Linux file server that includes two VFP databases and > serves up a large and growing number of network shares on which many users > depend heavily > - Lightly used Windows Medicaid billing server running software that is > very slow and requires maximum throughput/speed > - Lightly used Windows Accounting server that is running software that is > very slow and requires maximum throughput/speed > - Windows RDP server that has about 15 authorized users; there's slow > growth on this, and it runs separate instances of my VFP application for > some of those users. > - Windows Document management server > - Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Antivirus server (not a Windows server OS) > > The Accounting and Medicaid boxes both have SQL Server Express databases, > and there is client software on the workstations that access it, but the > servers also have additional software installed as well. So it does not > appear to me that this is either fully fat client-thin server or fully > server-hosted software. > > The network has about 130 workstations, connected through four gigabit > switches, and there is moderate growth on that. We have a 25 Mbps > synchronous internet connection and it is heavily used by many > workstations. There are only a couple of network printers; most people have > desktop printers. > > There is a VoIP phone server on a separate physical network but which is > connected to the computer network for remote-access purposes and to enable > use of "switchboard" software on a few workstations. > > There are two other servers on the network that are not candidates for > virtualization: > > - Fax server; has legacy dedicated hardware > - Backup server, which is almost constantly either running scripts to > backup and transfer data from the other servers, to itself and to a > removable drive, or having data fed to it from other servers. > > Total "live" data on the network servers is about 1 TB; we can expect > slow-to-moderate growth on that. > > The risks it seems to me are: > > 1. Fail-over: If the hypervisor goes down, nobody, but nobody, can do any > work. Therefore I need a redundant mirrored system on a separate box, and a > robust mechanism to continuously mirror the data without affecting > performance. Is that really possible? > > 2. What is going to be the real, day-to-day effect of using a virtualized > RDP server in a stack of other virtualized servers, some of which have > heavy intranet traffic? I do not want to be in a situation where I'm told > there are no worries and then, this system is installed, and the thing is > dog-slow. > > 3. In fact, I don't want that to happen in relation to any of the > applications we are using. What is a realistic expectation on this? > > If the reality is that I will be assuming greater risks than I face now > with separate physical servers, and those risks cannot be mitigated > effectively, then are there any countervailing advantages to virtualization > that would be great enough to justify making this change? > > Thanks to all for the benefit of your experience. > > Ken Dibble > www.stic-cil.org > > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/CAJidMY+u5ZkOLeAW=lkhhye9bpxfyhxvvqunkxulaezihxh...@mail.gmail.com ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. 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