Am I Crazy

[ew915]

Hi all,

I dont know too much about VMware. I have a very simple question, being a system administrator for many years, my boss tells me lets use VMware for production system, which they have been already doing so instead of buying new servers.

I am not against the idea, but to run a production system on a Vmware session is not a bright idea.

here is an example of what I am talking about...currently they are running WSUS in a VM session, there are plans to move other services, luckily not directory services related. Maybe symantec nav corp, some other services he may deem not used too frequently.

This box has dual opterons with 2gb of ram and current has 5 vm sessions already.

The question is, is he crazy for wanting to put production systems on a VM session or am I just old fashion. Pros and cons would be great. I want to hear both sides of the story.

Thanks.

Ed

[admin]

We use VMware for many production systems, I can't see any reasons not to virtualise the services you are talking about - including the directory services.

Pros - save money, save time (in both management and deployment), improve service availabilty (remove ties to specific hard, and through features like VMware HA), save rack space, save energy, save the environment!

Cons - Some very heavy load systems may not be suitable for virtualisation (in reality very few), initial learning curve of getting used to Vm management.

What are your reservations about virtualisation?

Sorry but I'm inclined to agree with your boss.

[conyards]

Ed, thanks for the post.

What version of the VMware range are you looking to use? processor speeds would be useful too (I'm guessing Dual core opterons also)...

I wouldn't question the logic behind virtualisation, it is sound with a huge take up from around the globe.

I would however question the wisdom of bringing existing servers into a virtual platform without considered due dilligence and fully understanding the environment being moved across. Again with new servers you need to understand the potential workload of that server.

He isn't crazy, just perhaps going about it slightly the wrong way.

Simon

[ew915]

I have some hesitations mainly because I have not used VMware before, but also because they come from a developer background and they always wanted to do some homegrown stuff instead of the "norm". but whose to say what is the norm these days.

what production systems have you used vmware on? I am an open minded person, is there any good sites or documentation on what can be done with VMware? I've always used vmware with multi os for workstations only, never for server or production servers.

I know its possible but why would i want too use a virtual session for a production server? other than saving money, not having to deal with hardware and saving rack space, is there any other benefits to using vmware?

I've read that its possible to cluster and even setup HA for Vmware, but if it comes down to it, how much money is one saving with all that redundancy?

IMO I rather have two physical servers, but i guess i am old school. anyways more pros and cons would be great. If anyone want to point me in a good direction as well as best practices, hey i am game to learn something about vmware.

thanks.

[doubleH]

everything...AD, File/Print, Exchange, IIS, SQL, Development environemnts (BzTalk)

I am an open minded person, is there any good sites or

documentation on what can be done with VMware?

You found it! These discussion groups are fantastic.

I've always used vmware with multi os for workstations

only, never for server or production servers.

I know its possible but why would i want too use a

virtual session for a production server? other than

saving money, not having to deal with hardware and

saving rack space, is there any other benefits to

using vmware?

You just named many of the great reasons for virtualization. You can add Disaster Recovery (replicate your VMs to offsite SAN and you could be up and running in no time), High Availability, and DRS, Snapshots.

I've read that its possible to cluster and even setup

HA for Vmware, but if it comes down to it, how much

money is one saving with all that redundancy?

IMO I rather have two physical servers, but i guess i

am old school. anyways more pros and cons would be

great. If anyone want to point me in a good direction

as well as best practices, hey i am game to learn

something about vmware.

It's all here. Just use the search feature. If you still can't find what you are looking just post the specific question and someone will likely answer you.

thanks.I have some hesitations mainly because I have not

used VMware before, but also because they come from a

developer background and they always wanted to do

some homegrown stuff instead of the "norm". but whose

to say what is the norm these days.

what production systems have you used vmware on?

[ew915]

So for DR and backing up purposes, how do you back it up? is it like a database where you need a special backup tool, can i just backup all the files to that folder? whats the deal with VM? i am sure if its in use, it has to be like a database and cant be backed up traditionally.

sounds interesting. what are the requirements for each additional VMware instance? I would guess to say its dependant on what the session is running on top of plus a overhead of whatever VMware requires. Is there a limit on the server for how many vm sessions you can have or depends on system resources?

so if i have two active sites lets say, and they are both setup for HA, how do i perform real time replication between the two? can i do it at the vmware session level only? i've used double take and they replicate via the block level, so i am not sure how this would be done. just pondering what kind of DR scenario i can do with vm.

Message was edited by:

ew915

[doubleH · Accepted solution]

So for DR and backing up purposes, how do you back it

up?

for DR it depends on your SAN. Some SANs like EqualLogic have built in tools to auto-replicate LUNS to another storage array say to an off site location. Other SANs like EMC, HP, etc provide this as well, but for an additional cost.

as for backups that are proucts like ESXRanger (http://www.vizioncore.com/esxRangerPro.html), ESXPress (www.esxpress.com), VCB (http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/consolidated_backup.html) which backup the VM's to a single file. From there you could put it to tape and store off site.

is it like a database where you need a special

backup tool, can i just backup all the files to that

folder? whats the deal with VM? i am sure if its in

use, it has to be like a database and cant be backed

up traditionally.

don't fully understand your question.

sounds interesting. what are the requirements for

each additional VMware instance? I would guess to say

its dependant on what the session is running on top

of plus a overhead of whatever VMware requires. Is

there a limit on the server for how many vm sessions

you can have or depends on system resources?

yes it depends what hardware you purchase for the ESX servers. i believe typically you get 3-6 VMs per CPU core.

don't forget to award points to posts that you find helpful

[ew915]

is it possible to blue screen a session of vm, and would it affect any other session? i know if the vm server itself blue screens, thats a different story.

does that ever happen?

how frequently does it need a reboot, whats the maintenance cycle on this if any, monthly? weekly?

I was thinking... in theory, if my company was full of telecommuters and they did not want citrix for one reason or another, can i setup 20 sessions of wxp and have the users rdp into it? just theory... what kind of licensing would be involved, would i need 20xp licenses and office licenses as well, but its on 1 physical box?

i have some users now that have laptops, and when they rdp, into the office, they rdp into a DC! I can't believe that - i just found out. well I am new here, so i am trying to explore every possibility for vmware.

[doubleH]

is it possible to blue screen a session of vm, and

would it affect any other session?

nope.

>i know if the vm

server itself blue screens, thats a different story.

does that ever happen?

haven't happen to me, but maybe some others could chime in.

how frequently does it need a reboot, whats the

maintenance cycle on this if any, monthly? weekly?

ESX is enterprise class. There is no monthly patch cycle like Microsoft. VMware releases patches as they are needed. You look at the release notes and apply the patch if it fits your environment.

I was thinking... in theory, if my company was full

of telecommuters and they did not want citrix for one

reason or another, can i setup 20 sessions of wxp and

have the users rdp into it?

i suppose, would 20 licenses be cheaper than 1 copy of citrix? i think vmware virtual desktop infastructure (VDI) (http://www.vmware.com/products/vdi/) might be worth a look in this case.

just theory... what kind

of licensing would be involved, would i need 20xp

licenses and office licenses as well, but its on 1

physical box?

yepper.

i have some users now that have laptops, and when

they rdp, into the office, they rdp into a DC! I

can't believe that - i just found out. well I am new

here, so i am trying to explore every possibility for

vmware.

yikes!

[sbeaver]

is it possible to blue screen a session of vm, and

would it affect any other session?

Sure it is... Change the SCSI drivers to something else and reboot and check out what happens

[doubleH]

should have been more specific. i was answering to the fact that it won't impact any other vm.

[Ken_Cline]

is it possible to blue screen a session of vm, and

would it affect any other session?

>> nope.

If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if you can blue screen the guest OS installed within a VM - and if so, the answer is yes. A VM is a software abstraction of a physical server, so essentially anything you can do on a physical box (with some limitations), you can do in a VM - including crashing Windows or Linux or whatever.

It is also possible (although very rare) to crash a VM. This is similar to a hardware failure in the physical world - and I've not seen this happen in a very long time.

In either case, crashing the guest OS (the operating system running within a VM), or crashing the VM (the VMM process that supports the VM) will not impact other VMs running on your host.

>i know if the vm

server itself blue screens, thats a different story.

does that ever happen?

>> haven't happen to me, but maybe some others could chime in.

With ESX, this is called a "PSOD" (purple - or pink, depending on your monitor - screen of death). It doesn't happen often, and it's usually caused by an underlying hardware failure. As expected, if the host fails, all the VMs go with it. This is where VMware HA comes into play

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In general, virtualization is being adopted at an astonishing rate. The savings in hardware - and often more importantly, datacenter footprint, power, and cooling - are truly compelling. The overall simplification of the datacenter and effective utilization of HW resources make it a "no-brainer".

[DBman]

BEWARE! VM snapshots are not a good fail-over or DR for SQL Server! Anyone who tells you this does not understand database servers.

null

[Starlionblue]

Get hold of a VMWare rep or partner and ask for references.

\- Every single Fortune 100 company uses VMWare products.

\- More than half of the above use ESX in production.

ESX is proven enterprise class software by now.

[MattG]

Your hesitation is normal. Virtualization changes[/i] the way we System Admins need to think about our jobs and change is difficult.

Most Admins/Managers downplaying ESX's ability to handle production apps like Exchange and SQL are people who haven't taken time to sitdown and understand ESX and how it works.

The thing to remember with performance as it relates to ESX, is that virtualization has overhead, it may not be alot, but it does exist. Furthermore, if you try to max out your ESX resources on a host, virtualization overhead will be even higher and can lead to some performance issues. For example, if you over commit memory or vCPUs then you are creating contention of the virtual resources. This is typically not an issue with the type of low hanging fruit VMs that you describe, but when you start talking about putting a dual vCPU Exchange 2003 VM on a host that is already over commiting CPUs and memory, chances are you will be disappointed.

ESX Pros:

\- Encapsulation of VMs allow for easy full VM backup and movement to dissimilar HW.

\- Hosts can now easily grow with the VM load. If 200 more Exchange users come online, you can easily add another ESX host to the farm and Vmotion the Exchange server to a new host that does not contention issues.

\- Power/Cooling/Costs savings. I created a spreadhseet that compared the power and cooling costs over a 3 year period. I based the numbers on 1 x DL-385 (running 2 x 4Core AMD cpus....which will be available Q3 '07) running 20 VMs versus 20 DL-365s. Obviously you wouldn't run 20 High Perf VMs on the same host....over 3 years the total HW/SW/Power/Cooling cost were $40,000 virtual vs $200,000 physical

\- Rapid deployment of new VMs via templates.

ESX Cons:

\- Need to train Systems Admins and understand the underlying ESX environment. In the past you could hire any yahoo out of tech school and let them install a HP DL server with the Insight Manager tool and be done with it. This approach is not wise with ESX. You need to understand the underlying HW, the SAN, and how ESX handles virtualization. Furthermore, need to understand how ESX handles certain types of VM loads differently.

\- Need to understand performance profiles of physical servers that will be migrated to VM. This is something that doesn't require much planning with physical servers. "OK, I will have 500 Exchange 2003 users on a single server in a site. DL-385 with 2 CPUs and 4GB memory with 8 disks RAID 5'd should be fine". With ESX, monitoring and understanding Windows, ESX, and HW performance is important especially when virtualizing those perf apps.

\- Having to sell the benefits of Virtualization to every System Admin and decision maker over and over until they finally understand that this technology: Works, has real tangible benefits over physical, and IS HERE TO STAY.

-MattG

[simon_l]

To summaries and to quote Douglas Adams, DO PANIC. You can run production applications under VMware ESX. I work for a Govenment company which has very firm beliefs on what can and cannot be done regarding it's application services.

We currently run the following application service on VMware ESX:

1) SQL Databases (25 DB's).

2) Exchange supporting 1700 users.

3) Email Archiving.

4) 40 IIS servers.

5) Application specific Citrix servers.

We currently have 82 applications running as VM's across four 8 way servers.

Provide you alloate enough CPU and Memory resource you should not have a problem. We currently run our ESX servers at 45% maximum, this allows us to host our workload with performance impact minus the loss of an ESX server.

Hope this hepls.

Kind regards

Simon