ESX or ESXi implementation for small office

[TomRFB]

Hello everyone,

We are a small office with about 80 users and running currently everything on physical machines (about 12). I had planned to start a migration towards the virtual world, however, my plans got stopped cold when I found out that our existing HP iSCSI SAN (MSA1510i) is only supported in a single controller configuration under ESX. In our current physical setup the MSA1510i runs in a dual controller configuration and I wouldn't want to switch to a virtual environment with a central storage without this type of redundancy. I spoke to HP and they have no intentions to add dual controller support under ESX(i). A new SAN is out of the questions due to cost reasons (our MSA1510i is only 18 months old). And without central storage I cannot take advantage of some of the great features ESX has to offer (HA, VM, etc).

However, I still didn't give up on the virtualization idea since I believe it is a great concept from an IT and energy prospective. I had good experience with VMware Server 1.0x and want to take the next step. So what I had planned now is the following:

Start out with a DL380G5 with 6x146SAS, 2 x Dualcore 3GHz, 8GB RAM. Setup 3 VMs to start with (1 application server (FileMakerPro), 1 DC (to replace older hardware - this is one of two DCs we have in this location) and 1 Intranet web server). I realize there is no redundancy in terms of server (host) hardware failure, but none of the VMs would be super critical. I was thinking about ESX Foundation (2 proc license) (Can this later be upgraded to Standard or Enterpise if necessary?)

I would like to be able to add a second ESX(i) host in the future (same model/config) for the purpose of virtualizing other physical servers plus increasing reliability (HA). I looked at Lefthands VSA for a virtual iSCSI appliance based on ESX for creating virtual storage.

Do you have any recommendations that you could share with me? The points important to me are:

- cost

- reliability / redundancy (keeping cost in mind)

- performance

- flexibility and easy of management

Would you recommend ESX?. Are there any drawbacks compared to ESX. Does the host configuration above seem appropriate?

Thank you very much in advance for any information you can give me.

Tom

[java_cat33]

Hi Tom,

Due to the current situation you are in I think what you are proposing sounds OK - at least it gets you into the virtual world.

In regards to Foundation licensing - yes you can upgrade.

For DR - I'd recommend at a minimum to have a backup of the VM's via a backup agent, or even better have images of the VM's via an imaging tool.

There's several areas where redundancy is required...... power to the ESX host(s), networking (multiple nics), disk redundancy in the hosts (RAID) etc.

For performance, running 3 VM's will be fine (based upon what you described in your post) on a local datastore and as long as you have GB networking with redundancy (more than one vmnic - uplink) you should be fine.

Going forward..... since your VM's will already be on a VMFS volume it will be easy to migrate to a SAN and having Virtual Center definitely helps!

Even though initially you will not get the benefits of clustering (DRS, VMotion, HA etc) you will still have the benefits of snapshots etc

If you have an opportunity at present..... buy as much memory as you can.... this is usually the first resource to go!

How many nic's is each ESX host going to have?

When it comes to choosing the ESX hypervisor..... I'd choose ESX with service console (not 3i)..... firstly this is becasuse I've hardly touched 3i, and secondly I install scripts, management agents etc on the service console.

I hope this answers some of your questions?

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

Hello everyone,

We are a small office with about 80 users and running currently everything on physical machines (about 12). I had planned to start a migration towards the virtual world, however, my plans got stopped cold when I found out that our existing HP iSCSI SAN (MSA1510i) is only supported in a single controller configuration under ESX. In our current physical setup the MSA1510i runs in a dual controller configuration and I wouldn't want to switch to a virtual environment with a central storage without this type of redundancy. I spoke to HP and they have no intentions to add dual controller support under ESX(i). A new SAN is out of the questions due to cost reasons (our MSA1510i is only 18 months old). And without central storage I cannot take advantage of some of the great features ESX has to offer (HA, VM, etc).

However, I still didn't give up on the virtualization idea since I believe it is a great concept from an IT and energy prospective. I had good experience with VMware Server 1.0x and want to take the next step. So what I had planned now is the following:

Start out with a DL380G5 with 6x146SAS, 2 x Dualcore 3GHz, 8GB RAM. Setup 3 VMs to start with (1 application server (FileMakerPro), 1 DC (to replace older hardware - this is one of two DCs we have in this location) and 1 Intranet web server). I realize there is no redundancy in terms of server (host) hardware failure, but none of the VMs would be super critical. I was thinking about ESX Foundation (2 proc license) (Can this later be upgraded to Standard or Enterpise if necessary?)

DL380G5 is an excelent candidate as a VM host, make sure you have backups, investigate eXpress or Visioncore for a reasonable solution, or as you are going for ESX Foundation, and installing a full ESX host Fisbu, as this is a free backup solution it does not support direct backup to tape so a intermediate procedure will have to be done.

yes your Foundation licenses can be upgraded to Enterprice later however it may be cheaper longterm to just bite the bullet and buy an enterprise license straight away.

I would like to be able to add a second ESX(i) host in the future (same model/config) for the purpose of virtualizing other physical servers plus increasing reliability (HA). I looked at Lefthands VSA for a virtual iSCSI appliance based on ESX for creating virtual storage.

LeftHand is an excelent choice, especially as it is now also owned by HP :smileygrin: another posibility could be the XVS applicance from xtravirt this is a free VSA the gives two node resiliance.

Do you have any recommendations that you could share with me? The points important to me are:

• cost

use free products until you are ready to invest. see my earlier responses

• reliability / redundancy (keeping cost in mind)

two hosts, with a Virtual Storage Applicance to proved local storage resliance. this is not as fast as FC SAN. iSCSI, or NFS but can provide resliance

• performance

should not be an issue with the machines you are condidering. put the best processors and as much memory as you can afford, it is cheaper to get it at initial purchase time than have o

• flexibility and easy of management

Foundation will give you a Virtual Center server that can manage upto 3 hosts.

Would you recommend ESX?. Are there any drawbacks compared to ESX. Does the host configuration above seem appropriate?

Yes is would recommend ESX, it is a bit of a learning curve for none linux guys however it is not insurmountable and you always have here to ask questions :smileygrin: we on the whole do not bite LOL

Thank you very much in advance for any information you can give me.

Tom

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[TomRFB]

Thank you very much, this was helpful and got me a step closer to my goal

Tom

[TomRFB]

Thank you very much Tom. Your information is very helpful.

Actually, I made a mistake in my last question where I wanted to find out if there are any disadvantages of using ESXi versus ESX. Do you have any opinion on that?

Tom

[java_cat33]

It all comes down to what you are trying to achieve.... check out this matrix here from VMware that compares the products

[patrickds]

With only 1 host, you could even go for the free ESXi version.

You can also still use your iSCSI SAN from within the VMs, with redundancy, like on your physical servers, just not for the system disks.

If you're planning on adding a second host, a foundation kit would seem best.

Just don't wait too long with buying the additional server, or the hardware (especially CPU) might have changed enough to make it incompatible for vmotion.

[TomRFB]

Thank you.

Tom

[TomRFB]

Thank you Patrick. This is a good point regarding the second server.

In terms of accessing the iSCSI SAN directly from the VMs would I be able to use HA with a Standard license (assuming I have a second host) or VM and HA with Enterprise, or are those advanced features only available with boot (ESX) from SAN (and each server having his own separate LUN on the SAN)?

Tom

[Texiwill]

Hello,

In terms of accessing the iSCSI SAN directly from the VMs would I be able to use HA with a Standard license (assuming I have a second host) or VM and HA with Enterprise, or are those advanced features only available with boot (ESX) from SAN (and each server having his own separate LUN on the SAN)?

Boot from iSCSI requires iSCSI-HBAs not the software iSCSI code within ESX. I tend to avoid boot from SAN as it is mutually exclusive with shared disk clusters.

HA requires shared data store, so if you have an iSCSI server then yes HA would work as will VMotion, etc. However, if you just have iSCSI access direct from your VMs, HA would not work in this case.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[TomRFB]

Thank you Edward.

Tom