vegplot
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Virtualisation serversWe've just received three Dell R710 servers each with 24GB RAM and 6x 146GB in RAID6 configuration. Unfortunately, two of these are for a customer but the other is ours, all ours.
We're going to set up server virtualisation using Windows 2008 on each of these servers which will enable us to opitmise our service provision and reduce the number of physical machine in our hosting facility. Our customer is doing a similar thing (well we're doing it for them) but their requirements are less diverse than ours. I've not delved into Hyper V yet so the next week or so is going to be interesting.
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orangepippin
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I've been using HyperV for the last 6 months on my main development workstation, and on one of our hosting servers. The benefits in each case are quite different - for development purposes, it is very easy to setup an old XP or Linux VM where you can test things out without risking your entire workstation. For hosting, it "just works". The only thing to be careful of is that if you have a server failiure, you lose the lot.
Also there are, I think, 2 versions of HyperV. One is effectively installed on a base Win2008 server system, and fits itself "underneath" the primary host O/S. That is a good setup for development systems. However for hosting I think (not 100% sure) there is now a sort of bare-bones installation of HyperV which goes on first, before any O/S installation.
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vegplot
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| orangepippin wrote: | | I've been using HyperV for the last 6 months on my main development workstation, and on one of our hosting servers. The benefits in each case are quite different - for development purposes, it is very easy to setup an old XP or Linux VM where you can test things out without risking your entire workstation. For hosting, it "just works". The only thing to be careful of is that if you have a server failiure, you lose the lot. |
Good pint, we going to cover that by taking regular images of each instance as well as normal backup of system and user data.
| orangepippin wrote: |
Also there are, I think, 2 versions of HyperV. One is effectively installed on a base Win2008 server system, and fits itself "underneath" the primary host O/S. That is a good setup for development systems. However for hosting I think (not 100% sure) there is now a sort of bare-bones installation of HyperV which goes on first, before any O/S installation. |
I'm about to find out 
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no-witty-name
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HyperV is pretty good, I've been using it at our charity for about the past 12 months. Few gotchas with it though, if you are installing Windows 2008 Host (host refers to the install onto the hardware similar to physical environments) then make sure you patch BEFORE adding the HyperV role, Windows 2008 was released with Beta HyperV which does not work right, it was patched after the release and this must be used in the live environment, or use the newly release Windows 2008 inc SP2 disk (of course you should always patch in any case)
The other I have found to my cost recently is in the use of snapshotting. I had been taking the odd snapshot of the servers and then shutting them down and manually doing a windows copy onto a USB drive for archive/backup purposes. However this does not work with snapshot images and you lose all your data back to the original snapshot. It is therefore better if you are moving guest servers to use the Export function
the previous post is correct with the different versions, one is the Core install which you don't need a license for, you do then need licenses for any installed guests, this version has no GUI - I've not used this, tend to buy DataCentre license, you are then legally allowed to install unlimited guest OS's (as a charity we get BIG discounts)
You may need to make some BIOS changes on your physical server - you will need to check the docs for this, otherwise the HyperV role cannot be added
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vegplot
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BIOS changes are made very easily on the Dell server as they provide a nice GUI to do this without the need to go into arcane black magic command line incantations.
You quickly realise that 24GB and 584 GB disc space is still not enough. We're going to replicate this set up on an identical server for additional redundancy.
It's very, very easy but operationally it's going to be more complex but we can keep our machine costs down.
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orangepippin
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| vegplot wrote: | | We're going to replicate this set up on an identical server for additional redundancy. |
Yes, that is essential with VM hosting because in the unlikely event the hardware goes, you lose absolutely everything.
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vegplot
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| orangepippin wrote: | | vegplot wrote: | | We're going to replicate this set up on an identical server for additional redundancy. |
Yes, that is essential with VM hosting because in the unlikely event the hardware goes, you lose absolutely everything. |
A lot of eggs in one fragile basket. Scary thought.
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Emyr
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I've used VirtualBox for testing website designs in different OS/browser combinations, but MySQL doesn't like running on VPS, has a huff when the hypervisor wants the memory back!
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vegplot
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We have no intention of running MySQL, at least not for the foreseeable future.
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Emyr
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Problem avoided
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vegplot
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Of course we could change our mind 
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vegplot
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Having played with Hyper-V and VMWare I've decided on Hyper-V. VMWare is very good and to be honest there is not a great deal to choose between them, except VMWare support for Win2008 is experimental.
I preferred Hyper-V's user interface being easier to use and less technical.
If we were supporting Linux virtualised servers them the choice might have swung the other way due to better support VMWare offers.
Whichever solution virtualisation is going to make my life a whole lot easier.
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jema
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On my new server with XenServer I currently have 8 virtual servers. Only one of which is actually doing anything yet.
But that's fine, it is sitting there solidly working, whilst the other servers are either backups or servers I am in the middle of configuring and hence servers that can be up and down as needed until they are ready
It is so much easier. I can also decide at some point that the servers are being given too much or two little resource and change what they are given in the space of a minute
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Barefoot Andrew
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No experience of HyperV myself; I'd be lost without VMware though. One machine, nice tidy office.
A.
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vegplot
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Virtualisation is great on the desktop as well as BA is says. Forget multi-booting just get a machine with enough memory and horsepower and install as many desktop OS's as you need run them at the same time.
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