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
I don't see a mention about budget. If you have a large (not small) budget I would first give your information below to rackspace (I did that many years ago and I am very happy with the performance, support and cost)
Also, I would check into amazon, M$, Google, etc, other large name cloud providers that I have no experience with.
If you can find a solution that satisfies your risk tolerance, I would put all of this in the cloud, (different cloud servers, maybe from different vendors) except I would have a local backup, copied to DVD on a regular basis. The reason I like DVD is because any computer can read them and it is easy to pull a file(s) out of a zipped file if you need to check something offline. They don't take up much room. We have more than 12 years of weekly backups on DVD which is as close to permanent as you can get for 12 cents each.
On 4/13/2016 6:56 AM, Ken Dibble wrote:
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:
- 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?
- 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.
- 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]
Thank you.
I can't use cloud services because most of the data on the network are subject to HIPAA requirements. HIPAA compliance requires specific agreements with cloud vendors that render them legally and specifically liable for the confidentiality of the data, and those agreements ratchet costs waaaaay up.
Not to mention the fact that I would never turn over control of my data to someone to whom I would then have to pay a monthly fee to access.
I would also guess that if I did this my 25 Mbps internet connection would be inadequate.
As for budget, one of the things I'm trying to understand is what would be a reasonable cost to address all of my concerns and issues. Naturally, I have a well-functioning system right now, and I would not spend ANY money to replace it unless I am convinced that there would be great advantages to doing so.
Ken
I don't see a mention about budget. If you have a large (not small) budget I would first give your information below to rackspace (I did that many years ago and I am very happy with the performance, support and cost)
Also, I would check into amazon, M$, Google, etc, other large name cloud providers that I have no experience with.
If you can find a solution that satisfies your risk tolerance, I would put all of this in the cloud, (different cloud servers, maybe from different vendors) except I would have a local backup, copied to DVD on a regular basis. The reason I like DVD is because any computer can read them and it is easy to pull a file(s) out of a zipped file if you need to check something offline. They don't take up much room. We have more than 12 years of weekly backups on DVD which is as close to permanent as you can get for 12 cents each.
On 4/13/2016 6:56 AM, Ken Dibble wrote:
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:
- 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?
- 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.
- 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]
You may have a lot of bottlenecks that overlap one another.
Moving backup files during day hours is one of the list that caught my eye.
Maybe your best bet is getting a better switch?
Slow sql server systems may be that the server is not configured properly for what you are doing. You stated that you have other SW on same boxes are they slow as well?
You might download the SSMS for express here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=29062 That is for version 2012. I had to get it this morning for one of our plant servers.
On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:40 AM, Ken Dibble krdibble@stny.rr.com wrote:
Thank you.
I can't use cloud services because most of the data on the network are subject to HIPAA requirements. HIPAA compliance requires specific agreements with cloud vendors that render them legally and specifically liable for the confidentiality of the data, and those agreements ratchet costs waaaaay up.
Not to mention the fact that I would never turn over control of my data to someone to whom I would then have to pay a monthly fee to access.
I would also guess that if I did this my 25 Mbps internet connection would be inadequate.
As for budget, one of the things I'm trying to understand is what would be a reasonable cost to address all of my concerns and issues. Naturally, I have a well-functioning system right now, and I would not spend ANY money to replace it unless I am convinced that there would be great advantages to doing so.
Ken
I don't see a mention about budget. If you have a large (not small) budget
I would first give your information below to rackspace (I did that many years ago and I am very happy with the performance, support and cost)
Also, I would check into amazon, M$, Google, etc, other large name cloud providers that I have no experience with.
If you can find a solution that satisfies your risk tolerance, I would put all of this in the cloud, (different cloud servers, maybe from different vendors) except I would have a local backup, copied to DVD on a regular basis. The reason I like DVD is because any computer can read them and it is easy to pull a file(s) out of a zipped file if you need to check something offline. They don't take up much room. We have more than 12 years of weekly backups on DVD which is as close to permanent as you can get for 12 cents each.
On 4/13/2016 6:56 AM, Ken Dibble wrote:
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:
- 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?
- 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.
- 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]
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:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble Sent: 13 April 2016 15:57 To: profox@leafe.com 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]
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 DaveC@flexipol.co.uk 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:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble Sent: 13 April 2016 15:57 To: profox@leafe.com 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:
- 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?
- 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.
- 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]
Probably the only major decision you have to make is on using Hyper-V or VMWare. We started off on VMWare and then when Server 2012 came out and Hyper-V was bundled free of charge we moved to that, which is where we are today. I still like VMWare and the costs have reduced dramatically but it isn't free!!
Dave
-----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:profox-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Ken Dibble Sent: 13 April 2016 15:57 To: profox@leafe.com 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]
It's been suggested that I virtualize my network. To me the advantages are not clear but the risks are.
It really depends... We've been running a VMWare/ESXi host with up to 20 VMs using VMWare Essentials now for almost eight years now, but are slowly moving back to individual VMs.
Advantages of a virtual infrastructure are:
- fail over is easier (not cheaper!) done. All you need is a second server and you can quickly move all machines to the new system. In an emergency, you can even get cheaper desktop grade hardware and things will continue to run albeit slowly, until the replacement hardware is available.
- Backup is a lot simpler and cheaper. You don't need one server license per server. We use VM Explorer which is a heck lot cheaper than Veeam. Unlimited hosts, incremental backups... You can do hourly snapshots with little impact and go back to a previous state almost instantly.
- Combining hardware with low usage of resources.
- Servers that communicate over the network are faster since the integrated software has almost now latency and no bandwidth constraints, if they are running on the same host.
Disadvantages are:
- You really need expensive storage. We are running a RAID array with six disks near-line SAS disks, and that's really the minimum. A single disk has a limited number of write IOPS. If you do not increase that amount by adding either more spindles or using SSD drives, than you will see a significant performance decrease. Also, RAID controller become a lot more important, if you are not using a dedicated SAN. A SAN means 10Gb Ethernet or Fiber Channel, so a lot more expensive.
- More complex. That's the reason for us to move back to individual machines. If something breaks you need someone who knows what they are doing. It'll work in a company that has multiple persons in IT. It doesn't work when the company owner happens to be the IT guy.
- More expensive. You really need server grade hardware. You need redundant pieces of everything. You are limited in choices, because you suddenly have to pay attention to the VMWare or Microsoft compatibility list, otherwise you won't get support.
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Dave Crozier -
Ken Dibble -
Ken McGinnis -
Stephen Russell -
Wollenhaupt, Christof