I know that newbie posts about hardware can be annoying; hopefully the group won't mind helping me out.
My need is to be able to support a small workgroup: 15 to 20 users; standard office stuff (Office XP, Outlook) and some engineering work (relatively small files being mvoed around (less than 100MB each); no dramatic database or heavy transactional stuff.
In the past, I would have had:
1 x small file and print server running Win 2000 Server and itself being a domain controller. (E.g. a Dell PowerEdge 2650 with a few hundred gigs of fault-tolerant disk, fortified with a redundant power supply, UPS, etc. Backup would be via a SCSI tape drive or autoloader library.)
1 x clone box running Win 2000 Server acting as a 2nd domain controller and doing some other utility things such as running a client/server antivirus
With this workgroup, I will be expected to run an email server like Exchange 2003. I don't like to run something like this on the main file and print box. Email is now so important that this box will need to be one of those heavily fortified boxes like the main server (i.e. no cheap clone).
In all likelyhood I will also be needing to run a Terminal Server for a few remote people (5 or less, all light duty Office and data entry tasks). I won't run a terminal server off of the main file and print box for security and reliability reasons. And this box will need to be highly available (within reason; e.g. no need to cluster this thing...) and so yet another fortifed Dell server...
So this is adding up to 4 boxes, 3 of which, ideally, will need to be high-quality, fault-tolerant boxes.
In a different situation with more money, I might load up with a combination of Dell 1750 and 2650 boxes (I think there are new 1850 and 2850 models out now), all decked out with the requisite fault tolerant stuff and top it off with 24x7, 4 hour response time onsite service.
However, for this project, that is simply not in the cards. Money is a definite factor. Which is why I'm here in the VMware Community forums as a newbie, looking for perhaps a way to do all this with a single heavy duty fortified box.
Can Ior perhaps the better question isSHOULD I run all 4 servers off one box like this:
Tyan Thunder K8W motherboard
Dual Opteron 244 (1.8GHz) \[similar speed to Xeon 2.8]
8GB ECC RAM
2 x 300GB 7200rpm SATA drives in a RAID-1 mirror with a hot spare
Gig-E on the motherboard
Adaptec 39160 SCSI controller and either a DDS DAT or VXA-2 based tape backup.
The VMware setup would be:
1) Host: Win 2003 Server running GSX
2) Guest: Win 2003 Server (main file and print and Domain controller)
3) Guest: Win 2003 Server (Domain Controller)
4) Guest: Win 2003 Server and Exchange 2003
5) Guest: Win 2003 Server offering Terminal Services to 5 users
Tangent: Item (4) may be Win XP Pro and some other less expensive product like Kerio Mail Server perhaps (as long as it is compatible with the Outlook XP clients the users will be running.)
I'll be choosing a good case with a high quality power (not likely to be redundant though) and a good APC UPS.
Could you experienced VMware people let me know if my idea is feasible? Would this be "recommended"? i.e. would YOU do this?...
Please comment on the performance as perceived by the users. In other situations with the separate boxes scenario, I've been able to accommodate growth of the user base to past 50 users with nary a complaint. The only change to the infrastructure was upgrading the backup from a tape drive to an autoloader library because the full backups were exceeding the capacity of single tape at around 40 users.
I am also highly concerned about reliability. Being a former Novell Netware guy, I am used to sleeping well at night with a rock-solid NOS (network OS) to support my infrastructure. When I cut over to Windows 2000 Server, I gnawed at my fingernails for quite some time worrying if the new (at that time) platform was going to to be as robust as my Netware sites. I have since found that good hardware (IBM and Dell) with fault-tolerant fortifications and good practices (patch management, NOT running a multitude of things on one server, good security, firewall and antivirus practices, etc.) can result in a VERY stable server infrastructure. I can say with all honesty that the Dell and IBM equipped sites that I look after have NEVER had a server crash in 2 years. (Though, only after the first year went by was I able to sleep well...\[I'm a worrier]).
Can GSX on the clone I described above (albeit a clone with good quality components), running all the VM guests I asked about above, be similarly reliable as my Dell and IBM sites?
Thanks in advance.