Deployment server virtualisation hardware question

[oexpletive]

Howdy list,

I am hoping you bright sparks might suggest what size of hardware would be suitable for virtualizing 7 deployment servers (I have releases XE thru 9.0)? Half of them are generally turned off and the other half remain on for check outs\ins and the odd package build\esu.

Any points that might cause problems would also be very useful!

This will be my first virtual adventure.. think I will go with W2K8 Enterprise for the vms.

At the moment I am using something similar to the following for each deployment server:

IBM xSeries345 Intel Xeon 2.67GHz/533MHz 512KB Cache 512MB
2 GB of PC2100
6 * 74GB 15k internal scsi disks

Am thinking of using something similar to the following for the virtual servers

IBM System x3650M2 eServer Xeon Quad-Core(X5550) 2*2.66GHz
16GB RAM
Will attach two older EXP400 raid 5 arrays, 14 * 74GB 15k discs I will need for all of the pathcodes we host.

Anybody any thoughts on this? Am I barking up the wrong tree!?

Thanks

 

[brother_of_karamazov]

[ QUOTE ]
Howdy list,

I am hoping you bright sparks might suggest what size of hardware would be suitable for virtualizing 7 deployment servers (I have releases XE thru 9.0)? Half of them are generally turned off and the other half remain on for check outs\ins and the odd package build\esu.

Any points that might cause problems would also be very useful!

This will be my first virtual adventure.. think I will go with W2K8 Enterprise for the vms.

At the moment I am using something similar to the following for each deployment server:

IBM xSeries345 Intel Xeon 2.67GHz/533MHz 512KB Cache 512MB
2 GB of PC2100
6 * 74GB 15k internal scsi disks

Am thinking of using something similar to the following for the virtual servers

IBM System x3650M2 eServer Xeon Quad-Core(X5550) 2*2.66GHz
16GB RAM
Will attach two older EXP400 raid 5 arrays, 14 * 74GB 15k discs I will need for all of the pathcodes we host.

Anybody any thoughts on this? Am I barking up the wrong tree!?

Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

Just curious: Which host software are you going to use?

 

[oexpletive]

Hi Jeff,

If I have the terminology correct I will be using W2K8 Enterprise for the host software.

I have considered using Oracle Enterprise Linux and probably would but my Linux skills are poor. If I have old boxes left over then these should become my Linux playthings for those new all-in-one-wonder images.

Have also looked at vmware but it seems pricey and the impression that I am getting is that the latest version of W2K8 is close.

I am trying to reduce costs while staying concurrent with the support MTRs...

Cheers
Dom

 

[klwong]

If by host software, you mean the operating system upon which you will be running the virtualization software, then you could use Windows 2008 with Hyper-V.

However, if cost is an issue, VMWare does have Server 2.02 or ESXi 4, both of which are free. VMWare Server runs on a host OS, but ESXi installs on "bare metal."

Other free alternatives are Citrix XenServer 5.6 and Oracle VM 2, both of which also install on the bare metal.

Of course, the one thing that all of these have in common (except for Oracle VM, for obvious reasons) is that none of them are truly "supported" by Oracle. Their position is that if it's an issue that can't be replicated on physical hardware, then it's not really their problem to diagnose or correct.

 

[brother_of_karamazov]

[ QUOTE ]
If by host software, you mean the operating system upon which you will be running the virtualization software, then you could use Windows 2008 with Hyper-V.

However, if cost is an issue, VMWare does have Server 2.02 or ESXi 4, both of which are free. VMWare Server runs on a host OS, but ESXi installs on "bare metal."

Other free alternatives are Citrix XenServer 5.6 and Oracle VM 2, both of which also install on the bare metal.

Of course, the one thing that all of these have in common (except for Oracle VM, for obvious reasons) is that none of them are truly "supported" by Oracle. Their position is that if it's an issue that can't be replicated on physical hardware, then it's not really their problem to diagnose or correct.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have yet to see a performance comparison between the host VM's but I wanted to point out that ESXi is free, and being a bare-metal Hypervisor should have pretty darn good performance and stability. I've been messing with it a bit and like the fact that there isn't much (like a whole unstable OS) sitting between my (unstable....hah) guest OS's and my hardware.

BTW, Oracle's support policy for VM's is not bad at all:

"Oracle will only provide support for issues that either are known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware."

https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&doctype=ANNOUNCEMENT&id=249212.1

From my conversations with the folks out there I think they view the fact that you may be on a VM in an essentially transparent way, as if it weren't even there unless they get to the point that the problem is obviously a result of the VM.

 

[oexpletive]

Thanks guys, The idea of a bare metal host software does appeal to me too and I will have another look at those options.
Windows does seem to be the easy choice with my current level of knowledge - it will probably "plug" into our existing environment\infrastructure and policies without much effort.

Anymore thoughts on the hardware? Or am I asking too much...

Am thinking one core and 1GB per vm will be fine. However from other threads I have read here, it sounds like the disk access slows considerably? Package builds\installs etc.. Has anybody done any experiments?

Any rough ideas how much of an impact a vm adds to these kind of file copy operations compared to if they were just running on the host server? 10% or 30% or more?

If I get any interesting results (i.e. it takes 12hrs to install a planner esu) I will update this post.