Need some Virtualization advice

Here's my situation. We're about to come up with a new backup strategy and order hardware and software. I'm sold on Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery, and it is going to go on our existing 2k3 servers, and an upcoming 2k8 email server. I love the baremetal restore feature, and converting physical to viurtual, and vice versa.

I was originally going to order 2 servers to manage the backup strategy. 1 for the Symantec admin and forefront console, 1 for a cold spare to periodically test the backup strategy.

However, after playing with virtualization, I'm thinking maybe I can just spend a few hundred dollars on a 4TB NAS, store backups on that, and partion several of the hard drives off on a raid 1, and practice the restore routines virtually on just 1 physical server with the NAS.

I've never set anything like this up before. I've set up servers on Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007, and it seems to run fine, but I've never done it for production. I hear everyone else talking about VMware and Hyper-V...which I have no knowledge of, or experience of.

1) How would you do it, if you could choose?
2) What virtualization software would you use?

All advice welcome.

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Comments

Hyper-Me

Im pretty sure ive always said that ESX is a fine choice. I don't think its fair that a lot of people totally count out Hyper-V for situations that it would work perfectly well, though.

msteinhilber

Here's my experience with the two products. I went in with an open mind and the goal was to select the solution that seemed to work best for us.

Several months ago I was testing Hyper-V Server 2008 (bare metal, not the R2 version as it was not out then), Server 2008 Enterprise with the Hyper-V role, as well as VMware ESXi (no licensed features). We had two servers being tested, both with Intel storage controllers (one was Intel SRCSASJV and the other was Intel's integrated controller on a S5000PSL board). Both of these while running Hyper-V either bare metal or under 2008 with the Hyper-V role installed were providing incredibly poor disk I/O using the local storage (the host OS in the situation where Hyper-V was installed as a role had no I/O issues). Virtual machines would take in excess of 10 minutes to boot and be incredibly slow thereafter, one such VM tested was our web-based ticket system and the page loads were noticeably affected by the slowness. Server 2008 Enterprise we ruled out fairly quick since the added overhead of the host OS was not worth it and we would in no way benefit from the licensing of 4 Server 2008 guest OS's under VM's as we already had licensing and the environments we were implementing would not support Server 2008 anyways. That left the decision between the bare metal Hyper-V and ESXi. Noting the disk I/O issues, I continued testing with the bare metal version of Hyper-V and had no luck. Tried a couple various Adaptec controllers we had available and no luck with those either. Yea, I did install the Hyper-V Integration Components as well on the Windows and Linux VM's but the results were the same.

We wound up running ESXi and really had no major issues at all and have been running 19 lower powered VM's on a dual quad-core Xeon with 24GB of RAM on local storage with no issues. The only snafu we had was the integrated Intel controller was not supported under ESXi so we invested ~$700 for a new controller and were set. Things have been going so smooth and having ESXi running and available on our 2nd server has saved us in a couple of situations where we needed to bring up an image of a failed physical host quickly that we are now considering licensing the advanced features and virtualizing more of our environment. Once we go this route VMware would be the obvious choice in my opinion if you are running anything near or above mission critical. If I get a situation I'm not capable of resolving quickly enough on my own, I want a company that's been around a long time providing virtualization solutions to be able to support me and get me back up and running.

Hyper-Me

So you counted out Hyper-V because of poor I/O with the Intel controller, but opted to ESX which didnt even support the controller at all, so you spent 700$ just to get it to work? Did you test Hyper-V on the new controller? I've never had any I/O or booting issues like you describe...in fact one of my favorite things about virtual machines is how instantly they boot.

Zartanasaurus

Pretty sure this isn't what brad- was looking for.

msteinhilber

Hyper-Me wrote: »

So you counted out Hyper-V because of poor I/O with the Intel controller, but opted to ESX which didnt even support the controller at all, so you spent 700$ just to get it to work? Did you test Hyper-V on the new controller? I've never had any I/O or booting issues like you describe...in fact one of my favorite things about virtual machines is how instantly they boot.

I hate to use your own words... BUT

Stellar reading skills bud.

I used two various Intel controllers which met the HCL. I also mentioned I used an Adaptec controller, which was also on the HCL.

You are correct though, we did invest an additional $700 but we likely would have anyways as the onboard controller would have been weak for the workload it currently has. I will note the controller worked under ESX, as long as it was single drives - it just wouldn't support RAID which may be due to the controller being one of those integrated models that requires a RAID activation key. As single drives though, ESX performed great on it but we opted for the controller as we wanted availability and reliability.

Hyper-Me

I didnt read it wrong, you never mentioned that ESX worked on those specific controllers but then said you had to replace it to get it to work at all.

Were they old controllers or something? Like I said we have the LSi PERC controllers that come on the 2950 III's and they are working fantastic in Hyper-V.

HeroPsycho

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Pretty sure this isn't what brad- was looking for.

For my part in that, I apologize.

brad-

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

Pretty sure this isn't what brad- was looking for.

I didnt get to read much on the thread yesterday...but man this has turned into a dumpster fire.

I appreciate the input from all of you really, even during the arguing portion here. I am so new to virtualization, every little bit helps.

astorrs

MentholMoose

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Hyper-V Server (non R2) can be managed by SCVMM 2007, 2008 and 2008 R2.

R2 hyperv HOSTS can only be managed by scvmm 2008 R2, at the moment.

Really? That's odd. I was told at a Microsoft Hyper-V event last February, and read in a datasheet (can't find it atm), that the standalone Hyper-V Server wasn't manageable by SCVMM.

astorrs

MentholMoose wrote: »

Really? That's odd. I was told at a Microsoft Hyper-V event last February, and read in a datasheet (can't find it atm), that the standalone Hyper-V Server wasn't manageable by SCVMM.

No, the free version can be managed by SCVMM: http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/faq.aspx

Hyper-Me

MentholMoose wrote: »

Really? That's odd. I was told at a Microsoft Hyper-V event last February, and read in a datasheet (can't find it atm), that the standalone Hyper-V Server wasn't manageable by SCVMM.

If anything the standalone version would be the one that needs it the most, because its a command line only install.