virtual lab, more info needed

reppgoa

Ok, so I have decided that I will be using ESXi 4.1 as my virtualization choice. I am now in the stages of building a white box (or 2 ). I have been reading about people using openfiler. Now, is this something that you would use as network storage to avoid using actual HDD's in the white boxes? Is that feasible? for example, would you have say 4 white boxes, and then an openfiler server with a couple 2TB drives split up for each VM to use? I have heard that each VM should be using its own hard drive, especially for exchange and AD config's. Any input you guys have is always welcome, thanks!

MentholMoose

reppgoa wrote: »

Ok, so I have decided that I will be using ESXi 4.1 as my virtualization choice. I am now in the stages of building a white box (or 2 ). I have been reading about people using openfiler. Now, is this something that you would use as network storage to avoid using actual HDD's in the white boxes?

You will still need some storage in each white box to install ESXi on.

reppgoa wrote: »

Is that feasible? for example, would you have say 4 white boxes, and then an openfiler server with a couple 2TB drives split up for each VM to use?

Yes, you can setup OpenFiler like this. However, if you need the storage to be shared across all the ESXi boxes, you will need vCenter. This lets you live migrate VMs to different hosts. If you just want to use the free ESXi, you could still use OpenFiler but you will have to create separate shares and/or LUNs for each host.

reppgoa wrote: »

I have heard that each VM should be using its own hard drive, especially for exchange and AD config's. Any input you guys have is always welcome, thanks!

If a VM is running disk intensive applications, then it may cause performance issues for VMs stored in the same location. Exchange and databases are applications that can be disk intensive. Unless a domain controller is very busy, it shouldn't need it's own disk, though.