VMware + Xeon E55xx & E56xx Processors

Has anyone setup VMware vSphere 5 on servers with Xeon E55xx or E56xx processors? I'm trying to spec out two new systems and make the push to go virtual at my workplace. The X55xx & X56xx series are significantly more, and I would have a better chance getting the servers with the economy processors. Any input would be great!

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Everyone

Not 5, because it wasn't out yet, but ran 4.1 on E5520's when those chips first came out about 2 years ago.

vCole

Everyone wrote: »

Not 5, because it wasn't out yet, but ran 4.1 on E5520's when those chips first came out about 2 years ago.

Performance was ok/good? Not a heavy load going on these two machines, consolidating 3-4 older PowerEdge 1850/860/2850 servers. At most, the amount of RAM will only be 16-24GB.

Everyone

Yeah performance was good, at least for the couple of VMs I had on it, someone else was responsible for the host, but I was responsible for the server replacement budget that year (2009) so I spec'd out racked all the hardware. I got a bunch of HP DL380 G6's I think they were, all with dual E5520's and varying amounts of RAM, plus HBAs for anything that was going to be SAN attached. I wanted to get blades, but they had a bad taste in their mouth still from a previous blade system purchase that flopped, so I got something like 20 of these 2U servers. A couple of them got 48 GB of RAM and became an ESX cluster. A couple others with 48GB of RAM as well became a SQL 2008 cluster.

vCole

Everyone wrote: »

Yeah performance was good, at least for the couple of VMs I had on it, someone else was responsible for the host, but I was responsible for the server replacement budget that year (2009) so I spec'd out racked all the hardware. I got a bunch of HP DL380 G6's I think they were, all with dual E5520's and varying amounts of RAM, plus HBAs for anything that was going to be SAN attached. I wanted to get blades, but they had a bad taste in their mouth still from a previous blade system purchase that flopped, so I got something like 20 of these 2U servers. A couple of them got 48 GB of RAM and became an ESX cluster. A couple others with 48GB of RAM as well became a SQL 2008 cluster.

Awesome, there will only be 4-5 VMs on it to start so it should be all good.

jibbajabba

For that amount of VMs it is certainly good enough. We have deployed quite a few of those running vSphere 4 and 5. Clustered and standalone.

If budget is not an issue and you scale up, I'd go with the x series (for example X5650) - lots of oompf, but lots of $$$ too.

vCole

jibbajabba wrote: »

For that amount of VMs it is certainly good enough. We have deployed quite a few of those running vSphere 4 and 5. Clustered and standalone.

If budget is not an issue and you scale up, I'd go with the x series (for example X5650) - lots of oompf, but lots of $$$ too.

Budget is the issue, unfortunately. I need to be able to to spec two servers, ESXi 5 (free), and be able to still get 3 licenses of Windows Server 2008 R2 & Terminal Server CALs (~20) for.........$7500. Don't think I'll be able to pull it off though.

ptilsen

I have several clients running DL380s and DL360s with ESXi 4.1 and 5.0. I have a client with about 11 VMs, including a high-powered Exchange server, multiple database and web servers, DCs, files servers on a pair of DL360s with 5540s. I have another running DL360s with 5650s that has all that AND a two-server RD Session Host NLB farm.

As with most small-scale virtualizations, the processors rarely come close to full utilization -- it's RAM that gets you. I know the budget is tight, but 24GB runs out quickly. That first client had 24GB in both hosts, and we recently had to upgrade them both to 40GB. Blame that on Exchange, though.

vCole

ptilsen wrote: »

I have several clients running DL380s and DL360s with ESXi 4.1 and 5.0. I have a client with about 11 VMs, including a high-powered Exchange server, multiple database and web servers, DCs, files servers on a pair of DL360s with 5540s. I have another running DL360s with 5650s that has all that AND a two-server RD Session Host NLB farm.

As with most small-scale virtualizations, the processors rarely come close to full utilization -- it's RAM that gets you. I know the budget is tight, but 24GB runs out quickly. That first client had 24GB in both hosts, and we recently had to upgrade them both to 40GB. Blame that on Exchange, though.

We're the American division of a German company. So our email (Lotus Domino) is in Germany, as well as SAP. The current servers I would be virtualizing are: A Domain Controller (Which I wouldnt P2V, I would just build a new one), two Terminal Servers and that's probably it for now. Current DC is Server 2003 SP2 (no R2) with 2GB of RAM and the Terminal Servers both have 4GB each and they're barely touching that.

ptilsen

All that said, we've implemented DL385s with 8-core and 12-core Opterons in similar environments. There really is no discernible performance difference in VMware. You would have to put a lot of CPU-intense load on multiple VMs to see problems.

My most enjoyable use of the free version of ESXi 5.0 to day involved P to V of a Netware 6 server and setting up about a dozen XP VMs for the purpose of a manual Groupwise export. All handled on a PowerEdge tower with two 5420s, 12GB of RAM, and four consumer SATA drives in RAID 10.

The thing you have to remember about ESXi is that it is not a general-purpose OS with general-purpose drivers. It is specifically designed to run well on commercial servers, like HP and Dell, so you are fairly unlikely to run into serious problems with Vmware implementations regardless of the processor architecture.

ptilsen

vCole wrote: »

We're the American division of a German company. So our email (Lotus Domino) is in Germany, as well as SAP. The current servers I would be virtualizing are: A Domain Controller (Which I wouldnt P2V, I would just build a new one), two Terminal Servers and that's probably it for now. Current DC is Server 2003 SP2 (no R2) with 2GB of RAM and the Terminal Servers both have 4GB each and they're barely touching that.

You should be just fine. The second client I described was upgraded from a ESXi 3.5 server running the original Core-based dual-core Xeon. They ran Exchange 2007 on Server 2008, a 2003 terminal server with 4GB of RAM, and a DC/DHCP/file/print/etc. server. The current-gen and last-gen stuff trounce those solutions. Truthfully, I don't see SMB or small environment needs catching up to modern processors. I keep spec'ing out dual-6-core Xeon's with HT and dual 8-core and 12-core Opterons, and I have yet to see a client use half of their power (price differences are fairly low due to SmartBuys). Outside of major consolidations (dozens of servers), there honestly isn't much you can't get away with on dual quad-core Xeons.

vCole

ptilsen wrote: »

You should be just fine. The second client I described was upgraded from a ESXi 3.5 server running the original Core-based dual-core Xeon. They ran Exchange 2007 on Server 2008, a 2003 terminal server with 4GB of RAM, and a DC/DHCP/file/print/etc. server. The current-gen and last-gen stuff trounce those solutions. Truthfully, I don't see SMB or small environment needs catching up to modern processors. I keep spec'ing out dual-6-core Xeon's with HT and dual 8-core and 12-core Opterons, and I have yet to see a client use half of their power (price differences are fairly low due to SmartBuys). Outside of major consolidations (dozens of servers), there honestly isn't much you can't get away with on dual quad-core Xeons.

I figured it should be fine, but always like to get a second (or more) opinion. After working at NetApp and being able to play with Cisco UCS, IBM Blade Centers, etc. this tiny environment makes me sad.

lol

JBrown

vCole wrote: »

Budget is the issue, unfortunately. I need to be able to to spec two servers, ESXi 5 (free), and be able to still get 3 licenses of Windows Server 2008 R2 & Terminal Server CALs (~20) for.........$7500. Don't think I'll be able to pull it off though.

I am not sure if you already aware of it, 1 single license of Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise allows you to run 4 VMs on 1 single physical box (regardless of hypervizor-Hyperv/vSPhere).

ptilsen

Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, depending on the vendor, is almost exactly four times the cost of Standard. But really, there's no other way to go if you are using VMs in multiples of four (unless you have a lot of VMs per host, in which case Datacenter makes the most sense).

vCole

JBrown wrote: »

I am not sure if you already aware of it, 1 single license of Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise allows you to run 4 VMs on 1 single physical box (regardless of hypervizor-Hyperv/vSPhere).

I am aware. It is $2200 for an Enterprise license. $640/ea for Standard + $75/ea for 25 TS CALs puts me at ~$4000 - my budget is $5000. So Enterprise will not work for us. (Especially if I'm doing two hosts)