Help me replan my virtualization

nockstar

Hi i am thinking of reinstall my VM and replan my virtualization on my home server, and i would like your help


I am currently using VMvare 2.0 free version (yes i know its old)


Server specs:
Host os: Win server 2008 r2 (Standard)
CPU: I7 3770 3.4 Ghz
Ram: 16 GB
HDD: 2 arreys of 3x3 TB raid 5




So what free virtualization program do you guys recommand?


Application i'm using and going to install in the future:


Download: Utorrent, SABnzbd, Sickbeard
Streaming: Plex media server ( movies and tv-shows)
WEB: Web-server, Mysql, Web caching, FTP, VPN server
Communication: TS3 server, Ventrilo server
Game server tools: Warcon (windwos only app)
LAN: Deployment server


What guest OS should i use to host the diffrent applications, and how should i
spec my guest OS'es with CPU, RAM and HDD ?


So iam asking you to suggest a easy viratulaization plan. Something easy like this:


VM program: (what VM software)
Guest OS(1) OS (windows or Linux ( if, what linux)), applications, cpu, ram, hdd specs
Guest OS(2) OS, applications, cpu, ram, hdd specs ?
Guest OS(3) OS, applications, cpu, ram, hdd specs ?
Guest OS(4) OS, applications, cpu, ram, hdd specs ?
Guest OS(5) OS, applications, cpu, ram, hdd specs ?


Any help planing would be much appriciated!


And just for the record, i'm a geek and like to fool around with diffrent programs and stuff.
Any other programs whitch would be fun to run on my home server?


Thanks, best regards Einar

SimonD.

Let me start by saying you're probably going to want to get rid of the 2008R2 server and use something like ESXi Free or Hyper-V Server instead of using a base OS and then using a Type 2 Hyper-Visor on top.

If you're a geek then I would suggest going down the ESXi Free route, it has a wider supported OS platform and in my opinion is a better virtualisation platform.

As far as OS's are concerned, you would also probably be better off with a linux variant (CentOS, Ubuntu or Fedora but tbh whichever takes your fancy). RAM and CPU count wise you want to start low, ideally something like 1vCPU and 2gb ram, increase the ram and only increase the CPU if you're actually CPU constrained.

HDD wise again will depend on what it is you want to do with the OS, I would probably suggest a centralised NAS storage using something like OpenFiler, FreeNAS or OpenMediaVault and have that running as a VM.

One thing I want to strongly suggest and I should have mentioned it earlier, use a USB drive for your virtualisation OS (if you're going down the route of ESXi that is). That allows you to dedicate the disk space to actual storage (in this case I would probably go for a dedicate 2.5inch drive for your choice of NAS software then place everything else on the RAID arrays.

If it were me doing this I would have a dedicated NAS box as a physical device (they can be built up fairly cheaply, look at the HP Microserver or a self build device (a quick guide when I built one - Building an Iomega PX6 Replacement – Part One « Everything Virtual) would be my preferred choice although I now use the Synology DS1513+ for my storage needs.

Sorry it's a bit disjointed, putting daughter to bed and cooking dinner whilst coming back and writing this.

JeanM

What SimonD said. Other options is to use something like VMWare Workstation if you aren't willing to go bare-metal hypervisor.

For example, for my lab I built the following. Dedicated NAS box on the cheap using G1610 cpu on ITX board + 2U rack mount case, it's almost silent and low power usage, but get's me about 100 MB/sec speeds for transfers/backups.

Then a 4U case for my hypervisor + a few nicks with multiple ports running on i7 3770 + 32gb of ram.
Running a mix of win xp and win 2003 server (dc), win 7 , win 8, windows server 2008, Slackware, Red Hat Fedora, centOS, OSX, Solaris operating systems.

Dedicated gigabit switch. I connect to it using my main pc using i3 2100, where I can also play with VMware workstation using 16gb of ram.

netsysllc

Ok first off while I am sure SimonD is a smart person he is incorrect on this. Running Hyper-v on Server 2008 is a type 1 hypervisor. The Hyper-V part takes central role and the 2008R2 is kind of like a guest machine. You need much more RAM for what you are doing though. You are only going to get at best 2 VMs per drive set before performance is unusable. SSD drives will host many VMs

JustFred

I have a DELL 2950 with 16gb RAM.

My initial plan is to install CentOS on there and then use vitualbox for VMs. Any advice would be nice

SimonD.

netsysllc wrote: »

Ok first off while I am sure SimonD is a smart person he is incorrect on this. Running Hyper-v on Server 2008 is a type 1 hypervisor. The Hyper-V part takes central role and the 2008R2 is kind of like a guest machine. You need much more RAM for what you are doing though. You are only going to get at best 2 VMs per drive set before performance is unusable. SSD drives will host many VMs

I am aware that Hyper-V is a Type 1 hypervisor but the OP stated that he was running Windows 2008 R2 and was running VMware Server 2, asking about other virtualisation platforms out there I didn't want the user to start looking at the likes of Workstation, Player, Oracle Virtualbox etc. Whilst installing the Hyper-V role will turn the box in to a Type 1 hypervisor I would still recommend a solution like ESXi free because it's running requirements (including running from a USB disk thereby freeing up diskspace) are a lot better than Hyper-V server.

I disagree about the ram requirements tho, of course having more will never hurt but for the moment having 16gb of ram in the box isn't going to be a massive drain on resources (as an example I have 3 hosts running 32gb each, with 8 VM's running I still only have about 12gb being used on only 1 host with the other 2 being unused (the lovely thing about VMware is the memory ballooning and DRS)

I still stand by the idea of a dedicated box for storage tho and yes using SSD's will increase performance but will also increase cost and reduce disk space (thin provisioning for the VM's then).

@JustFred, as you already have a dedicated server I would also look at ESXi free.

JeanM

@JustFred, as you already have a dedicated server I would also look at ESXi free.

Or Hyper-V.

gkca

@JustFred
You could just use kvm/qemu on your Centos server. And I agree with JeanM, I would definitely give an ESXi a try.

JustFred

Thanks guys, I'm going to install ESXi free and create VMs on there. I have enough space for about 6 VMs.