Prepping an MCITP ESXi Server

I'm looking into getting an ESXi server up and running with a quad core processor.

I already made purchase of a very cheap system a while back, consisting of:

4 GB DDR2 @ 800MHz
1TB seagate hdd - 7200RPM
Intel based motherboard - model DG31PR
300W generic power supply

I know it's a crap system, but the point is that it works. Well, currently, it only supports 32bit VMs....so I am looking into:

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=32564&vpn=BX80569Q9650&manufacture=Intel

I currently have a quad core in my primary running at 2.4GHz. I have not needed to change out the fan, but I'm wondering if it's something that should be heavily considered for the application. Would you go to something like the link below for this box or just run with stock?

http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=47091&vpn=NH%2DC12P%20SE14&manufacture=Noctua

Am I going too far with the 3.0GHz model CPU? What can I get away with with very little lag while running up to 9 VMs?
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 Quad Core Processor LGA775 2.66GHZ Yorkfield 1333FSB 6MB Retail Box ? How much power would I realize from the extra 6MB cache on the 3.0GHz?

Am I okay with just running the 1 hard drive to support the 9 VMs? I don't want it to blow up on me... I understand RAID would be for the best.... but can I get away without RAID and have little to no lag?

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earweed

First off you need more RAM and 4GB is the most that MB supports Intel Desktop Board DG31PR - Overview . I know you can get by using the minimum RAM for each VM but your performance goes way up with more RAM for each VM. You'll never get 9 VMs running with just 4GB. This would be the first thing you'll have to deal with.
Next get a few smaller 7200 RPM HDDs as that will be the next thing slowing down your performance.
If you're planning to study for the MCITP:SA/EA with this then you can probably get by as most labs, except for FS and CS, don't require more than 2 or 3 VMs.

Stuppored

earweed wrote: »

First off you need more RAM and 4GB is the most that MB supports Intel Desktop Board DG31PR - Overview . I know you can get by using the minimum RAM for each VM but your performance goes way up with more RAM for each VM. You'll never get 9 VMs running with just 4GB. This would be the first thing you'll have to deal with.
Next get a few smaller 7200 RPM HDDs as that will be the next thing slowing down your performance.
If you're planning to study for the MCITP:SA/EA with this then you can probably get by as most labs, except for FS and CS, don't require more than 2 or 3 VMs.

Thanks for the quick response. I have not touched or read through any of the requirements for the SA/EA exams. I am noob ~ what does FS and CS stand for?

It sounds like I can get by with this machine for the SA/EA practice, so long as I replace the CPU and do not need to run more than 3 VMs. (yes, i'd like ddr3 12gb ram, raid, and high end cpu... just want to know if my current cheap box can pass me through the book below)

Theses are the books I am looking into picking up:
Amazon.com: MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-640, 70-642, 70-643, 70-647): Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise Administrator Core Requirements (9780735625723): Dan Holme, Nelson Ruest, Danielle Ruest, Tony Northrup, J.C. Mackin, Anil Desai, Orin T

Is this all I should require for reading/practicing material to get the experience I need to pass the exams? Any recommendations, I'm listening

earweed

FS Federated services CS Certificate services sorry I should have been clear but once you get to those you'll understand. I got through the first 2 exams 640/642 with less than what you've got. I was on a box that's limited to just 2 GB RAM and used VMWare workstation. I just couldn't lab federated services or certificate services.
I recently built my own new box (core-i5 12 GB RAM 4 HDDs) so I could play with Hyper-V and lab everything for the 70-643 studies.
Those books shoulddo you fine. Those are the one I'm using plus the Sybex books but those by themselves should be enough. Alsobe sure to use Claymoores sticky Resource threads as the technet articles he has linked there will help a lot.
Your box will probably do you fine even without the new processor as you don't really need anything more until you get to the 643 stuff.
For the 70-643 you'll probably want to lab Hyper-V and your MB and CPU wont cut it. You'd need a whole new box.

About the no certs, weren't you studying for the CCNA a while back?

Stuppored

earweed wrote: »

FS Federated services CS Certificate services sorry I should have been clear but once you get to those you'll understand. I got through the first 2 exams 640/642 with less than what you've got. I was on a box that's limited to just 2 GB RAM and used VMWare workstation. I just couldn't lab federated services or certificate services.
I recently built my own new box (core-i5 12 GB RAM 4 HDDs) so I could play with Hyper-V and lab everything for the 70-643 studies.
Those books shoulddo you fine. Those are the one I'm using plus the Sybex books but those by themselves should be enough. Alsobe sure to use Claymoores sticky Resource threads as the technet articles he has linked there will help a lot.
Your box will probably do you fine even without the new processor as you don't really need anything more until you get to the 643 stuff.
For the 70-643 you'll probably want to lab Hyper-V and your MB and CPU wont cut it. You'd need a whole new box.

About the no certs, weren't you studying for the CCNA a while back?

About the no certs... I am still working towards CCNA lol... almost feels like a low blow heh. I want to make a set schedule alternating between Cisco and Microsoft studies every second day just to keep it interesting~trying to work in 2 hours a day. Talking to friends about their endeavours is helping me get back on the right track of studying as I let other things replace it in my day to day. It's not exactly easy working an 8 hour day, driving 2 hours to and fro on top, spending 1-2 hours a day at the gym to giving your body the respect it deserves and then siding with studies after that, hoping to have enough sleep to repeat the next day. Topping that off with volunteering with companies on weekends to learn more specialized skills. I don't regret anything about this except not being CCNA & MCITP certified already. Atleast you remember me

So I can get away with a 32-bit CPU for the first two MCITP exams?

In your core-i5 12 GB RAM 4 HDDs system... are you saying that it is best to have the hdd's in a raid configuration? or to keep each one separated acting as its own primary storage unit... putting less stress on the read/write heads overall?

Mojo_666

As earweed has already said RAM RAM RAM, that is where you get best bang for buck, and 32bit is OK, but always keep a eye out for 64VT capable as that really is where things are going.

BTW Get more RAM.

earweed

I've got mine seperate for now and just use a different HDD for each VM. That way I don't get bogged down with IO on just one HDD.
You should be able to get by with just 32 bit VMs for the first 2 although MS has recently added Server 2008 R2 specific stuff to the exams and that's not covered in those books and that would require you to have 64 bit VMs to lab. I wouldn't worry about labbing R2 too much for the first 2 exams. Here's a link to the thread about them updating the exams http://www.techexams.net/forums/mcts-mcitp-windows-2008-general/58214-exams-updated-r2.html

No, I wasn't trying to jab you about the CCNA I was just curious. I'm going to be starting on CCNA after I finish my MCITP:EA and ws just wondering if you were still working on it.
Also for the MCITP:Ea you need to do a client exam too. Either the 70-620 or the 70-680. I think the versions of the client exam that combine office with the OS will work. Here's a link to the MCITP page MCITP (Microsoft Certified IT Professional) | Training Courses for IT Professionals

EDEIT: BTW I've got an ebook MS gave away last month on Server 2008 R2. It's too big to attach here but if you have email that'll allow 11 MB attachments you can PM me your email and I'll send it to you. It's helping me out now as I have my 643 test Tuesday and just found out this week that R2 will be on the test.

earweed

Mojo_666 wrote: »

As earweed has already said RAM RAM RAM, that is where you get best bang for buck, and 32bit is OK, but always keep a eye out for 64VT capable as that really is where things are going.

BTW Get more RAM.

He'll need a new MB for more RAM. That one's limited to 4GB.

Stuppored

earweed wrote: »

He'll need a new MB for more RAM. That one's limited to 4GB.

I understand that part. The part I was lost on was the basics I'd require once I purchase those books just to keep me busy until I can afford a massive upgrade.

I'll probably go with something like a:

quad core 3.0
3-4 250gb+ sata 7200 rpm hdd's
12 gb ddr3 @ 1333
monster mobo
case with tonnes of cooling

i'll get there one day. thanks for all the tips guys. if you have any other suggestions, feel free to add to this tread or PM me.

Mojo_666

Stuppored wrote: »

I understand that part. The part I was lost on was the basics I'd require once I purchase those books just to keep me busy until I can afford a massive upgrade.

I'll probably go with something like a:

quad core 3.0
3-4 250gb+ sata 7200 rpm hdd's
12 gb ddr3 @ 1333
monster mobo
case with tonnes of cooling

i'll get there one day. thanks for all the tips guys. if you have any other suggestions, feel free to add to this tread or PM me.

Depending on you budget and space I would consider buying some cheap servers off ebay, until then a half tidy machine running vmare workstation would suffice.

earweed

Don't forget you'll want to use Hyper V in that new machine and it's got certain requirements
64 bit
Hardware assisted Virtualization (AMD-V or Intel VT)
Hardware data execution protection (AMD no execute or NX bit, Intel Execute Disable or XD bit)
The last 2 must be enabled in the BIOS as they're usually disabled by default

Stuppored

Thanks for the advice guys! I just made the purchase for the Enterprise Admin training kit + Windows 7 training kit. I was at a store earlier today.... and for the Server Admin kit alone, they wanted an eye gauging $200 CAD... here I just bought everything for less than $215CAD... online is apparently the only way to go.

erpadmin

Stup, you may want to check this thread out if it's within your budget:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/off-topic/57592-my-own-home-lab.html

It's finally installed and what not. If it's within your budget, you will find that it pretty much will satisfy labbing requirements for the MCITP:EA/SA. (And you don't have to build it either....the price pretty much made that choice for me to be irrelevant.).

8GB of RAM with 2x250GB Hard drives (non-raided) will be more than enough to give you proper VMs. Plus it's upgradable to 16GB when the time's right for you (and me....next month it's looking like but I'm in no hurry).

If all you need is a labbing server, and you're not using it for gaming, the ML110 G6 is the way to go.

MentholMoose

earweed wrote: »

You'll never get 9 VMs running with just 4GB.

4GB isn't ideal, but with ESXi, it may be doable due to its memory management features. When running the same OS on every VM, which will likely be the case when studying, page sharing will help a lot. It's essentially memory deduplication, so for example if Windows needs 1GB to boot and run, instead of nine VMs eating up 9GB just to run, they will use about 1GB total. Now if you have to run a bunch of unique services on each one simultaneously, you will probably run into performance problems. ESXi 4.1 adds memory compression, though I haven't seen how much it helps in practice.

earweed wrote: »

Next get a few smaller 7200 RPM HDDs as that will be the next thing slowing down your performance.

Definitely, nine VMs on one (standard) disk will not work at all. This will be the bottleneck well before the RAM. I would use at least three smaller/cheaper disks, more if possible. RAID is not really necessary, just spread the VMs across different disks. Alternatively, get one SSD. If you are using mostly similar VMs (e.g. same OS), you can use linked clone functionality to save disk space, so a huge (i.e. expensive) SSD isn't necessary. The 90GB OCZ Agility 2 is currently $175 AR at Newegg, and would be perfect for running a bunch of VMs (far, far better than any combination of standard disks). For running 2008 R2 VMs as linked clones, the base virtual disk will be about 10GB, with 2-5GB for each linked clone (so nine VMs would be 28-55GB, and there's enough space for some client VMs). Memory and/or CPU will be the bottleneck far before the SSD even breaks a sweat.

Regarding the CPU, high clock speed and extra cache aren't going to help much, and the extra money would be better spent toward disks or upgrading the motherboard and RAM. I would get a dual core CPU and an SSD over a quad core CPU and standard disks. Overall, the former combination will simply annihilate the latter.

Definitely make sure you can at least run 64-bit guests since 2008 R2 is now on the exams and is only 64-bit. Being able to run Hyper-V may be helpful since it's covered on the 643, though the coverage isn't very extensive and labbing it might not be necessary.

Stuppored

MentholMoose wrote: »

Definitely, nine VMs on one (standard) disk will not work at all. This will be the bottleneck well before the RAM. I would use at least three smaller/cheaper disks, more if possible. RAID is not really necessary, just spread the VMs across different disks. Alternatively, get one SSD. If you are using mostly similar VMs (e.g. same OS), you can use linked clone functionality to save disk space, so a huge (i.e. expensive) SSD isn't necessary. The 90GB OCZ Agility 2 is currently $175 AR at Newegg, and would be perfect for running a bunch of VMs (far, far better than any combination of standard disks). For running 2008 R2 VMs as linked clones, the base virtual disk will be about 10GB, with 2-5GB for each linked clone (so nine VMs would be 28-55GB, and there's enough space for some client VMs). Memory and/or CPU will be the bottleneck far before the SSD even breaks a sweat.

i understand the read/write heads on a conventional hard drive would not be able to keep up with 9 VMs. that makes perfect sence. what i don't understand is how much IO an SSD can handle at once? you say 9 VMs will work... how many do you think 1 large SSD could handle as far as data throughput goes? like a 1TB one... there must be a max on bandwidth before things go wonky... can you provide me info on that, sounds interesting.

Asif Dasl

Stuppored wrote: »

i understand the read/write heads on a conventional hard drive would not be able to keep up with 9 VMs. that makes perfect sence. what i don't understand is how much IO an SSD can handle at once? you say 9 VMs will work... how many do you think 1 large SSD could handle as far as data throughput goes? like a 1TB one... there must be a max on bandwidth before things go wonky... can you provide me info on that, sounds interesting.

Hard drive throughput is limited to the bus speed ie. SATA2 3Gb/sec or SATA3 6Gb/sec. Below is a list of hard drives benchmarked; the OCZ Agility 2 benches at 1507 while a Samsung F4 HD322GJ 320Gb benches at 971. The OCZ SSD costs $170 after rebate, while the Samsung HDD costs just $43 and puts many slower SSDs to shame. You could buy 4 larger HDDs for the price of 1 small SSD and your performance will probably be better than using one SSD. Though you can get better throughtput using a SSD over a HDD, some SSDs which can handle 350Mb/sec need a SATA3 motherboard for best performance as the SATA2 bus is a bottleneck. But for lab purposes it's unlikely that you would be stressing out your hard drives whichever route you go.

PassMark Software - Hard Drive Benchmark Charts

Newegg.com - OCZ Agility 2 OCZSSD3-2AGT90G 3.5" 90GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD322GJ/U 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

erpadmin

Asif Dasl wrote: »

Hard drive throughput is limited to the bus speed ie. SATA2 3Gb/sec or SATA3 6Gb/sec. Below is a list of hard drives benchmarked; the OCZ Agility 2 benches at 1507 while a Samsung F4 HD322GJ 320Gb benches at 971. The OCZ SSD costs $170 after rebate, while the Samsung HDD costs just $43 and puts many slower SSDs to shame. You could buy 4 larger HDDs for the price of 1 small SSD and your performance will probably be better than using one SSD. Though you can get better throughtput using a SSD over a HDD, some SSDs which can handle 350Mb/sec need a SATA3 motherboard for best performance as the SATA2 bus is a bottleneck. But for lab purposes it's unlikely that you would be stressing out your hard drives whichever route you go.

I totally agree with this! It makes no sense for me to spend money on a SSD drive while getting a lower amount of storage just so that it can go at breakneck speeds whereas spending much less money for a 250GB-320GB 7200RPM will be more than adequate for labbing purposes. I'm just focusing on the RAM and CPU. Mind you I only have a dual core (i3-530) with 8GB of RAM, but again, this is for labbing and it's much better than my 32-bit Pentium M laptop...with its measly 2GB of RAM.

earweed

I've got 1-1TB and 3 250 GB in my lab comp (i5 with 12 GB RAM) and nothing seems to slow it down but I only run 4 or 5 VMs though. It's way better than my old desktop with its 2GB RAM slowing me down.

Stuppored

I received my study kit in the mail today for the EA. Which exam book would you all recommend being the first one I should go through? I was thinking the 70-640 because it appears to be the first book and it's the fattest.

earweed

If you don't have experience in a server environment then the 70-640 would be a good choice to start with.