New server setup

[Criminiminal]

So i'm putting together a plan for a new HP DL380 G5 with a quad core, 10 gig RAM, 300GB RAID 5 in the server and a 2TB SAN.... for a 4 person consultant office. Overkill I know, but I basically sold it as super future proof so he can grow the company without upgrading server infrastructure, yadda, yadda... anyway...

I'm looking for some ideas on what to do for the server software. I'm big on virtualization, so I tried to get him to spring for ESX VI3 but he's a MS technet subscriber so he wants to use all his windows "evaluation" licenses and then buy the licenses in the future.. so I'm thinking of using either 2003 with VS or 2008 with hyper-v for the host and then virtuals for his apps server, dc, exchange 2007 and exchange edge transport. So one host and 4 virtuals. But here are my concerns:

I'm not sure i'm comfortable with putting a RC 2008 in a production environment. Even though the 60 day trial is "upgradeable" I guess when the final release comes out and he'll be getting it in next months technet. But is it really smart to put the host and exchange 2007 on server 2008 right now? Or should I just go with 2003 and upgrade once it gets proven?

I'm thinking I can combine the DC and the host? I would think this server can handle AD, DNS and DHCP for 6 hosts along with a virtual server.

What do you think?

[Phelps McManus]

I don't really know or care about most of this stuff, but I thought there were logistical reasons for separating your DC from your application server. It wasn't horsepower so much as something fucked up in the Windows architecture.

Also, the system architect for our IT department sweats that Microsoft does not properly utilize dual channel RAM. He uses VMware to virtualize all (Server 2003) servers and says they run an order of magnitude faster due to their proper use of dual channel RAM at the hardware extraction layer.

Or some IT-weenie mumbo jumbo like that. He is a smart guy, so I just believe him.

[Rhuobhe]

VM ware is the most popular option now. I am not familiar with the windows equivalent only that the top nerds claim that it is slower and has more limitations (I would'nt know any better).

Kinda like RIS and Ghost. No one uses RIS because ghost better. I am not very familiar with 2008 "RIS" though.

As for the original question, it is best practice to keep the dc separate but this is for a small business after all.

[MrGraham]

virtualize the application servers, and give each app that has to access exchange or ad it's own instance (ie blackberry enterprise). no reason to put much besides ad/exchange on the non virtual portion

[radyvix]

it does sound very overkill...what about a backup server? With a 2tb san, can't you just have some less resource-full servers attached to it and fill those up with virtual servers (using either vmware Infrastructure 3 or even, and i hate to say it, the free vmware-server). I'd be very concerned about the ONE server saying bye bye. Especially in an Active Directory environment.

oh, and microsoft virtualization does suck. i'd use vmware-server 1.05 first. I haven't played with server 2008 much, but I would stick with 2003 for now just so i could go in later and bill the upgrade process... actually mostly because it's too new.

[Criminiminal]

Originally Posted by radyvix

it does sound very overkill...what about a backup server? With a 2tb san, can't you just have some less resource-full servers attached to it and fill those up with virtual servers (using either vmware Infrastructure 3 or even, and i hate to say it, the free vmware-server). I'd be very concerned about the ONE server saying bye bye. Especially in an Active Directory environment.

oh, and microsoft virtualization does suck. i'd use vmware-server 1.05 first. I haven't played with server 2008 much, but I would stick with 2003 for now just so i could go in later and bill the upgrade process... actually mostly because it's too new.

They have a pretty good backup solution, but i'm getting them an even better one. Right now they have a 1TB sonicwall cdp that does file based backup and backs up a manually created (well, via script and scheduler) acronis system image each night. Then pushes all data offsite each evening. I'm replacing that with a 2 TB appliance that does similar file backups via agent to the appliance and offsite but instead of the acronis images, it does a system "snapshot" that can be mounted as virtual machines in case of the host failing.

And yah, i did what you suggested and put 03 on it with vmware server. I just told them this is a better solution until 2008 and hyper-v mature. I convinced myself to go that route when I loaded 2008 core with only hyper-v installed on a vm, then went to manage it on my vista vm, which told me i needed to install sp1 to run the manager, and sp1 put my vista vm on constant reboot. So yah, fuck vista and 2008 for now.

[Jaytee Bushwacker]

VMWare seems to work better for the 2 servers I implemented virtualization in. It just seems to be more responsive and I would think that definitely had something to due with it utilizing the hardware more effective/efficently at the physical level so the VMs all have optimum resources.

We ran 1 domain controller, 1 exchange server and 1 Microsoft ISA server in 3 VM's on a 1TB SAS Raid 5 with 8GB of ram and dual quad core zeons. Only thing that was a little tricky was the IP addressing but iirc it magically cleared itself up with a patch from intel for the mobo.