In the end, those estimates have nothing to do with a PS environment.
yes, 20 VM's for lightly used servers is one thing, 20 VM's on 2850's that
are heavily used is a completely differnt story. Truthfully, your comparing
apples to oranges and that estimate has nothing to do with the original
discussion. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but that's like saying "well if
I threw out Windows and went to Linux for all my servers, then I would save
a $50,000 on Windows licensing". Yes it may be true but it has nothing to
do with the discussion.
No one is arguing that VMWare can't be used and used effectively in
certain situations but the facts are, in a PS environment, moving your
entire farm over to it is probably not something you'd want to do especially
if your running greater amounts of users on them.
Jeff Pitsch
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
Forums not enough?
Get support from the experts at your business
http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
On 7/31/06, Joe Shonk <joe.shonk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hmm… Your still missing a few things in you HW assessments. For one,
> if you visualize you need to think HA. So if 1 of the VM HW nodes die you
> now have 10 servers that are dead. What? vMotion them to the other servers
> that's probably maxed out? No redundancy on the SAN? HBA connections?
>
>
>
> On you apples to apples comparison, would all 20 servers need a
> connection to the SAN?
>
>
>
> I don't remember fibre channel fabrics coming in two port flavors… and
> then again, you would need two switches (redundancy again).
>
>
>
> If you wish to consolidate servers and SAVE money, look at Virtuozzo.
>
>
>
> Joe
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Selinger, Stephen
> *Sent:* Monday, July 31, 2006 1:42 PM
>
> *To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: VMWare Farm
>
>
>
> Hmm…Good points but let's take a further look…at least what has worked
> for me. This might not work in your environment but has worked great for
> me!!
>
>
>
> Please note that I am not talking about Citrix on VMWARE in the
> following message.
>
>
>
> Well I have 20 Virtual machines running across three Dell 2850 servers
> in my environment. They all are connected to the san and absolutely run
> without any performance problem for the last two years. They haven't been
> rebooted for 228 days. These are production virtual machines that are used
> everyday. I have not yet had one single issue with the virtualization
> platform and no vendor has not provided support. (Including MS_). Let's
> compare some quick numbers.
>
>
>
> If I would have purchased 20 Servers for this environment it would have
> cost: (Please note Canadian dollars which are pretty much US dollars now
> J )
>
>
>
>
>
> *Plan A - Physical Servers*
>
> * *
>
> 20 – DELL 1850 - $ 4,000 each = $80,000 (with 3 year
> warranty)
>
> 1 - Rack for Servers - $ 5,000 (I was out of rack
> space in my environment)\
>
> 1 - Blade for Switch - $ 5,000 (Network Guys are out
> of ports)
>
>
>
> Total Cost = $90,000.00
>
>
>
> ** Note I would have probably needed to purchase more AC and power but I
> will not include these numbers in my calculations as I do not directly pay
> for those things.
>
>
>
>
>
> *Plan B - ESX Servers*
>
>
>
> 2 – DELL 2850/ 8 GB Ram/ - $ 15,000 each = $30,000
>
> 2 – HBA for SAN - $ 1,000 each = $ 2,000
>
> 2 – SAN Ports - $ 2,500 each = $ 5,000
>
> 2 – ESX License - $ 7,500 each = $15,000
>
> 2 – ESX Support for 3 years - $ 3,000 each = $ 9,000
>
> 1 – Disk for SAN - $ 10,000 300 GB = $10,000
>
>
>
> Total over 3 years $71,000.00
>
>
>
>
>
> Ok so you say wow you only saved $18,000 dollars big deal?
>
>
>
> Well it is a big deal when you consider that all of the physical servers
> in plan A are not connected to the SAN. They are stand alone and live and
> die alone. If I wanted to compare apples to apples I would put HBAs into
> each server and attached them into two SAN switch ports. This is not cheap.
> So assuming that an HBA costs $1000 dollars and a SAN port costs $2500
> dollars which are the costs in my environment this would be the updated
> numbers.
>
>
>
> *Plan A- Physical Servers with SAN Disk*
>
> 20 – Standard Dual Proc Server = $80,000.00
>
> 1 - Rack for Servers = $ 5,000.00 (I was out of rack space in my
> environment)\
>
> 1 - Blade for Switch = $ 5,000.00 (Network Guys are out of ports)
>
> 20 – HBAs for servers = $20,000
>
> 20 – SAN Switch Ports = $50,000
>
> 1 – Disk for SAN - $ 10,000 300 GB = $10,000
>
>
>
>
>
> Total Cost = $170,000
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Plan B - ESX Servers*
>
>
>
> 2 – DELL 2850/ 8 GB Ram/ - $ 15,000 each = $30,000
>
> 2 – HBA for SAN - $ 1,000 each = $ 2,000
>
> 2 – SAN Ports - $ 2,500 each = $ 5,000
>
> 2 – ESX License - $ 7,500 each = $15,000
>
> 2 – ESX Support for 3 years - $ 3,000 each = $ 9,000
>
> 1 – Disk for SAN - $ 10,000 300 GB = $10,000
>
>
>
> Total over 3 years $71,000.00
>
>
>
> Potential Cost Savings = $101,000
>
>
>
> So you would see that if (and I say IF) the requirement was that all
> servers were connected to the SAN then the ESX solution would be cheaper by
> $100,000 dollars. Yes you might not agree exactly with my numbers but I
> think that this illustrates that there are tremendous cost savings made in
> an ESX environment. We IT people have always been taught to over build
> servers just to ensure that no one complains. I think that this is the only
> industry that you can overbuild everything and not get fired! If you were
> building office buildings for your company that were only 5% utilized and
> you wanted to build a new building each time that you hired a few more staff
> you would be fired so fast your head would spin.
>
>
>
> There are also many soft benefits to virtualization with ESX I will
> quickly name a few:
>
>
>
>
>
> 1) Vmotion
>
>
>
> Absolutely cool technology. Imagine moving a live production server in
> the middle of the day to another piece of hardware without any downtime.
> Let's say you want to install more ram into the host server. Simply VMotion
> all the guests over to another server, install the ram and then VMotion the
> hosts back!
>
>
>
> 2) Snapshots.
>
>
>
> Take a snapshot of you server before you install some MS patch of the
> week. If the patch bombs your server simply fall back to the Snapshot and
> all is well!!
>
>
>
> 3) VMWARE HA
>
>
>
> If one of your ESX servers dies all of the VMs on that server will
> restart on another ESX server. Yes the VMs will go down but within a few
> minutes they will be back on another system.
>
>
>
> 4) Distributed Resource Scheduling
>
>
>
> You basically setup a cluster of ESX servers that you're VMs live on.
> They will be load balanced across this hardware to ensure enough resources
> are spread across the farm.
>
>
>
> I am not going to say that this won't work in every eviroment as
> everyone and every company is different. I would just ask that you keep your
> options open and at least look at this solution. Start small with a few test
> servers and build from there.
>
>
>
> You can download VMWARE ESX 3.0 evaulation from
> http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/eval.html Remember the eval is free
> but once you start you will never go back!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Greg Reese
> *Sent:* July 31, 2006 1:50 PM
> *To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: VMWare Farm
>
>
>
> I'm with Jeff on this one. VMWare has it's place but I wouldn't trust
> my entire farm to it. Web interface, license server, test environments
> etc. Small things that don't need lots of attention or power.
>
> 5 vmware servers and licensing for ESX will also cost a small fortune.
> Not to mention the SAN space etc. If you spent 3k per server on 15 Hp DL360
> servers, you would be looking at 45k for the farm. 5 vmware servers, plus
> support, plus vmware esx, HBA's, SAN space etc will be a lot more than 45k
> and not perform as well. It will perform OK, but once you get loaded up
> with lots of users, the physicals will outperform.
>
> I like the fact that running on physical boxes is a known commodity.
> When you are running things on VMware and there is a problem, it gets
> brought up. The vendors point fingers at it, management wonders about it.
> Then you have to move it to a physical box to prove it is or is not a vmware
> issue etc. it just becomes a hassle. A hassle you paid more money to have.
>
>
> Greg
>
> On 8/1/06, *Jeff Pitsch* < jepitsch@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> This all depends on what your DR needs are but Zone Preference and
> Failover will allow for automatic redirecting of clients to the DR site
> without any need for you to get involved.
>
>
>
> As for the 15 VM's, that depends on many factors. What hardware are you
> moving from and moving too? How many users? How much load were on your old
> servers? Have you looked at 64-bit at all? How did you determine that 5
> servers running VMWare would meet your needs? Have you done any real
> testing to see if this solution would work?
>
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Eldon* < u2htdaab@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Thanks to all providing very good info so far. Now, which features
> specifically in PS 4 would resolve my DR needs (not totally up to speed with
> PS 4). Also, isn't running 15 VMs running on only 5 servers improving my
> farm based upon consolidation?
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Jeff Pitsch* < jepitsch@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
>
> mm, i would argue that you probably have space to consolidate anyway but
> moving to 64-bit OS and hardware would allow you to consolidate very easily
> and the features that are in PS4 would allow for exactly what your looking
> for from a DR perspective. Just remember that you will not get the
> same performance out of a VM that you would out of pure hardware. Now there
> are obvious considerations here like you may be using really old hardware,
> etc but do not be surprised that you could very easily end up running more
> than 15 VM's to handle the same amount of users in a virtualized
> environment.
>
>
>
> As well, don't agree to anything until you can actually test all of thi
> sout. Anyone can promise the world, it's up to you to make sure that it's
> actually the world you want. I've seen to many people fall into this trap
> and only listen to what they are being told, then sign the agreements, then
> live to regret because they didn't do due diligence to make sure that the
> solution would actually work.
>
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Eldon* < u2htdaab@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Being the OP, the lure of VMware to me is twofold: 1 - to consolidate
> hardware in my current deployment of HP G1 hardware (15) to support 250
> concurrent connections to a published dekstop and other siloed apps; and 2 -
> to allow failover to our DR site by using our current EMC SAN located in our
> main site and a future EMC SAN (Centerra) at our DR location. Portability
> of moving VMs between SANs in a DR scenario is very appealing.
>
>
>
> I am in the process of waiting on a quote from a Solutions Architect,
> but the way it was explained to me is that I would be looking at
> consolidation of 3 current servers into 1 (3 VMs per server).
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Jeff Pitsch* < jepitsch@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
>
> Hence my statement of lightly used servers. Most companies care about
> getting more users on a system vs less. Now granted the OP didn't say how
> many users, how many servers but in the end if you try to take an entire
> farm and port it to VM's, you will typically end up using more VM's than
> phsyical boxes. VM's simply cannot get the same amount of users on a system
> as physical hardware can at this point in time. If you aren't utilizing
> your servers to their full potential or even close to their potential, then
> yes you could move to VM's and not notice much of difference. But let's be
> realistic for a moment, most people move to VM's to consolidate servers. As
> well, many many companies that do this with Presentation Server aren't using
> their boxes to nearly their potential anyways so moving to VM's for that
> reason is simply ridiculous. I would be willing to bet that many PS
> implementations have never taken the time to benchmark or stress test their
> servers to see how many users they can get on a system. They have no idea
> what their sytems can handle and therefore over buy on the systems
> required. Now overbuying isn't necessarily a bad thing (for redundancy) but
> I've been into many many companies that do it because they simply don't know
> what their systems can handle.
>
>
>
> whew, gotta get off that soapbox. Sorry everyone
>
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Selinger, Stephen* < SSelinger@xxxxxxxxx > wrote:
>
> Jeff,
>
>
>
> Respectively I hope that you are only taking about highly utilized
> production Citrix servers and not other servers as VMs. There are many
> companies including where I work that have production VMs of various sorts
> and flavours. ESX is absolutely a production ready product that is capable
> of running production VMs. Yes there will be servers that have too high of
> utilization to be running on ESX but there are tons of over powered
> underutilized servers out there.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] *On
> Behalf Of *Jeff Pitsch
> *Sent:* July 31, 2006 11:29 AM
> *To: *thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: VMWare Farm
>
>
>
> I believe the general concesus is is that for production, VM's are not
> the way. Lightly used servers are fine, but for an entire farm the
> performance is ismply not there yet.
>
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Eldon* < u2htdaab@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Currently running FR3 on 2000 SP4, and am beginning to evaluate and look
> at building a separate Windows 2003 CPS 4.0 Farm on the VMWare ESX
> platform. Just wanted to get an idea if anyone on the list has something
> similar in production today, what hardware you deployed to support published
> apps on ESX and VMotion, and how you designed your farm (including Data
> Collector and Database). Also looking for Best Practices and Things to
> Avoid!
>
>
>
> Thanks!!
>
>
>
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