Scenario 1: Quad Core 3 Server Cluster
3 Dell 2950 III Energy Smart 2U Servers $35,000 ($7,000 × 5) Two Quad-Core Intel CPUs 16GB of RAM Two 73GB 10K RPM SAS hard drives in RAID1 Two QLogic 2460 4Gbps fibre channel HBAs Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) Six network adapters (two onboard, one quad-port card) 3-Year Gold 7 × 24,4-hour response support VMware Midsize Acceleration Kit $21,824 3 VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise licenses (6 procs) Virtual SMP VirtualCenter Agent VMFS VMotion and Storage VMotion DRS HA Update Manager VCB 1 VirtualCenter 2.5 Foundation license 10 CPU Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Licenses $25,000 ($2,500 × 10) Hardware and licensing total $71,824 Per virtual machine costs One server HA failover capacity: Average 10,1GB VMs per host (30 VMs) $2,394 per VM Maximum capacity: Average 14,1GB VMs per host (42 VMs) $1,710 per VMScenario 2: Quad Core Four Server Cluster
4 Dell R900 Servers $164,000 ($41,000 × 4) Four Quad-Core Intel processors 128GB of RAM Two 73GB 10K RPM SAS hard drives in RAID1 Two QLogic 2460 4Gbps fiber channel HBAs Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) Six network adapters (two onboard, one quad port card) 3-Year Gold 7 × 24,4-hour response support 8 CPU VI3 Enterprise licenses $75,328 ($9,416 × 8) 8 VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise licenses (16 processors) Virtual SMP VirtualCenter Agent VMFS VMotion and Storage VMotion DRS HA Update Manager VCB 1 VMware Virtual Center 2.0 License $8,180 16 CPU Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Licenses $40,000 ($2,500 × 16) Hardware and licensing totals $287,508 Per virtual machine costs One server HA failover capacity: Average 80,1GB VMs per host (320 VMs) $898 per VM Two server HA failover capacity: Average 60,1GB VMs per host (240 VMs) $1,197 per VMAlthough both scenarios present a different deployment, the consistent theme is that using VI3 reduces the cost per server by introducing them as virtual machines. At the lowest cost, virtual machines would each cost $898, and even at the highest cost, they would run $2,394 per machine. These cost savings do not include the intrinsic savings on power consumption, space requirements, and additional employees required to manage the infrastructure.
Though your environment may certainly differ from the L2V Inc. example, the concepts and processes of identifying the ROI will be similar. Use these examples to identify the sweet spot for your company based on your existing and future goals.
The Best Server for the JobWith several vendors and even more models to choose from, it is not difficult to choose the right server for a VI3 deployment. However, choosing the best server for the job means understanding the scalability and fiscal implications while meeting current and future needs. The samples provided are simply guidelines that can be used. They do not take into consideration virtual machines with high CPU utilization. The assumption in the previous examples is that memory will be the resource with greater contention. You may adjust the values as needed to determine what the ROI would be for your individualized virtual infrastructure.
No matter the vendor or model selected, ESX Server 3.5 has a set of CPU and memory maximums, as shown in Table 2.1.
ESX Server MaximumsWhere appropriate, each chapter will include additional values for ESX Server 3.5 maximums for NICS, storage configuration, virtual machines, and so forth.
Table 2.1: ESX Server 3.5 Maximums
Component Maximum No. of virtual CPUs per host 128 No. of cores per host 32 No. of logical CPU (hyperthreading enabled) 32 No. of virtual CPUs per core 8 Amount of RAM per host 128GBESX Server Installation
In addition to the choice of server vendor, model, and hardware specification, the planning process involves a decision between using ESX Server 3.5 versus ESXi 3.5. This chapter will cover the installation of ESX Server 3.5, while Chapter 13 will examine the specifics of ESXi 3.5.
Installing ESX Server 3.5 can be done in a graphical mode or a text-based installation, which limits the intricacy of the screen configuration during the installation. The graphical mode is the more common of the two installation modes. The text mode is reserved for remote installation scenarios where the wide area network is not strong enough to support the graphical nature of the graphical installation mode.
ESX Server Disk Partitioning
Before we offer step-by-step instructions for installing ESX Server, it is important to review some of the functional components of the disk architecture upon which ESX Server will be installed. Because of its roots in Red Hat Linux, ESX Server does not use drive letters to represent the partitioning of the physical disks. Instead, like Linux, ESX Server uses mount points to represent the various partitions. Mount points involve the association of a directory with a partition on the physical disk. Using mount points for various directories under the root file system protects the root file system by not allowing a directory to consume so much space that the root becomes full. Since most folks are familiar with the Microsoft Windows operating system, think of the following example. Suppose you have a server that runs Windows using a standard C: system volume label. What happens when the C drive runs out of space? Without going into detail let's just leave the answer as a simple one: bad things. Yes, bad things happen when the C drive of a Windows computer runs out of space. In ESX Server, as noted, there is no C drive. The root of the operating system file structure is called exactly that: the root. The root is noted with the / character. Like Windows, if the / (root) runs out of space, bad things happen. Figure 2.2 compares Windows disk partitioning and notation against the Linux disk partitioning and notation methods.
Figure 2.2 Windows and Linux represent disk partitions in different ways. Windows, by default uses drive letters, while Linux uses mount points.
In addition, because of the standard x86 architecture, the disk partitioning strategy for ESX Server involves creating three primary partitions and an extended partition that contains multiple logical partitions. The standard x86 disk partitioning strategy does not allow for more than three primary partitions to be created.
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