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DELL-ToddM
Hello gsherman03 and newborn1281
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DELL-ToddM
Welcome Dell101
DELL-ToddM
We are going to wait a few minutes to give people a chance to join
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DELL-ToddM
Then we will have a discussion about today's topic - Virtualization
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DELL-ToddM
While we are waiting to get started - do you guys have any specific virtualization topics or questions for today?
DELL-brian_s.
Rdm vs Vmfs would be a good one :-)
DELL-brian_s.
for me anyway
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DELL-ScottH
Hey Kent
gsherman03
Well one way would to begin by explaining how we use virtualization this is Rvm by the way we were on last week...requesting the powerconnect session
DELL-KentS
Good Afternoon folks!
DELL-ScottH
yes, we always remember our loyal visitors !
gsherman03
We are running the Pe1950 w 2 X 5355 Xeon chips, 8GB Ram, and 2X 146 Gb 15K Sas drives in a raid 0
gsherman03
no critical data on these machines they are pure processing
gsherman03
Vmware Server 1.0.4 havent made the dive into Vi3 or esx
DELL-ToddM
Are you using Virtual Center to manage?
gsherman03
negative we attempted this and it didn't really acomplish what we wanted
DELL-ToddM
How many 1950s? How many Vms?
gsherman03
8 and 5vm's each
gsherman03
Small random I/o
DELL-ToddM
Is management of the 8 servers a problem without Virtual Center? Are you using something else to manage things?
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DELL-ToddM
Welcome msmolen
msmolen
Hi and Thanks!
DELL-ToddM
We are discussing gsherman03's virtualization setup
gsherman03
dell open manage It assistant and server assistant
gsherman03
we havent found it to be a large issue
DELL-ToddM
In general, we have talked to many customers over the last few years that have settled on two-socket servers like the 1950 for their virtualization platform
gsherman03
Is the R800 the way to go with the 4 way socket setup
gsherman03
900 excuse me
DELL-ToddM
Whew - I was trying figure out what the r800 was!
DELL-ToddM
I just had a convesation with a customer a few days ago about the R900 for Vmware
DELL-ToddM
He was trying to decide between the 2950 Iii and the R900
DELL-ToddM
Or more generically a two-socket server or a four-socket server
DELL-ToddM
The major advantage of the R900 today is memory capacity
gsherman03
Any performance specs availail to compair
DELL-ToddM
It can be loaded with 128gb of Ram
gsherman03
true at what point can we determine if additional ram will give us an improvement
DELL-ToddM
There are Vmark results out for both the 2950iii and the R900
DELL-ToddM
The additional Ram that you can load into the R900 is only useful if you have Vms that need it
msmolen
And what are most people using for the Virtual Center server (the one that monitors the other "big" servers running multiple Vms?
DELL-ToddM
The 2950iii can be loaded with 32GB of ram - so it has quite a bit of Ram itself
DELL-ToddM
Many customers are able to fit all their Vms for a two socket server into this 32 Gb
DELL-ToddM
The customer that I spoke with was considering moving some databases into Vms that would require quite a bit of Ram each
DELL-ToddM
For Virtual Center - not alot of power is needed.
msmolen
R200?
DELL-ToddM
You can use a previous generation server or the R200 would have enough horsepower
DELL-ToddM
The issue with the R200 is that it does not have redundant power supplies
msmolen
Ah--i see that now...good point
gsherman03
well if the virtual center goes down with that create a Vm issue on the other server
gsherman03
s
DELL-ToddM
For our virtual center server we are using an 1855 blade server
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gsherman03
in the Vi3 scenario I could understand it opening up the issue of failover being disabled, hot move of Vm's that are busy, etc but in the Vmware server it shouldn't do much
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DELL-ToddM
If virtual center goes down, the Vms running on the Esx servers or Vmserver systems will still be up and running
DELL-ToddM
You just can't manage them
DELL-ToddM
Until you get virtual center back up
DELL-ToddM
you would have to mange the server directly via the Vi client
DELL-ToddM
Some people use a Vm to run Virtual Center on
msmolen
On another topic, (and gsherman, if you have more q's, please keep going---happy to wait my turn at bat here), we are interested in fitting out two large 2950's with Esx 3i in a disk-less config connected to a Md3000i, using the new on-chip Vmware "shell" from Vmware. Is there more data on the Dell site now regarding this? The last time I tried to config a server, it was still prompting for disks.
gsherman03
No go right ahead
DELL-ToddM
I don't recommend running Virtual center in a Vm - managing itself can get you into trouble
gsherman03
what is the feeling on running domain controllers in a vm
DELL-ToddM
We don't currently have 3i available
DELL-ToddM
If you saw Diane Greene
msmolen
any prognosis on an Eta?
DELL-ToddM
's keynote at Vmworld
msmolen
haven't seen it, sorry
DELL-ToddM
We showed a pre-release server running it - so I think that I can say that we are working on it - but I don't have a date that I can give you
msmolen
sigh
DELL-ToddM
I agree with your sigh
DELL-ToddM
We have had it in the lab here and done some beta testing with 3i - and it was pretty cool
msmolen
We are very jazzed about being able to run all servers diskless with one storage array
DELL-ToddM
My opinion on running Dcs in a Vm - is that they are excellent candidates
msmolen
and to clarify, we'd put one small server between the two large 2950s running virtual center
DELL-ToddM
As Dcs are usually very low Cpu utilization systems
DELL-ToddM
You can download 3i from Vmware today - if you want to see what it is all about.
msmolen
Right...we were really interested in hearing more about purchasing a new server with the embedded Vm shell on the 32MB chip
msmolen
specifically, "when could we purchase" sorry
gsherman03
We ran into a really odd incompadibility between a Pe 2800 with Vmware server and a Pe 1950 with intel Nic's installed. Until I downloaded new drivers for the Pe2800 outside of the dell site we completely could not have the servers properly communicate the Dell approved driver would not resolve the issue.
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DELL-ToddM
I wish I could give you a date - sorry
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DELL-ToddM
Where did you get the driver that resolved the problem?
gsherman03
off the intel site
gsherman03
and we are speaking of a tried and trued onboard Intel Mt1000
DELL-ToddM
I had not heard of this problem before - but I spend most of my time on Esx
gsherman03
the pci-e cards in the 1950 were very new
gsherman03
well ironically it isnt a vm issue
gsherman03
we placed the dc in the host pc and got the same results
gsherman03
I can ping, but actual traffic doesn't properly flow
gsherman03
updated the drivers after properly reinstalling the Dell drivers 3 times and recieved the same results
DELL-ToddM
I assume that you checked all of the other stuff - cable, loose connection, etc
DELL-ToddM
Is it possible that it is a hardware problem?
gsherman03
oh yeah we were at the absolute last level of troubleshooting
gsherman03
its the onboard nic and it works with every other Pc and server here
DELL-ToddM
One of the topics that I spent some time on last year was running Exchange in a Vm
DELL-ToddM
I picked this topic to work on because
DELL-ToddM
1) customers seemed to be asking about it
DELL-ToddM
2) Exchange is a really peformance intensive app
gsherman03
only failed with the 2 Pe-1950 with Intel -pci-e
DELL-ToddM
3) Exchange is also a mission critical type of thing
DELL-ToddM
The testing results showed that with up to 2000 users peformance was still pretty good
DELL-ToddM
Not quite as good as what you would get with Exchange on a physical server
DELL-ToddM
But the performance difference is probably not noticeable by end users
DELL-ToddM
DELL-ToddM
Is anybody on the chat running a "mission critical" app on Vms today or thinking about doing it soon?
msmolen
I'm assuming you mean Vmware...not Vms (the Os)...but yes
DELL-ToddM
Oh - no way - not Vms
DELL-ToddM
I meant Virtual Machines
DELL-ScottH
we haven't announced the Dell Mainframe yet :-)
msmolen
Lol
DELL-ToddM
It would be cool if you run Vms in a Vm!
msmolen
Yes, we are planning on launching our entire hosted application running on on Vms...web app connected to Db...all running in a virtual world on a couple physical boxes...and the additional boxes are there for Virtual Center and a fail over box
DELL-ToddM
Are you going to use the load balancing and Ha stuff that Vmware provides -- or do you have app level ability to accomplish the same thing?
msmolen
Vmware...no use re-inventing the wheel
DELL-ToddM
The work that we have done with Vmware Ha shows that it is very simliar to Microsoft Clustering in time to failover - and it is alot easier to setup
DELL-ToddM
We had a question back at the beginning about Rdm vs Vmfs
DELL-ToddM
All the numbers that I have seen on this indicate almost no difference in terms of performance
msmolen
that's what the techies say...i'm going to hold their feet to the fire when we test!
DELL-ToddM
The real advantage to Rdm is that you can take an Rdm volume and mount it on a physical server
DELL-ToddM
Advantage of Vmfs is that it is just a file - easy to manage for backup
msmolen
I'm hoping that we can hold a server in a booted state (ready to go) and fail over to it if the main server (or any particular Vm) has a problem. I'm not sure if that can be done or not--if anyone knows, I'd love to know...or does the fail over server just sit there and have to wait for a failure before it begins loading at the Os level? Again, this using Virtual Center and Ha to monitor the main server running multiple Vms.
msmolen
If we can do this, the down time for a mission critical app should be less than 1 min (hopefully much less)
DELL-ScottH
it's not really a second server ... or image ... Vmware Ha/drs utilizes vmotion to move the Vm to available physical resources that have not failed
DELL-ScottH
I've got some demos and a paper .. hold for links ...
DELL-ToddM
All of the Esx servers are up and running all the time
DELL-ScottH
DELL-ToddM
The Vms can be dynamically moved - without interruption to the Vms
msmolen
gotcha...that helps. Some of the Ha stuff I had read made it sound like you had to wait for a failure before the other machine would spin up and take over
DELL-ScottH
demos --> http://www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+demos  -- 3 demos at the bottom
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DELL-ScottH
ooopppp .. clicking on links makes you leave the chat :-)
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msmolen
so I see
DELL-ScottH
oops, clicking on the links makes you leave the chat :-) .
DELL-ToddM
In the event that one of your physical servers fails, the Vms that were running on it will be automatically restarted - via Vmware Ha - on the remainig Esx servers in the farm
DELL-ToddM
At this point we are going to wrap up today's chat on virtualization
msmolen
thanks guys! very helpful!
DELL-ToddM
Next week we will be discussing Systems Management and Drac controllers (dell Remote Access Controller)
DELL-ToddM
The week after that we will have another virtualzation chat
DELL-ScottH
I've got one of the Drac developers coming, so be nice
DELL-ScottH
we occasionally let them out to see the sunshine
DELL-ToddM
I'm currently working on some Sql Server in Vm testing, Vcb, and Hyper-v - so we can talk about those and others in two weeks
DELL-ToddM
You can always post comments on the wiki at anytime about these topics or others.
DELL-ToddM
The transcript of today's chat will be posted on the wiki tomorrow
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DELL-ToddM
Tell your friends and we will talk to you next week