This discussion focuses on Dell Business Ready Configurations (BRC) with an emphasis on virtualization including the VMware® vSphere™ 4.0 environment and the Microsoft® Hyper-V™ R1 hypervisor bundle. Dell Business Ready Configurations are put through engineering rigors to help ensure that they are validated for deployment and integration into today's data centers.

The Dell Virtualization Solutions Engineering (VSE) team joins the Dell TechCenter community to discuss their designs, best practice methodology, and lessons learned from the launch of their business-ready configurations.

Featured guest speakers:

  • Lance Boley - Hyper-V SMB BRC design engineer, Dell VSE.
  • Bala Chandrasekaran - vSphere BRC lead design engineer, Dell VSE.
  • Brent Douglas - Hyper-V SMB BRC lead design engineer, Dell VSE.
  • Dushyant Dwibedy - vSphere BRC design engineer, Dell VSE.
  • Brian Sitton - vSphere BRC design engineer, Dell VSE.
  • Ryan Weldon - Hyper-V R2 BRC lead design engineer, Dell VSE.

Technical Community - Background Reading

Chat Transcript

erson I do believe we have a new version of the chat, right? The user bar is on the right
DELL-ScottH Yeah, had an update to Parachat, our chat provider
erson Any other things besides moving the user/room bar to the right?
JasonPowell Something like Savorchat would be sweet for this...pulls in people's social media information
JeffB Works for me; there were quite a few click to accept messages, could be from my Linux/ff 3.5 though
DELL-ScottH Hmm Savorchat link?
JasonPowell www.savorchat.com/chat/justtesting
JasonPowell Apparently you didn't see my tweets yesterday ;-) Is there a newer Dell rack advisor than 5.10?
DELL-ScottH I'm so sorry; I will turn on notifications for you :-)
erson I didn't find a new version than 5.10
JasonPowell Scotth, Lol
erson Newer even
DELL-ScottH have you seen the DCCP?: www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/pedge/topics/en/config_calculator?c=us&cs=555&l=en&s=biz&~ck=anavml
erson Dell.com/calc gives you the DCCP and the new ESSA
JasonPowell Yeah, tried it; no PowerEdge R710 stuff, and you can't put stuff in the rack where you want, or at least I've not figured out how
DELL-ScottH I knew we kept you around here for a reason :-)
Dell-KongY Welcome gents!
DELL-ScottH I'll have to find out who owns the rack advisor; not sure if a newer version is in the works, or if it's being actively developed
JeffB FWIW, you could just keep a channel up and running on Freenode
erson No EqualLogic PS6000 or EqualLogic PS4000 on the DCCP either
erson Jeffb, I would like that
JasonPowell We have #citrt running 24/7 on Freenode
DELL-ScottH Good idea—will take it under consideration
JasonPowell Feel free to stop in and speak geek anytime
JeffB Noted, is Bala going to be back? I wouldn't mind asking about PowerEdge MD1000 and VMware
JasonPowell Erson visits us often :-)
VirtualTodd Hello everybody!
erson Hi Todd
Dell-Bala Hello Todd
Dell-KongY Welcome Todd, Bala, Jason, Erson, D_glynn, Jeffb, and Martin
JeffB :)
Dell-KongY A big congrats to Bala, who recently got married
Dell-Bala Thanks, Kong
JasonPowell Marriage++
VirtualTodd Congrats, Bala!
erson You should put up information on the next two upcoming chats (which have excellent topics)
JasonPowell That blessed arrangement...that dream within a dream...
Dell-KongY Welcome Lance
Dell-KongY Let's wait a few minutes as the rest of the VSE team is joining us
DELL-ScottH Bala! Congrats!
Dell-KongY BTW, if you don't know Bala, you should. :) He's an original virtualization SME from Dell
erson Bala, congratulations
Dell-Bala Thank you
Dell-KongY Welcome Sitha, Ryan, and Lance
erson Hi Ryan and Lance
SithaatDell Hi Kong, how's it going?
Dell-ryan_weldon Hi Erson
Dell-KongY Sitha is an InfiniBand genius and virtualization geek; one of the few ladies in engineering
Dell-KongY Ryan, Brent, and Lance are Hyper-V studs
SithaatDell And Kong is the king of hyperbole
erson Oh, me likey --> Hyper-V R2 BRC lead design engineer, Dell VSE
Dell-KongY But they can also talk the talk around vSphere. So let's begin. The VSE team is joining us to talk about business-ready configurations (BRC). These designs are centered around Dell 11-th generation, iSCSI storage, and either vSphere or Hyper-V
Dell-Bala As Kong mentioned, we recently released business-ready configurations for virtualization. A business-ready configuration is a solution that includes servers, storage, switches, and hypervisor. Backup components are included where possible. The solution is built with virtualization requirements in mind (for example, optimal memory configuration, optimal network configuration to support various traffic types for virtualization). We have a detailed reference for each BRC. We have implemented the RA in the lab, validated it, and worked with vendors to resolve any issues. We have documented best practices for deploying and configuring the solution. The solution is easy to order. The entire solution can be ordered online with just a few clicks. The solution can also be customized to suit any specific requirements. That’s the quick one-minute introduction on what we are doing :)
Dell-KongY Wow...Bala is truly multitalented. Types 100 words in like 5 seconds :)
Dell-Bala And here is the URL: www.dell.com/virtualization/businessready
erson Where can I find the documented best practices for a Hyper-V clustered host setup with iSCSI EqualLogic storage?
Dell-KongY How many folks would consider business-ready configurations?
erson I certainly would, but it seems like I've just purchased one without knowing about them
JeffB Not I, too much investment in current SANs/disk arrays
Dell-KongY @jeffb, what's your storage backend?
Dell-Bala @kong, anyone who is planning to use Hyper-V or VMware on Dell servers and storage can take a look at it and get best practices from it
erson Is this (usual) documentation the documented best practices Bala talked about?: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/software/hyperv/en/index.htm
JeffB Several HP EVAs (6000, 8000, 8100), IBM XIV
Dell-ryan_weldon Erson, that is the general best practices documentation
Dell-Brent_Douglas Hi Erson, EqualLogic has some material on their site; you will need an account for this. That is the link for our general Hyper-V information
JeffB Most data is going to be migrated to the XIV over the next several months
Dell-ryan_weldon One of the documents that Brent is referring to is "Microsoft Hyper-v Protection Using Auto-Snapshot Manager/Microsoft Edition"
JasonPowell I can see value in BRC for small shops that don't want to dork with doing a lot of research
Dell-Bala @erson, you can still take a look at the documents. You can get our reference architecture and best practices. You can find the documents in the link I provided: http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadydatacenter.aspxhttp://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/ http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadydatacenter.aspx http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadydatacenter.aspxhttp://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadydatacenter.aspx
erson Yeah, I've read that general documentation already, and I've got an account on EqualLogic (since I've purchased an EqualLogic PS6000) and picked up some documentation there
Dell-Bala Sorry about that
Dell-Brent_Douglas Hi Jason, yes, we hope to aid the small and medium shops get going with virtualization
Dell-KongY welcome Jeffs and Wb-wpb
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, are there any specific questions that you had regarding your implementation?
JasonPowell Most of the IT peeps I know though want to do a good bit of the research themselves, which may lead them back to the BRC—Lol
erson Bala, yes, those BRC - Data Center that you linked look pretty close to my configuration (PowerEdge R710, PowerEdge MD1000e with PowerEdge M710s, EqualLogic PS6000, PowerVault MD3000i) but we're going for Hyper-V with Windows 2008 R2
erson Ryan Weldon, any information about Dell’s suggested best practices for a Hyper-V R2 setup would be welcome
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, we are planning similar ones for Hyper-V, but the hardware that we will utilize is TBD
JasonPowell I'm a Dell customer and reseller on the side...so I can see this maybe helping on the reseller side
erson Ryan Weldon, so no Dell best practices about Hyper-V R2 in the next couple of months then?
Dell-Bala @jasonpowell, yes, that is one of the goals. We want the resellers or the channel partners to take this and use it to help the customers
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, we will have an R2 sneak peek chat next week at the same time
erson Yes, I know, I will attend for sure :)
Dell-Brent_Douglas @ Jason, Our goal is to aid both groups—end customers as well as resellers like yourself. We do qualification work so you don't have to do it
JeffB Bala, congrats on the recent events. On another note, regarding http://tinyurl.com/lw5elc. Is 2 TB a limit on VMware’s part, and if so is it resolved with vSphere 4? I have a test PowerEdge 2950/MD1000 loaded with 1 TB drives
erson So you’re going to use unreleased hardware for the Hyper-V data center BRC...that gets me going :)
Dell-Bala @jasonpowell, we are planning BRCs for small and medium business and also for large enterprise—both using Hyper-V and VMware
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, I’m not saying that…just that we have yet to settle on which specific models we will include in our reference solution
JasonPowell Cool, I have a customer right now wanting to move to VMware from old legacy stuff
JeffB Carving it up into 2 TB segments isn't the end of the world, but would like to see it in one large disk
erson Hyper-V for SMB BRCs: http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadysmallandremote.aspx
Dell-d_glynn Jeffb, why one large disk?
Dell-Bala @jeffb, I think that limitation is removed in vSphere 4: www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_config_max.pdf
JeffB I was recreating a GroupWise mail system, and wanted to just drop 10 or so servers on one larger partition
erson Ryan Weldon, oh, that should be too hard though...for the data center you have the PowerEdge MD1000e of course with the PowerEdge M710 and/or PowerEdge M610...and then an EqualLogic (or two). And add some PowerConnect switches and a dedicated server for Microsoft System Center DPM backup
Dell-d_glynn There is still a 2 TB limit per LUN, but one can cat up to 32 LUNs together for one large data store; personally, I'd find a different solution
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, is that your hardware configuration?
Dell-Bala Quite a few customers ran into that limitation
erson Ryan Weldon, I recently purchased an EqualLogic PS6000e, PowerVault MD3000i, PowerEdge R710 for DPM backup and a PowerEdge M1000e with 3x PowerEdge M710 to use for production virtualization with Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2. Ah, and some PowerConnect 6248s for the network
Dell-Bala Also wanted to add one thing about BRC. In the process of deploying and validating the solution, we write scripts. Scripts to configure the ESX server, the switch modules, sample host profiles, etc. We will post them on the TechCenter Script Center site
JeffB I'll avoid extents, I can live with the 2 TB sizes, although the same configuration on Windows 2008 will see it as one big disk
erson So you can see why I'm so interested in getting any best practices advice from Dell regarding Hyper-V R2. Since CSB and live migration alters a Hyper-V setup quite a lot from the best practices with Hyper-V R1
ell-KongY Welcome Brian!
Dell-BrianS Hello, sorry I'm late
Dell-ryan_weldon We can address the networking best practices for Hyper-V R2 next week
erson Ryan Weldon, great. Live migration should add a new network to the current Hyper-V setup, but not sure if you would like a separate network for cluster communication as well
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, depending on your live migration requirements, then network teaming may be appropriate. Also, you need to assess your security requirements. Live migration can occur over cluster public links if you don't restrict it
Dell-KongY @jeffb and others, what workloads have you virtualized? Any workload not work out yet?
JeffB Well we have mail servers, some SQL servers, although pervasive had issues, mostly file and Web servers
erson Ryan Weldon, the PowerEdge M710s have redundant mezzanine cards with 2x 1GbE so I have a total of 8 NICs to use (holding fabric c open for a future upgrade to 10GbE)
JeffB I think the pervasive SQL problem was application and not a VMware issue
Dell-KongY @jeffb, thanks for sharing
JeffB We have 12x PowerEdge 2950s for hosts, 130 or more VMs, QLogic cards connecting the hosts to the SAN switches
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, one management/cluster public, 2+ virtual networking (teamed), two iSCSI, one cluster private, 1+ live migration
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, depending on your LM requirements, you can team 2+ adapters and combine cluster private and live migration
erson Ryan Weldon, thanks
Dell-ryan_weldon No problem
erson So two virtualization BRCs so far: http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/virtualization-business-ready-configurations.aspx
erson What and when can we expect next?
Dell-BrianS The blades, EqualLogic, and VMware bundle will be updated with ESX 4.0
Dell-d_glynn @ryan, try right-clicking
Dell-Bala @erson, we have one for large data centers for VMware. You can expect Hyper-V in the future
erson I would appreciate if you also recommended suitable Dell PowerConnect alternatives to the Cisco switches
Dell-Bala @erson, we have one upcoming for Hyper-V for small and medium business
erson Bala, isn't that one already there?: http://content.dell.com/us/en/business/d/virtualization/businessreadysmallandremote.aspx
Dell-ryan_weldon @erson, we will take your feedback into account. Thank you. We love to get customer feedback on what you want to see
Dell-BrianS @erson, interesting that you ask. We have been discussing the possibility of using the 6xxxx series
erson Preferably updated with Hyper-V R2 of course when time permits
Dell-Bala The documents need to be posted for that. So it is "almost" there :)
Dell-ryan_weldon Bala is referring to the SMB bundle; R2 release timing is TBD
erson Hyper-V R2 is such a big step for Hyper-V so it should be a high priority to get your solutions updated with information about that
Dell-BrianS We are also looking at the 8xxxx series 10 Gb switch, but don't have a definite timeline yet
JeffB @erson, I've heard good things about the Vyatta hardware, but I don't have any, and can't speak to its performance
Dell-Brent_Douglas The PowerConnect 62xx would be your rack solution
Dell-BrianS We do use the 6xxxx series internally. Our client connections for validation testing are all through 6220 switches that are linked through a multi 10 Gb EtherChannel to the Cisco switches
erson I'm using a couple of PowerConnect 6248s right now temporarily Upcoming PowerConnect 6300-series and PowerConnect 8000 rack switches would probably be an even better fit though
JasonPowell Any word on 10 Gb/sec. NICs for EqualLogic?
JeffB Speaking of switches, at what point or cost per port does it make sense to go to 10GbE instead of using the 1GbE ports?
erson Dang, already xx:52
Dell-KongY @jasonpowell, no timeline on 10GbE for EqualLogic
erson Jasonpowell, and 2 TB SATA validation of course... :)
Dell-BrianS Not sure about the relative costs, but if you consolidate the fabrics you could go from six 1 Gb switches to 2 1 Gb switches for the LOM connection, and 2 10 Gb switches for everything else
Dell-BrianS Only two mezzanine cards instead of four also
erson HP has an interesting solution with their Flexio 10GbE
erson Brians, and the M8024 is actually not very expensive either
JeffB Brians, you’re referring to blades for the VM hosts aren't you?
Dell-BrianS Correct. Plus you get a lot more bandwidth out of those two 10 Gb connections
erson I/O modules even
Dell-KongY Before we run out of time, I'd like to thank the Dell VSE team for their time and expertise
erson Remember VSE team, give us a Dell PowerConnect option for the network on your BRCs
JasonPowell BRC, good stuff...thanks for the information everyone
JeffB Thanks for your time guys, I'll be on Freenode...
Dell-KongY Thanks to all the attendees
Dell-Bala Thank you, Kong
erson VSE, great chat; make sure Kongy/scotth schedules another chat when you have released more BRCs
Dell-Bala That’s the plan! :)
erson And/or updated the current ones with vSphere 4.0 and Hyper-V R2
erson Bala, great!
Dell-KongY And come back next week for the Hyper-V R2 sneak peek
erson And the week after that for unified fabric on the Dell PowerEdge M1000e
JeffB Do you find many folks doing both VMware and Hyper-V?
Dell-BrianS Have to go, we will talk more soon
Dell-KongY @jeffb, yes in the Dell TechCenter lab :)
erson I should play more with VMware in the lab
Dell-d_glynn Lol
JeffB Ubergeeks, no offense intended...later all :)
Dell-Brent_Douglas Bye, thanks for attending!
Dell-KongY We have it segregated away from Virtualtodd :)
Dell-KongY Take care everyone
Dell-Bala Bye everyone
erson VMware is very common among my company’s customers here in Sweden. I think we've only one using Hyper-V. We're going Hyper-V ourselves because we're a Microsoft partner
Dell-d_glynn Thanks for answering before I asked :) Have you tried VMware?
erson Yes, used it a lot a couple of years ago
Dell-d_glynn Okay
erson I actually started using it at the university in 2001 when we needed a computer classroom with both Linux and Windows operating systems. So we ignored the common dual boot and went with VMware and the possibility of running two operating systems at the same time
Dell-d_glynn That must have been workstation, right?
erson Recently I haven't used it much though...haven't tried ESX since 2.x and the last workstation I tried was 4.x
erson Yes. it worked; it wasn't fast and there were some issues...but it was a long time ago
Dell-d_glynn It makes sense as a Microsoft partner for your company to run Hyper-V, as it is what you'll be selling and it is good to know the products ins and outs
erson We're giving a lot of software/hardware advice to the customers who purchases our software, so I should learn more about VMware since many of them are using it
JasonPowell Everyone I know is VMware
erson Jasonpowell, VMware will have to lower their prices in the future to hold off the competition
JasonPowell Free ESXi
erson Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2 gives free HA and live migration...can VMware top that?
Dell-d_glynn /me steps aside
erson Xen has already provided that for a while, not as easily accessible as Hyper-V Server though
JasonPowell Microsoft has to establish itself in the VM market. It's still too new a player for most people I know to trust it in production
erson Jasonpowell, yes, it's the usual situation...Microsoft enters the game late and needs to play catch up a couple of versions. I would say that Hyper-V R1 wasn't very much to brag about, but R2 is a big step forward. And since most people already run Windows on VMware, why pay for VMware when you get Hyper-V in those Windows licenses anyway when Hyper-V is good enough for most. But VMware is for sure leading virtualization without a doubt
JasonPowell I just bought vSphere recently, which isn't an easy thing for a non-profit
erson No non-profit prices?
JasonPowell Nope, but I have "people" :-)
erson Good stuff :)
Dell-d_glynn Isn't that a Verizon tag line?
erson My first day of summer vacation today
Dell-d_glynn Jason, it sounds like you have to make the sell to management internal at your company
JasonPowell I have several IT volunteers that work for big organizations that get me "deals" :-)
Dell-d_glynn Ah!
erson Spent four hours playing with the servers at work over RDP :)
Dell-d_glynn Erson, do try and enjoy your vacation away from work :)
JasonPowell I have one IT volunteer who’s a hard-core Microsoft solution provider for a large company. Even he didn't suggest we go Hyper-V yet ;-)
erson Jasonpowell, of course...R1 wasn't very complete. Are the Microsoft non-profit prices any good?
JasonPowell Microsoft charity pricing rules! Datacenter for $470 with SA!
erson Ho ho. That’s outrageously cheap
JasonPowell I just bought four :-) to slap on those two PowerEdge R710s I ordered
erson MSRP are $2999 without SA I think
JasonPowell If not for charity pricing we'd not be Microsoft platform most likely
Dell-d_glynn Good night Jason and Erson, I'll leave you two to debate the merits of both companies’ solutions
JasonPowell But it's so cheap that it doesn't make sense to not run Microsoft
JasonPowell Dglynn, later :-)
erson D_glynn, see you next week!
JasonPowell Erson, I'm heading back to #citrt
erson Okay, TTYL; need to get to bed here
JasonPowell 10-4
erson 23:20, Erson out!
erson Scotth, I'm sure no one is watching...what is the configuration of that Nehalem-ex blade that you’re going to release in Q4? ;)
erson The odd thing is that most information about Nehalem-ex has talked about 2S+ configurations...Xeon MP has always been 4S+. And the PowerEdge M1000e has the capability for a full-height, double-width blade. And the Nehalem-ex can have 16 DIMM slots per CPU. So we can assume one or two blades with two–four CPUs with at least 8 DIMM slots per CPU
DELL-ScottH Oh hey, still in a meeting; you are looking for secret stuff :-) Hold please…
erson Network should be at least 4GbE NICs...maybe 10GbE LOM even. Would be useful for those 32–64 logical CPUs
DELL-ScottH Full-height like the PowerEdge M710, 4x 1GbE with 4 mezzanine cards, just like PowerEdge M710, 32 DIMMs with (here's the kicker) Dell Patent Pending technology that enables all 32 DIMMs in a two-socket configuration :-) ssshhh!
erson Awesome!
DELL-ScottH But can also do 4S; lowers license costs on per socket :-) ...but access to loads of RAM!
erson Yes, like I said above, 16 DIMM slots per socket. Quite a feat to cram all those DIMM slots into a full-height enclosure. Hell, I started looking for pictures on the PowerEdge M710 too see if it's possible to go above 18, but no 4S version for blades then?
DELL-ScottH Does 2 and 4; still single wide
erson Ah, now I get it
DELL-ScottH You give up drives; PowerEdge 710 has four, the PowerEdge 910 has two
erson It's a 4S version and when using 4 CPUs you have 8 DIMMs per socket, and when only using 2 CPUs you got that Dell patented technology for using all 32 DIMM slots. Double awesome :) That's flexibility if anything
DELL-ScottH Yes, uber-flex
erson Exciting to see if any other manufacturer can match that
DELL-ScottH We'll see. Hope not :-)
erson Hard to top that blade :) Thanks for the information; didn't think it would slip that easy... ;) I'm off for bed, have a good one. See you next week