Which vmware product would I need?

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I was informed today that we need to purchase another server system for our new accounting software. After some discussions we had an idea that we could possibly move to a virtual environment. We would run this accounting server, a wsus server, an anti virus server and possibly a second Exchange 2007 edge server all as virtual servers.

The question is, is this idea feasible and what VMware server product would be best to set it in motion?

I thought of ESX server with the server hardware having 2 dual core cpu's (maybe quad core?) with at least 4 GB of RAM and a TB of HDD space. Is this realistic?

Thanks for all help.

 

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You could run it all from VMWare server, but you'd be defeating one of the main objects of enterprise virtualisation - which is to run it on 'bare metal'

Invest in ESX Server - you won't be disappointed. Also, when you come to expand (trust me, once you've got four or five systems up and running you'll never want to go back to individual servers and will want to virtualise everything you can get your hands on) you'll be able to use all the cool load balancing and hot swapping features that come with ESX. VMotion RULES!

 

My thoughts exactly. We are (will be with the exchange server) currently at 3 systems and then this 4th one planned. Who knows how many more.

Would you recommend the enterprise version over the standard?

 

Yes - I'm not sure (Ryan could probably tell you with more authority than me as I believe he uses and deploys ESX quite heavily) but I don't think you get any of the cooler stuff with ESX Standard (VMotion etc)

If that is the case, then for that reason alone I'd go with Enterprise - though there are probably a host of other benefits over Standard that make it worthwhile.

Incidentally, I believe ESX (both versions) are still licensed per processor as opposed to per core. that was certainly the case when i saw ESX Ent demoed at HP's London offices at the end of last year, but may be different now. if they're still licensed that way then it's are an absolute bargain.

 

In your current design, the only benefits of ESX would be improved performance and capacity
I think the thing to realise with ESX is it doesnt really come in to it's own until you have more than one system and some shared storage

that lets you do things like vMotion, DRS, HA, and going forward there are other cool features being added

that said, you could probably get away with an ESX Starter edition for the time being, as it disables all the cool features and costs a load less, then you could upgrade the license at a later point when you can use the cool features

with a single system you wouldnt need virtual center either, another cost saving

ESX is definatly the way to go
VMWare server is not really recommended for production use, and whilst you can use it in that way, and even buy support, its no where near as stable/performant as the real deal

 

I take it you mean 2 or more servers running ESX?

Thanks for the tip about the starter edition. I was looking at the standard but it seems that the starter edition will do for now.

 

As you dont have shared storage yet the starter should suffice

The limits are 8GB Ram, Local or NAS Storage only
and you cant do Virtual SMP (give guests more than one CPU) which is not recommended for most instances anyway

 

We do have this in our new setup. As it stands, we have a new windows server, a new linux server and a raid system stuffed full of disks (1TB of space) plus a tape backup system.

I don't know that we would get a second ESX server so soon, so what would you recommend? A server with dual quad core, lots of ram and 6-800Gb of hdd space or something a little less over the top?

Admittedly I don't quite get the idea of why shared space is advantageous but then I don't have any experience other than VMWare workstation. Is this because Vmotion uses the shared space to transfer from one ESX server to the other?