Harry Neuwirth 
United States
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5/29/2006
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| 1/22/2008 07:56 PM |
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Good morning and thanks all for maintaining this great forum. I am about to start a hardware replacement cycle and I need to see if my servers can be replaced by a single virtual server.
I have an SBS 2K3 setup as follows: 20 users, SBS primarily used for exchange and my documents redirection, a second windows server delivering terminal services to 15 of my users (primarily accounting, excel, word and IE7) who are on WYSE winterms and five PC's. We have gotten away from ISA in favor of Cisco PIX. We are light users of sharepoint services and, frankly, SQLServer has proven to be more a nuisance than anything else.
Is it possible, efficient and safe to replace my two servers with a single machine running windows virtual server?
Thanks in advance.
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Kevin Da Silva
Mississauga, Canada
Member since
1/12/2008
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Posts: 579
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| 1/22/2008 10:15 PM |
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Is it possible? Of course  ...
Is it feasible? That depends on your hardware. You will have to get a more powerful system. Also are you going to be running SBS in a VM (Bad Idea)? Or Terminal Services in a VM? Or both?
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MCSE:Messaging, MCTIP, SBS Specialist |
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Harry Neuwirth
United States
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5/29/2006
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Posts: 8
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| 1/23/2008 07:27 AM |
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| My plan was to consider putting SBS and terminal services in a VM. Why is it a bad idea? |
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william warren
United States
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| 1/23/2008 04:38 PM |
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it's really not a bad idea. I am gettign ready to setup sbs2k3 premium inside of a vm in my testing environment. It allows you to be in control of resource usage and also allows easy recovery from any kind of problem via automated snapshots. I am using Centos 5 as the base os..then setting up VMware to host the sbs2k3 as well as a virtualized linux iinstance for a friend's amchine as well as a testing vm for server 2k8. Hardware requirements aren't that high anymore with modern technology. Ram is your friend with VM though. I use Linux as my base os as it willl run happily under 512 megs of ram which means i have 3.5 gig to allocate to other vms. If i outgrow that then i'll put 4 more gig of ram in. My machine is a recently purchased dell t105 with and opteron 1210(dual core vith virtualization acceleration built into the hardware).
Backups are a cinch I can use a host of Linux or open source tools to easily backup the vms(since the vm's are only a file inside the linux host environment). Also if i need to move the vm i shutdown that instance..throw it onto a usb2.0 drive and move it to aonther vmware running machine whether the host os is windows or linux it won't matter.
If my tests bear out as i have planned this wil be how i will be setting clients up from now on.. linux host running vmware with the os inside of the vm. One file to backup(for regular backups) and backup a bootable image of the entire system for DR..
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Kevin Da Silva
Mississauga, Canada
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| 1/23/2008 09:57 PM |
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Bad Idea = Not Supported.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/867572
Although I do run SBS in a VM, running either a DC or ISA in a VM is known to cause issues. |
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MCSE:Messaging, MCTIP, SBS Specialist |
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Harry Neuwirth
United States
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5/29/2006
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Posts: 8
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| 1/23/2008 10:36 PM |
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[quote]Bad Idea = Not Supported.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/867572 [/quote]
At the risk of sounding like a Microsoft KB lawyer, not supported as guest, but supported as host. It would be hard for ISA to function as a guest.
In all events, it appears that Longhorn and Cougar may solve my problem. My reading of the fora is that
1. ISA is no longer going to be part of Cougar (now reduced to only supporting a single NIC setup) and therefore the above problem disappears
2. Server 2008 will have a robust virtualization technology out of the box.
I will wait for stable releases of both in the hope of upgrading hardware and software at one go.
Thanks all for your advice and help |
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Kevin Da Silva
Mississauga, Canada
Member since
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Posts: 579
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| 1/23/2008 10:44 PM |
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I dont mean to sound like a dream crusher, but having worked for MS SBS team, I know the fine line between not recommended and not supported.
That being said...Server 2008 does have robust virtulization technology, one thing to consider would be to do a server core install and then run all your VM off of that. And the host OS wont consume as much resources as you might think!
Best of luck! |
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MCSE:Messaging, MCTIP, SBS Specialist |
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william warren
United States
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| 1/24/2008 12:41 AM |
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Posted By Kevin Da Silva on 1/23/2008 09:57 PM
Bad Idea = Not Supported.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/867572
Although I do run SBS in a VM, running either a DC or ISA in a VM is known to cause issues.
The dc issue issue i bet is solved by having a dedicated nic to the vm..that's one thing i am going to be testing. ISA i'm not going to be using and i'll either shut it off or effectively move it out of the way(by installing in single nic mode).Plus i don't want to run a host os that is limited to 4 gigs of ram(sbs 2k3)..i want to be able to take advantage of all of my memory. Also using Linux as the host makes backups much easier as i noted before. Also I can have Linux installed, updated, and configured from scratch in usually one hour maximum two hours..that's very difficult to do with just about any flavor of windows..the updates alone take an hour or two and multiple reboots..the Linux updating process is run the updates once..reboot..done with that. The reason i am using premium is because that's what i have in my subscription..also i intend to use the sql server(my wife wants to learn how to admin sql.....)
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william warren
United States
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| 1/30/2008 03:08 AM |
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| also i am not using ms's vm but vmware on Linux. |
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Dennes Meeusen
The Netherlands
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4/8/2005
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Posts: 232
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| 2/13/2008 11:55 AM |
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The only *stable* way to achieve this in a production environment is by using VMware ESX.
We have this running (ESX box with Windows 2003 Standard as TS and SBS 2003, both as VM's) at a couple of clients and it runs as stable and fast as a physical setup. You can even add a couple of XP VM's to the bunch and create a ' poor man's VDI' solution using RWW.
Using Virtual Server or VMware server (the free versions) in a production environment is asking for trouble (and getting it..)
ps. I doubt Cougar will have the Viridian hypervisor built in/as an option, So VMware or one of it's competitors (Xen/Virtual Iron) is the way to go if you want to go virtual.
pps. AFAIK MS officially doesn't support any of it's Server os's running virtual, but that doesn't mean it's not being used.
Dennes
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127.0.0.1 is where the heart is.. |
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william warren
United States
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| 2/13/2008 01:09 PM |
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I'm not having issues right now. I ran vmware server under linux and virtualized 3 windows servers on it without issues. I then decided to leverage the software i have from ms for cheap and switched to 2k3x64 as the host. I then have vmware server going and am running two additional 2k3 servers(one 2k3 standard and one 2k3 web edition). NO issues.
There's a long standing myth that free is not stable nor worthy for deployment. That simply is not true. I have deployed free software whenever i could and most times it works just as well if not better than commercial software. If i was using vmware server 2.0 beta then i would expect stability issues..but i'm not using 2.0..i'm using 1.04. One of the vm's is running two normally full counter-strike gaming servers and it runs perfectly fine. I daresay it runs better under this vm than it does natively on Linux(which is not surprising since valve is mainly windows dev house.)
Once i can get my hands on the rtm release of cougar i'm going to try first virtualizing the entire shebang with linux as the host. If that works then deployment and backups of entire servers just got a ton easier(especially backups and DR since i can restore A basic Linux box in under an hour manually even faster w/DR automation).
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Steve McGrath
United States
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6/23/2006
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| 2/13/2008 05:13 PM |
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| For what it's worth, I've been running ws2k3x64 as the host with VS 2005 R2 using as guests SBS2003 R2 Premium (with ISA installed) and a TS in production and some times some othe lab machines, and after getting the kinks out it's run fine for about 4 months now. Knock on wood.
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william warren
United States
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| 2/13/2008 05:28 PM |
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That rocks..
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Boon Tee
Adelaide, Australia
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8/1/2005
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| 2/23/2008 12:49 AM |
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I am running my SBS as a guest with 2k3x64 as the host. Performance is mediocre at best. Am using VMWare 1.04. I heard that the main problems are disk IO, which I have been working to fix up.
I am looking forward to Hyper-V. Just loaded it on a test machine, but have not tested yet. At this stage, I committed to VMWare and there is no easy to to switch VM disks over to the MS format.
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PowerBiz Solutions
Adelaide, Australia |
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william warren
United States
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Posts: 601
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| 2/23/2008 01:38 AM |
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| IIRC MS virtualization will convert vmware images.
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Mick Malloy
Australia
Member since
4/6/2007
Microsoft MVP
Posts: 309
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| 3/13/2008 10:23 PM |
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Bit late to the pary but this thread caught my eye.
Like Steve I've been using Server 2003 x64 running SBS2003 with ISA in Virtual Server for (now) 22 users, was 15 at implementation 8 mths ago. Though 'not supported' I have seen no ISA specific problems with the setup. I am a big fan of VMWare but I used Virtual Server with the eventual aim of implementing Server 2008 Core + Hyper-V as host with both SBS and the full implementation of Server 2008 as guests. This requires only a single Server 2008 license.
The biggest drawback to using SBS2003 as a virtualisation host is the 4GB RAM limit. Even SBS Standard uses most of this with Exchange and several SQL/WMSDE/MSDE instances leaving not much room for guest OS's. 2003 x64, Enterprise x32 or x64 and Server 2008 various don't have this limitation.
As we move forward I'll be losing ISA (much to my chagrin) and get some comfort from losing the 'not supported ' aspect. |
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Tom Gregory
United States
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4/12/2008
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| 4/25/2008 07:20 PM |
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| This thread has been a highly inspirational read, I'm looking forward to my home text box build (coming under my desk soon) and was wondering how a Linux hosted VMWare environment would shake out with SBS2k3 R2- thanks!! |
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Mick Malloy
Australia
Member since
4/6/2007
Microsoft MVP
Posts: 309
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| 4/28/2008 05:11 PM |
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Particularly using VMWare as host I would expect _little_ difference in the performance of SBS as guest under one OS vs the other. Server 2008 Core + Hyper-V is more similar to the VMWare ESX/GSX products (HINT: I am not saying it's the same).
That's 'little difference' from similarly loaded systems. If you put a bare *nix shell + VMWare onto a box and compared it 'as virtualisation host' to the same box running Windows but also being an AD DC, and an Exchange server, and an SQL server, and file/printer server, and Virtualisation Host, well, one could expect some slight difference in performance. Right?-)
The main advantage *nix-heads have is that they are more likely to control what is installed on the host. Would a modified Trixbox (IP telephony server for the ignorant) make a decent virtual host? At low traffic times I am sure it would, but I wouldn't want to be pumping a thousand phone calls through it while it virtualises my SBS. Nor would I want to virtualise that same Trixbox under Core+Hyper-V, with SBS also running in a VM. |
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Dennes Meeusen
The Netherlands
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4/8/2005
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Posts: 232
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| 4/28/2008 11:15 PM |
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The downside of using generic *nix as the host would also be the (lack of) training of the mostly MS orientated consultants. As long as everyting is up and running it's fine, but when there are specific issues/problems with the underlying *nix hosts, where do you go for help?
If i evaluate the current products on the market i'm going to bet most of the near future SBS setups are going to be using either of two virtualization options specifically interesting for SMB setups, these are:
- ESX3.5i, either built-in new servers (HP, Dell)
- MS Hyper-V, built-in (expected somewhere around this summer)
Both will be available for probably next to nothing/well under € 100, and will provide a stable, supported base for virtualizing the guests. Especially when they are going to be ripping out some of the parts of the current SBS (ISA), more servers will probably be needed in the future. I foresee a bright future for heavily RAM stuffed single servers with built-in hypervisors and combinations of SBS / Terminal Server (w2k8 Standard) / ISA / *nix appliances (Trixbox/Smoothwall/Openfiler/LAMP etc. etc.)
Also keep in mind that one of the most appealing reasons to consider virtualization is disaster recovery! Replacing a crashed server, booting the hypervisor and reloading the virtual machines in a matter of minutes (well. make that hours, just to be sure :-) ) is someting that will drastically improve the SMB disaster recovery options.
Hmm, this *is* turning out to be an interesting thread..
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127.0.0.1 is where the heart is.. |
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Mick Malloy
Australia
Member since
4/6/2007
Microsoft MVP
Posts: 309
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| 4/29/2008 01:28 AM |
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It has been suggested that the Hyper-V based deal will be Hardware+US$28. This will give you _just_ your virtualisation platform, no license to run a fully implemented Server 2008 system.
There are two scenarios where I see this applying:
1) new hardware and consolidation of existing pre-2008 servers. ie.Grab a new box and move your existing SBS2003 into a VM.
2) Virtualising non-windows OS's.
To me scenario 2 is ridiculous. No self respecting *nix head is going to host his lovely superOS machines on a Windows(hack ptooi) based system.
As soon as you have a single Server 2008 machine (full implementation, rather than Core+Hyper-V) in the mix you use the extended virtualisation use rights to run Core+Hyper-V on the hardware and your full implementation in a VM, from the same license.
Maybe I'm shortsighted. Scenario3 is probably something involving clustering and failover but my gut feel is that by the time you are looking at doing this your Server 2008 license count is going to be very similar to, and quite possibly in excess of, your box count. |
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