Virtualization when there is only one VM?
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I mean if you are talking about one server, I would just throw it on the cloud, schedule snapshots, sync file level backups with s3/blob storage and call it a day.
Yeah, but we are talking real world. Not theory. Hosted (not cloud) isn't applicable to a giant percentage of actual companies. And building a cloud for a single VM would be even more work and zero benefit.
I'm sure he really meant - throw it in a VPS in something like Azure/AWS (assuming Windows) or Vultr (assuming non Windows).
Yes, but hosted is never, ever a "just do this" option. How do you do that for people on fractional T1s, with crazy high latency, unreliable Internet? The assumption that you need a server but don't need to be able to access it seems odd.
Oh - I know - and have been fully waiting for you to come in here and say exactly that to him.... I was surprised you didn't in your original reply to him.
I did, BEFORE I mentioned the alternative option. I said hosting wasn't an option, but that's so obvious that I addressed what was actually said, which was cloud.
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
another advantage to being virtualized is remote access to the boot level of the VM. If you don't have iLo or iDrac on the server, you can't see the host system bootup, but with a hypervisor, that's rarely where the problem is. By virtualizing, you gain access to the boot level of the VM without the expense of iLo.
This helps a lot.
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Are you introducing a new complexity? of course, does it have value? Yes it does. Does the value outweigh the complexity? That's a case by case situation.
If the customer is more apt to want to be involved in the repair situation, then having it virtualized will likely be very problematic, and you'll likely end up not going that route.
I have a customer that moved from a non-virtualized server to a virtualized one - and in my case the customer NEVER looks at the server. That's 100% my domain. So in their case, doing virtualization was easy with no drawbacks.
Yea, the company I work for started implementing virtualization for these type of Dental/Medical customers and I've seen some drawbacks. I guess me working with these escalated customers who are threatening to sue our company kind of traumatized me. lol.
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@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I mean if you are talking about one server, I would just throw it on the cloud, schedule snapshots, sync file level backups with s3/blob storage and call it a day.
This is true, but it's still virtual. He's asking why would you virtualize just a single server (on premise) if that is all that would be on that host.
The OP is just confusing to me. Why would be want to buy a dedicated server to run one VM?
Sometimes you have to. Canada has a law where when users in your company are accessing data the data has to be contained in Canada. This is specific to our category of business, but it exists. I just priced out a server for this exact reason.
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I have a customer that moved from a non-virtualized server to a virtualized one - and in my case the customer NEVER looks at the server. That's 100% my domain. So in their case, doing virtualization was easy with no drawbacks.
This is probably 95% of our customer base setup. The very few that really want to access the Server UI already do it through RDP as nearly all of our deployed servers at customer sites are headless.
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@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I mean if you are talking about one server, I would just throw it on the cloud, schedule snapshots, sync file level backups with s3/blob storage and call it a day.
This is true, but it's still virtual. He's asking why would you virtualize just a single server (on premise) if that is all that would be on that host.
The OP is just confusing to me. Why would be want to buy a dedicated server to run one VM?
I am wondering if he is considering running it using desktop hardware which is even worse lol.
There are very many reasons. Fortunately, for this discussion, it doesn't matter.
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@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Fredtx said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Although I don't disagree with choosing virtualization over physical install, but what about small Dental or Medical practices who have a local DB where their practice management software resides? I'm guessing clients like that would just require additional training on how to login their hypervisor and into their vm? There's cases where they need to remote software support in their DB for software related issues?
You'd still virtualize, the administrative process is no different from the VM perspective compared to a physical install. Use RDP or whatever remote administrative tool you needed.
The problem @Fredtx is more likely to run into is small offices that are USING the server as a workstation as well as the server. Hyper-V and ESXi don't allow for local access to the VMs via GUI (that I know of). I think you can get there with KVM, as long as the management OS of KVM has a GUI on it. Not sure about anything else.
All that said - forcing the server to become more or less headless is a good thing in my mind. As Dustin mentions - using RDP or ScreenConnect or MeshCentral to manage the server remotely is likely the best option.
Yup, we get this problem, a lot, in medical.
Over the years, we have successfully moved our customers away from this scenario. Our lives (IT Support) are so much better now!
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I'm sure he really meant - throw it in a VPS in something like Azure/AWS (assuming Windows) or Vultr (assuming non Windows).
Nope. I'm talking about a single Windows Server as the DC and for file sharing in a single office environment.
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@JasGot said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Fredtx said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Although I don't disagree with choosing virtualization over physical install, but what about small Dental or Medical practices who have a local DB where their practice management software resides? I'm guessing clients like that would just require additional training on how to login their hypervisor and into their vm? There's cases where they need to remote software support in their DB for software related issues?
You'd still virtualize, the administrative process is no different from the VM perspective compared to a physical install. Use RDP or whatever remote administrative tool you needed.
The problem @Fredtx is more likely to run into is small offices that are USING the server as a workstation as well as the server. Hyper-V and ESXi don't allow for local access to the VMs via GUI (that I know of). I think you can get there with KVM, as long as the management OS of KVM has a GUI on it. Not sure about anything else.
All that said - forcing the server to become more or less headless is a good thing in my mind. As Dustin mentions - using RDP or ScreenConnect or MeshCentral to manage the server remotely is likely the best option.
Yup, we get this problem, a lot, in medical.
Over the years, we have successfully moved our customers away from this scenario. Our lives (IT Support) are so much better now!
We do it too, but new customers are often addicted to it.
Did one of these literally yesterday.
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@JasGot said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I'm sure he really meant - throw it in a VPS in something like Azure/AWS (assuming Windows) or Vultr (assuming non Windows).
Nope. I'm talking about a single Windows Server as the DC and for file sharing in a single office environment.
Right, that workload wouldn't work well even if the connection to the cloud was fast and completely stable.
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@wirestyle22 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@IRJ said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I mean if you are talking about one server, I would just throw it on the cloud, schedule snapshots, sync file level backups with s3/blob storage and call it a day.
This is true, but it's still virtual. He's asking why would you virtualize just a single server (on premise) if that is all that would be on that host.
The OP is just confusing to me. Why would be want to buy a dedicated server to run one VM?
Sometimes you have to. Canada has a law where when users in your company are accessing data the data has to be contained in Canada. This is specific to our category of business, but it exists. I just priced out a server for this exact reason.
That's a jurisdiction issue, not a hosting issue. Has no bearing on hosting vs. local. It's important to know and understand, but it's unrelated to the discussion here.
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@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
We do it too, but new customers are often addicted to it.
Did one of these literally yesterday.When we take on a new medical client, they almost ALWAYS are using the server as a PC. The first thing we do is explain the dangers of this, and the benefits of putting that user on a regular PC. It's not hard to explain, and they always agree to a dedicated server.
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@JasGot said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@scottalanmiller said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@DustinB3403 said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Fredtx said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Although I don't disagree with choosing virtualization over physical install, but what about small Dental or Medical practices who have a local DB where their practice management software resides? I'm guessing clients like that would just require additional training on how to login their hypervisor and into their vm? There's cases where they need to remote software support in their DB for software related issues?
You'd still virtualize, the administrative process is no different from the VM perspective compared to a physical install. Use RDP or whatever remote administrative tool you needed.
The problem @Fredtx is more likely to run into is small offices that are USING the server as a workstation as well as the server. Hyper-V and ESXi don't allow for local access to the VMs via GUI (that I know of). I think you can get there with KVM, as long as the management OS of KVM has a GUI on it. Not sure about anything else.
All that said - forcing the server to become more or less headless is a good thing in my mind. As Dustin mentions - using RDP or ScreenConnect or MeshCentral to manage the server remotely is likely the best option.
Yup, we get this problem, a lot, in medical.
Over the years, we have successfully moved our customers away from this scenario. Our lives (IT Support) are so much better now!
Yeah, I picked up a new client last year - they were using their server as a workstation - I asked - do other people get affected when that machine has issues? - yes? let's upgrade that 8+ year old machine and move it to a headless setup - uh ok.. FTW!
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@JasGot said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I'm sure he really meant - throw it in a VPS in something like Azure/AWS (assuming Windows) or Vultr (assuming non Windows).
Nope. I'm talking about a single Windows Server as the DC and for file sharing in a single office environment.
I was talking about IRJ's response with making the client go to the cloud.
I understood why they likely had a local server.
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Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.
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@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.
I don't consider this reasonable in most SMB setups. A desktop style server system is generally fine. Desktop servers are still huge compared to normal desktops (especially now with CD-RomLess systems, they are tiny.
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@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.
They all do. And none have racks or server rooms. So it doesn't really help.
The only real answers are "don't install Windows, Hyper-V or use AMD64 processors."
And literally, we are moving to Linux on ARM, partially for this very reason!
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@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.
I don't consider this reasonable in most SMB setups. A desktop style server system is generally fine. Desktop servers are still huge compared to normal desktops (especially now with CD-RomLess systems, they are tiny.
I don't know. Many here seems to think every SMB is 5 employees but that's really a SOHO. SMB is up to 500 employees.
Anyway, I haven't installed a tower server in a very, very long time. If someone only needs a simple server, we use low power short depth 1U rack servers. If you don't want to waste space, you can use a half rack or smaller and also put switches in it. And you can roll it around if you want to. Sticking to the 19" rack format just makes life easier I think. Also more flexible if you want to move a server or two to colo down the line.
Maybe not Dell but Supermicro and others have really small power efficient 1U rack servers that's like 12 inches deep. CPUs like Intel C3000, D1572 etc. They easily fit in wall racks.
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@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Dashrender said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
Stop running glorified desktops as servers. Buy real rack servers and put them in a rack. No sane person wants to use that as a workstation. Problem solved.
I don't consider this reasonable in most SMB setups. A desktop style server system is generally fine. Desktop servers are still huge compared to normal desktops (especially now with CD-RomLess systems, they are tiny.
I don't know. Many here seems to think every SMB is 5 employees but that's really a SOHO. SMB is up to 500 employees.
Anyway, I haven't installed a tower server in a very, very long time. If someone only needs a simple server, we use low power short depth 1U rack servers. If you don't want to waste space, you can use a half rack or smaller and also put switches in it. And you can roll it around if you want to. Sticking to the 19" rack format just makes life easier I think. Also more flexible if you want to move a server or two to colo down the line.
I agree here, the SMB space is a lot larger than it is often described here (personnel wise). There are a lot of low cost, ready 1U server options for way cheaper and way more performant than something like a Synology. (even though that may do exactly what you need).
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@Pete-S said in Virtualization when there is only one VM?:
I don't know. Many here seems to think every SMB is 5 employees but that's really a SOHO. SMB is up to 500 employees.
it was very specifically called out the example of doctor or dentist offices.
These are not SOHO in any way. They also don't have a server room. They have a server sitting on a desk.
Sure, the offices that are all par of some hospital conglomerate are not, but there are many, many more that are not part of that. There are 3 of these independant doctor offices within ~2 miles of my house in Schaumburg, IL. Not a small town, and not 3rd world.
There is an uncoutnable number of dental practices.
