Posts made by JohnFromSTL

@scottalanmiller said:

What is your current setup for storage? How many IOPS do you have available to your systems today?

I haven't obtained those numbers yet from our current servers.

I neglected to mention that we are using physical servers for SQL 2008 R2 and SQL 2012.

SQL 2008 R2:
PowerEdge 2950 Gen-III
CPU: (2) Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz, 2993 MHz
RAM: 32GB
PERC 6/i, RAID-5
(4) x 146.8GB Seagate Savvio 15K.2 146.8GB SAS 15k RPM 16MB Cache 6Gb/s 2.5"
(4) x 146.8GB Hitachi Ultrastar C10K147 SAS 10k RPM 16MB Cache 3Gb/s 2.5"

SQL 2012:
PowerEdge 2950, Gen-II
CPU: (2) x Xeon X5365 @ 3.00GHz, 2993 MHz
RAM: 32GB
PERC 5/i, RAID-10
4 x 600GB Toshiba AL13SXB600N SAS 15K RPM 64MB Cache 6Gb/s 2.5"

@scottalanmiller said:

@ryan-from-xbyte said:

You don't even need to go with a R720xd when comparing the R910. You can go with a R620 and get 10x2.5" drives. Cluster a couple of those together and you are far better off than getting an R910 and you will save a fortune on power.

He's going to need LFF drives, I think, for this. He needs 16TB per node, from what I can tell, which is pretty big. If we have 2TB NL-SAS drives in RAID 6 that will require ten LFF bays just to hit the 16TB usable number.

I could probably shave 2-3TB off the SQL and Oracle VMs. I've included more just in case we need the space as databases are migrated from one version to another.

@scottalanmiller said:

@JohnFromSTL said:

RAID: PERC 5/i (RAID-5)

Well fixing that will be the first thing We can do RAID 6 on the new servers.

Yeah, it was great when it was new...7 Years ago! I keep waiting for something to fail on these servers.

@scottalanmiller said:

@JohnFromSTL said:

@Minion-Queen said:

NTG can help with the Scale questions so ask away!

Any idea on starting price?

Did I miss your total memory needs? How much memory are you using added all up?

Host01:
CPU: (4) - Xeon X7350 @ 2.93GHz
RAM: (24) - 4GB DIMM 96GB RAM installed
RAID: PERC 5/i (RAID-5)
HDD: (5) - 300GB Hitachi Ultrastar 15K600 HUS156030VLS60 15k RPM 16MB Cache SAS 6Gb/s 3.5"

Host02:
CPU: (4) - Xeon X7350 @ 2.93GHz
RAM: (24) - 4GB DIMM 96GB RAM installed
RAID: PERC 5/i (Msft Storage Spaces)
HDD: (5) - 1TB Seagate Constellation ES.3 ST1000NM0023 7200 RPM 128MB Cache SAS 6Gb/s 3.5"

@scottalanmiller said:

Dell PowerEdge R910 are monster servers but lack a lot of storage options. How is your CPU utilization? That is going to be the killer as those are quad processor systems. So even though they are two generations old, they are twice the size of normal servers. You are going to be looking at the Dell R730xd loaded to get the storage and the CPU that you need to come in around where you were before. That's not going to be possible, I don't think, in your price envelope.

Host01 hovers around 9-10% CPU and 55% memory utilization.

@scottalanmiller said:

@JohnFromSTL said:

• Replication between servers in the event of host server failure
• Load Balancing
• Storage
  • Hyper-V client machines (12TB - 14TB)

As far as connectivity is concerned I would probably use 10GbE between the Hyper-V host servers and the storage.

With only two nodes, shared storage should not come up as an option. There is both no way to afford it and it would defeat any value in having two of these nodes. Your budget doesn't allow for this option. The starting point for something like that would be an EMC VNX to be reliable enough to even slightly consider having two nodes.

As I see it, your choices are going down to a single server or going to two servers and using replicated local storage. Even that will be tough, but external shared storage both doesn't meet your goals not fit in your budget.

And there are not many servers which have that amount of local storage.

@Minion-Queen said:

NTG can help with the Scale questions so ask away!

Any idea on starting price?

@dafyre said:

I'd definitely recommend reaching out to the Scale Computing guys (are there any on here?) here or either on SW. For information about pricing. It would be new kit and would last you several years. I think they can do 2 node setups as well.

(www.scalecomputing.com)

Thanks, I'll check them out.

@Minion-Queen said:

You said you have budget restrictions... how bad are they?

That's the fun part; I'm not given a true budget, but knowing how tight the pursestrings are $12-13k would be the max.

@AVI-NetworkGuy said:

You should look into the solutions from Scale. It's pretty much exactly what you want without the complexity.

I'm not familiar with them. Can you provide some details?

@dafyre said:

What are you doing for storage for your VMs now?

{Correction made 19 OCT -- I referenced wrong server.} I'm using local storage from two Dell R900 servers. Host01 only has 865GB available for VMs, while Host02 has 2,786GB available.

I'm in the process of putting together a proposal to redo our Hyper-V environment. The many different combinations and countless options are making my head spin. I could really use some help choosing the right hardware.

Goals

• Replace old, inefficient servers
• Reduce energy consumption, overall BTU and corresponding cooling requirements
• Reduce number of physical servers
• Proposed solution to have 3 - 4 year lifespan.

Needs
Two (2) Hyper-V Host Machines (Windows Server 2012 R2)

• Replication between servers in the event of host server failure
• Load Balancing
• Storage
  • Hyper-V client machines (12TB - 14TB)
  • File server (2TB)

Hyper-V VMs

• Windows Server 2012 R2

  • SQL 2005 (850GB)
  • SQL 2008 R2 (1TB)
  • SQL 2012 (1TB)
  • SQL 2014 (500GB - will increase as migrations occur)
  • Oracle 11g (850GB - 1TB)
  • Oracle 12c (750GB)
  • Webserver (100GB)
  • App Services Server 01 (100GB)
  • App Services Server 02 (100GB)

• Windows 7 x64

  • Win7 Development 01 (60-80GB)
  • Win7 Development 02 (60-80GB)
  • Win7 Development 03 (60-80GB)
  • Win7 RDP Client 01 (60GB)
  • Win7 RDP Client 02 (60GB)
  • Win7 RDP Client 03 (60GB)
  • Win7 RDP Client 04 (60GB)

• Windows XP x86

  • XP Client 01 (60GB)
  • XP Client 02 (20GB)
  • XP Client 03 (20GB)
  • XP Client 04 (60GB)

Due to our size and budget constraints we purchase refurbished equipment, which are typically 2-3 years old. Whichever solution I end up with needs to last 3-4 additional years.

As far as connectivity is concerned I would probably use 10GbE between the Hyper-V host servers and the storage.

I apologize in advance for any details I have left out. I really do appreciate your assistance. Thanks everyone!

@scottalanmiller Thank you for the welcome. I made a mistake in my username, any chance I can change it or should I delete and create a new one?

I'm the sole IT person for a small software development company in St. Louis. I feel weird talking about myself, call it insecurity I suppose. Anyway, I'm in the process of putting together some questions I have about virtualization and storage to post. From what I've browsed through thus far, there are some great folks on here.

Thanks again,
John