server for VM buy or build

scamalert

Hi all want to start learning Virtualization VMware,esxi,since got enough experience past lvl1-2 tech support in linux windows,also got good background on networking R&S thus have this gap in whole server side setup.

Ideally would be looking to setup 6 WM's ,one running linux would be download server or lab bench,win 2012 r2 or later with AD and localhost setup-again home setting but for use.then some storage,backup and most likely ip cams with dedicated server and storage.
Now i know on most MS services licenses can be got on trial period thus more then likely would use for learning on provided periods.Thus more focus on linux side,side theres good demand atm for unix server side.

thus all said have little to none experience to hardware that servers use and what matters like cpu cores on cheaper ones seem to be 4-6 at 2.3ghz which for me seem on small side,since want to buy something that i could expand when learning further -hdd,ram,cpu wise.

i know hp has proliant range-but they seem limited in options ram,cpu disk bays-but its also possible to build on ordinary motherboard thus getting more options in ram-not sure about hot swap capabilities thou thus torn since dont want invest in smth that later will be little of use.

Anyway sorry for long story -short version looking at server that wouldnt brake bank -but at the same time would be similar to production line ones used and up gradable if needed since want to make break into that sector and learn as i go,just to have some experience - since from what ive seen in many cases one lands straight into built setups thus not knowing how it was setup from ground up make it more harder to get around . Any advice appreciated

jimgoose

The limiting factor for VM performance is what it always was - core memory and CPU power. You want as much memory as possible - you can't have too much. And rather than flat-out clock speed you want as many cores as possible. This makes it a lot easier for ESXi et al to allocate vCPUs to multiple VMs efficiently. Ideally, you want separate CPU modules, e.g. 4x4-core as opposed to 2x8-core, as a system like this will be more like a proper SMP setup. But the more cores, the better.

scamalert

thx for giving breakdown on cpu's ,figured ram would be one of main factors but missed cpu memory so handy to know that was always catching my eye why server cpus would have ~10mb memory.

any advice on what sort of models to look into
since imagine HP is sort of way to go ? preferably rack mountable

also what about smth like this HP BL460C Gen8 ,just 2 bays is confusing as not familiar with whole blade extra extra storage and how it integrates when expanding storage.

jimgoose

SMT in the absence of SMP is certainly better than a belt of a hurley, especially if we're talking about POWER 8 or UltraSPARC T5. Then with those, you're probably getting 8- or 16-way SMP as well. ;-)

scamalert

Well it seems you definitely know a lot about servers,since them two terms even got me.

so SMT is good when using applications processes that use multiple cores simultaneously thus transfers cores evenly,but might bottleneck if software requires single core,and SMP overcomes that hurdle.

anyway question remains what sort of server i should look to start with that wouldn't be too far from production environment,or should i just go with cheap model just to get my wits about learning to setup more mainstream server types like they have ones on bargain alerts http://www.hpshop.ie/hewlett-packard-enterprise-proliant-microserver-gen8-2-3ghz-g1610t-150w-ultra-micro-tower-819185-421-prod.html-and then worry about hardware side.
once learn how to manage low performance one.

Cuddlesworth

For lab environments modern quad core cpu's with hyper-threading, 32 gigs of ram and a modern SSD can run a surprising amount of VM's. The VM's themselves are never really doing much, its usually just for understanding of what they can do and how to set it up.

Or look into older x5650 workstations with dual cpu's like the Z600/Z800 or Dell equivalent. Some serious value to be had there, they are quiet and powerful.

Nothing jimgoose said is wrong, its just not applicable for home lab situations. Its unlikely you would ever come close to maxing out either type of above situation and even if you did, it would be for a very limited amount of time.

scamalert

thx am looking currently at dell power edge r710 on ebay.co.uk but besides many not having console cables wonder is there anything else to watch out for like licensing,since know most of them would been in production line for long time,thus either get pulled when failed or upgrading -also havent shopped with ebay since they separated from PP,thus not easy return procedure since in any case would need to use virtual address if getting one.

I know that for starting i might as well could convert older pc and setup WMvare on it but putting in extra ram,cpu,NIC's would cost me close to one mentioned above.

Cuddlesworth

scamalert wrote: »

thx am looking currently at dell power edge r710 on ebay.co.uk but besides many not having console cables wonder is there anything else to watch out for like licensing,since know most of them would been in production line for long time,thus either get pulled when failed or upgrading -also havent shopped with ebay since they separated from PP,thus not easy return procedure since in any case would need to use virtual address if getting one.

I know that for starting i might as well could convert older pc and setup WMvare on it but putting in extra ram,cpu,NIC's would cost me close to one mentioned above.

The only issue I have with servers for home labs is the noise. That server is 39db idle and 42db under load. Basically, it just sounds like a plane taking off. After a while it really gets on your nerves.

scamalert

good point addressing noise issue,was going to talk about it later,since been in many labs and comms rooms and even small ones are unbearable to be in,given i want to have setup that would actually be running lab all the time ,its an issue indeed.

even thou looked some videos and seems theres two models of the server mentioned and later think got issue fixed concerning noise.

All said most likely will opt for home PROliant series server that many seem to use and buy new,since as said learning purposes mostly to setup network and working servers to progress further into server side/management setup,also pound is going in favor as prices go down,thus need raid and hardware capable of managing few WM's.plus wattage of PSU's are quite high on most of them,thus another hit if running constantly-think 580w,so extra pc running daily power wise.

ressem

For VMWare VCenter / vSphere evaluation and ESXi, a single server setup isn't really complicated.
For learning purposes, would 1 main workstation/server + multiple disposable low power desktops be more advantageous, with a couple of network cards each, memory and ssd?

For the purpose of getting used to moving VMs from one to another in the interface or script, and seeing what the cluster and redundancy screens contain.

ESXi can boot from an SD card, so the secondary computers wouldn't need to be dedicated.

1U and 2U Rack servers in a dwelling that you've to share are a poor idea.
The 4U cases allow a large slow quiet fan.

scamalert

took good read on HP microservers,and realized it would be wasstefull to get one for VM's setup since hardware is basically you get what you pay for.Anyway took out one pc out of closet that is basically better spec then hp proliant cheap celeron version.

cpu intel dual core 3ghz and added 4gb of ddr3,went on my way to install esxi but short lived experience lan adapter drivers not supported seems very picky on lan cards ESXI supports,tried injecting but since using win 10 machine powershell gives a lot of hassle,and previous soft with easy GUI interface doesn't support anything past win7,luckily on the pc that took out theres win 7 fully running so will give a go at injecting right drivers and see if i get anywhere,since seems custom pc built and just trying to get setup is challenge itself,and not worth spending on microserver that has specs as almost 5yr old pc,with fewer options.

That said wonder if would be possible to setup some low lvl VM's linux kind like for file sharing and maybe one that would do downloads over single nic or would such cases require separate network cards ?

ED E

Unraid may suit your needs perfectly.


PS: Your misuse of punctuation doesnt aid legibility.

scamalert

ED E noted on my typing habits,and thanks for suggestion on
Unraid.

Managed to get ESXI injected after many hours eventually with needed drivers and had linux mint vm running today.

Only other trouble ran into was setting up Vsphere server since using esxi 6.0,cant get server installed without using server OS on main pc,thus limited capabilities on VM client since v6.0 is supposed to be ran of web browser rather then client.

Thus even in production environment while had a chance to work on some servers using it, its still quite unstable to migrate from 5.5 if running windows 10 -2016.

But good experience none the less,putting old pc and turning into somewhat useful bench to learn on from basics up.

Cuddlesworth

Yep, running the vcenter server is probably the most annoying thing about it. You can manage it on the ESXI host itself, its just annoying though.

CptSternn

Physical VM hosts are a thing that is quickly disappearing. If you really want to play around with some VMs then look into setting up a few in either Azure or AWS. That is what all the top companies are using these days.

scamalert

would agree that top tier companies would be moving towards Azure/Amazon cloud services,but that depends from one company to another-since many still prefer to have on site access/storage for security redundancy purposes.

Only thing that im not sure how networks cope with speed when connecting to such outside services,since what i noticed in production line that in wan environment its still quite bottelneck on hosts and users,thus come backup time you'd see huge volume/usage peaks and network disturbances.

CptSternn

In the last three roles I have had all have migrated their entire server estate to the cloud. When you are working for global corporations you have servers around the globe - moving them to the cloud is no different than having your 'local' server in a datacentre a few countries away. There is no bottlenecks if you have the proper infrastructure in place.

No one has physical servers in their offices anymore. They are all hosted somewhere whether its the cloud or at a datacentre. The idea that there is a bottleneck due to the fact the servers are offsite is just not something that you have anymore.

scamalert

problem is im trying to get my foot into IT,thus when got networking done got placement for couple months to work in production environment,across multiple branches.

No while it took few weeks to get around windows AD and some other applications used,but knowing windows well,and having some degree in network workings,the VM's/servers was the part that ive never really touched,and while its easy to learn basics how to work on system that is already setup,but that gap in not knowing whole server setup from ground up was real gap.

since im interested in IT but even looking for support roles tech1-2 it comes down to experience.
Only thing noticed that linux admin roles are in demand thus still wagering which way to go as to learning.

Fysh

I don't see why getting a good hands-on understanding of how to set up and maintain a local hypervisor would be an obstacle to also learning about using AWS, etc. sure, some companies are all-cloud-based. That's not all of 'em, though, nor does externally-provided-cloud-only cover all possible usage scenarios.

Not to mention that private cloud providers also hire staff, and need those staff to know about hypervisors etc. If there were truly no future whatsoever for companies to run their own iron, MS wouldn't have the Azure Stack as part of their infrastructure environment.

scamalert

my esxi is running perfectly since setup,didnt have to tinker with any details once installed,now just power on machine and it runs smooth,that said learned quite a bit on VMware,latest setup was setting up XPenology OS,now that was major headache to do on VM.

That said need to get some hdds for raid simulation,also not sure on power draw from my current setup hoping its around 150w mark.

So far did mamba sharing setup,remote logins into linux,xpenology,ssh and sharing but still a lot to learn with doing proper network setup,involving domain,user access and management.
And while agree companies migrate towards cloud solutions,but companies arent dropping servers they have either.thus going cloud azure way when not knowing server basics is step to far if entering this field from newbie perspective.

Fysh

I think you'll see a lot of similarities between setting up VMs on cloud environments and on your own hypervisor - but it doesn't hurt to spend some time learning the ui, experimenting with things like manual vs automatic failover (and how the various high-availability options interact, at least in theory) and how to monitor performance.

If you're using ESXi, I'd suggest making a bit of time to set up nagios in a vm and get at least a basic grasp of how to set up monitoring. You can use it for Windows as well but tbh a lot of places using Microsoft will use SCOM for monitoring, which is a whole different thing.

I'd also suggest investigating options for running load simulations in your VMs so you can see how the hypervisor responds. Try things like configuring a vm with half as many vcpus as your host has cores, then put it under heavy cpu load (while also running several vms with 1-2 vcpus and high load) and watch what happens to performance.

If possible, get a second hypervisor so you can migrate vms between them, because you also want to try things like "What happens if I have to run a live migration while a backup is running?"

scamalert

+1 on nagios seems important part of software.That said while have server its pc with couple cores so not much can be squezzed out of it atm,unless getting quad core which costs little to nothing given old 775 socket.

That said while ESXi is free the VMware has only 60 days license,i wonder is there any other alternatives to it with free license or smth similar,i know vm player is free but that runs on top of OS so massive drain on PC resources and is basically like running virtual box on pc,rather then standalone system.

edit:should google before asking see xen server is another alternative with opensource is there a lot difference between vmware vsphere and xenserver ?