I've been working primarily with VMWare so keep that in mind, but here are my opinions:
1. It depends on the situation. For example if you are talking small office or SMB type of implementations a SAN may not be possible due to cost constraints. On the other hand if it's available, I would recommend it. Specifically for HA and DRS in VMWare for high availability, load balancing, fault tolerance. 2. Some do and some don't. Over the years, I have seen a shift from vendors to not supporting it at all, to totally embracing it. At this point I think the majority of vendors support it in some form, but not all. YMMV. 3. I think a lot of that depends on the situation. I think almost anything can fit well into a virtual environment if the hardware is scaled appropriately. Lots of disk, lots of memory, lots of IO (HBA, Network). 4. There are tools available for this type of initial evaluation. I know PlateSpin has tools and so does VMWare for making an evaluation of the current environment and creating an initial proposal(number of hosts needed, specific servers categorized into best candidate types, etc.). Keep in mind this is a very dynamic area. Nothing is set in stone. The only thing you can be sure of is that once you go virtual you will need to expand it, just a matter of how much and over what period of time. Depending on how big your environment is, I'd suggest setting up a Development cluster and start by migrating some Dev boxes over or creating new test systems for different departments to evaluate. Once you have buy in from the business you can move forward. Chris Bodnar, MCSE Sr. Systems Engineer Distributed Systems Service Delivery - Intel Services Guardian Life Insurance Company of America Email: christopher_bod...@glic.com Phone: 610-807-6459 Fax: 610-807-6003 _____ From: Roger Wright [mailto:rwri...@evatone.com] Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 9:30 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Virtualization Questions Taking a look at the potential implementation of virtualization and have several questions: 1. Does/should utilization of a SAN have a direct impact on virtualization decisions? Is it better to go with local or SAN storage? 2. Do vendors who normally require a dedicated server accept a virtualized server as equivalent? 3. What type of servers (DB, Oracle, F&P, etc.) don't make good candidates for virtualization? I would think that SQL/Oracle would probably be least recommended. 4. Is clustering still possible with VMs? 5. What kind of logic determines the best combination of host/guests? IOW, is it recommended to put all F&P servers together on one host, or should it be a combination of F&P, DB, etc.? TIA! Roger Wright Network Administrator Evatone, Inc. 727.572.7076 x388 ET E-mail Signature Logo _____ ----------------------------------------- This message, and any attachments to it, may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are notified that any use, dissemination, distribution, copying, or communication of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete the message and any attachments. Thank you. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
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