Client system overhaul
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@Dashrender said:
@PSX_Defector said:
Didn't say what NAS they have, but NetApp has the ever so useful Snapmirror, which will replicate all the data to another device automagically.
http://www.netapp.com/us/products/protection-software/snapmirror.aspx
Performing replication is gonna depend on how fast they want to recover. Using things like Veeam to send data back and forth is fine, but the delta would be kind of a problem. Using snapmirror would replicate in real time and recovery would be within seconds.
I would beef up the two servers, slap all of the VMs on one, run Veeam to clone across to the secondary for local redundancy, keep critical data on the NAS and shuffle the data over to the offsite backup with the other NAS.
This would require a significant storage purchase at minimum, but not a bad idea, assuming the system will hold enough disk that is.
That's how data safety works - lots of copies. If you want a good, reliable onsite storage and a good, reliable offsite one you are going to have to have a lot of copies for all of that to exist.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@gjacobse said:
Are they looking to replace both with new hardware? or just reallocate what they have?
Good question. A single new server would handle everything here easily. But as he mentioned available capacity (how did you determine that only 1 vCPU was available - that's not how capacity works) it seems like they are trying to use what they have currently.
Was there supposed to be a reply on this one? There is a blank quote above.
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@Dashrender said:
I've updated the first post a bit.
My associate said that they are sure there are enough resources to load up an additional VM and give is approx 40 GB of storage on the host. As for the 1 VCPU and 4 GB RAM, I was guesstimating that we could pull at least that amount of resources for this additional VM.
4GB of RAM is easy to determine, as that is just a question of "is there 4GB of RAM available?" So I get that. But 1vCPU is not a measurement of anything. That could be nearly all the power of the box or effectively nothing. That he stated it that way would worry me because it indicates that he is confused about what a vCPU is and is confusing it with a physical core and is overbuilding his servers by a huge degree trying to not let the hypervisor share resources.
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@Dashrender said:
The plan is to use the hardware they have, no replacements.
I don't recall what type of NASs they were, but it was mentioned that they could possibly self sync, so PSX's solution might be the play for offsites.
The biggest question would be.... what NAS does not sync to itself? One much exist, but I've never heard of it.
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@Dashrender said:
My proposal followed most of yours.
First, virtualize Server 1. This should be pretty straight forward, just install the Hyper-V role in Server 2008, done.
Then stand up another VM on Server 2, install Windows server (might have to buy license), and install Veeam. Use the local NAS as the target to backup both VMs. Veeam could also be used to replicate the data to the second NAS, but PSX's solution might be better.
I would not be willing to run HyperV on 2008. Can you update that to 2012 R2 before doing that? HyperV was slow and unstable in the 2008 and 2008 R2 era and still a bit anemic in the 2012 era. HyperV is very important to keep up to date.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@gjacobse said:
Are they looking to replace both with new hardware? or just reallocate what they have?
Good question. A single new server would handle everything here easily. But as he mentioned available capacity (how did you determine that only 1 vCPU was available - that's not how capacity works) it seems like they are trying to use what they have currently.
Was there supposed to be a reply on this one? There is a blank quote above.
browser glitch I'm guessing.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I've updated the first post a bit.
My associate said that they are sure there are enough resources to load up an additional VM and give is approx 40 GB of storage on the host. As for the 1 VCPU and 4 GB RAM, I was guesstimating that we could pull at least that amount of resources for this additional VM.
4GB of RAM is easy to determine, as that is just a question of "is there 4GB of RAM available?" So I get that. But 1vCPU is not a measurement of anything. That could be nearly all the power of the box or effectively nothing. That he stated it that way would worry me because it indicates that he is confused about what a vCPU is and is confusing it with a physical core and is overbuilding his servers by a huge degree trying to not let the hypervisor share resources.
He didn't state it that way, I did. Just for a starting point. You point is taken.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The plan is to use the hardware they have, no replacements.
I don't recall what type of NASs they were, but it was mentioned that they could possibly self sync, so PSX's solution might be the play for offsites.
The biggest question would be.... what NAS does not sync to itself? One much exist, but I've never heard of it.
eh? soooo Western Digital MyClouds will sync with each other? who knew? lol
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
My proposal followed most of yours.
First, virtualize Server 1. This should be pretty straight forward, just install the Hyper-V role in Server 2008, done.
Then stand up another VM on Server 2, install Windows server (might have to buy license), and install Veeam. Use the local NAS as the target to backup both VMs. Veeam could also be used to replicate the data to the second NAS, but PSX's solution might be better.
I would not be willing to run HyperV on 2008. Can you update that to 2012 R2 before doing that? HyperV was slow and unstable in the 2008 and 2008 R2 era and still a bit anemic in the 2012 era. HyperV is very important to keep up to date.
We haven't spoken about the licensing at all, other than to be told where their current level on that one box was.
On an assumption that no, they can't upgrade the license, because of your warranted concern, I'd take an image of the metal, then install stand alone Hyper-V 2012R2, then push the image down into a VM on that host. This is just an example.. it might not apply to this specific situation. Clearly we need more information about storage setup, etc. -
Since you're stuck with 08, i'd use XenServer. it's all open source now, and purdy nice. I dont have much experience with it but 2 of my home servers are running it. purdy neat. way more robust than the free version of esxi.
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@Dashrender said:
eh? soooo Western Digital MyClouds will sync with each other? who knew? lol
One would assume. Since syncing is built into every OS used to build the NAS platforms it would be pretty silly for the NAS vendors to block a feature that is free, included and does wonders for selling second units.
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For the physical server, you said they are using windows backup now? That makes this easy.
All you have to do is
- perform a final backup
- wipe the server
- install Hyper-V Server 2012 R2
- create a new VM, set it to boot to the Server 2008 instal media.
- choose the restore options during initial setup.
- point the restore to the last backup.
- check the box that you are restoring to disparate hardware.
- when done installing, install hyper-v tools.
- reboot
- join Hyper-V server 2012R2 to domain (that is now a VM on itself) for easier management.
- profit.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
My proposal followed most of yours.
First, virtualize Server 1. This should be pretty straight forward, just install the Hyper-V role in Server 2008, done.
Then stand up another VM on Server 2, install Windows server (might have to buy license), and install Veeam. Use the local NAS as the target to backup both VMs. Veeam could also be used to replicate the data to the second NAS, but PSX's solution might be better.
I would not be willing to run HyperV on 2008. Can you update that to 2012 R2 before doing that? HyperV was slow and unstable in the 2008 and 2008 R2 era and still a bit anemic in the 2012 era. HyperV is very important to keep up to date.
We haven't spoken about the licensing at all, other than to be told where their current level on that one box was.
On an assumption that no, they can't upgrade the license, because of your warranted concern, I'd take an image of the metal, then install stand alone Hyper-V 2012R2, then push the image down into a VM on that host. This is just an example.. it might not apply to this specific situation. Clearly we need more information about storage setup, etc.Is there something wrong with that process? Correct me if I am wrong but other than some downtime to do the work, what is wrong with it?
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@hubtechagain said:
Since you're stuck with 08, i'd use XenServer. it's all open source now, and purdy nice. I dont have much experience with it but 2 of my home servers are running it. purdy neat. way more robust than the free version of esxi.
He, or whoever this is, is stuck with Windows Server 2008 for the OS but not stuck with the matching HyperV. I'd generally prefer XenServer too, but HyperV 2012 R2 is perfectly viable here too.
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@Dashrender said:
@PSX_Defector said:
First, take the first machine and P2V it into the second machine. No point leaving it bare metal. Then take the first machine, nuke and pave then install Hyper-V or ESXi stand alone. Move your three VMs over to the first machine, nuke and pave the second machine with Hyper-V or ESXi, setup Veeam replication between them, then map the NAS through whatever way you need to for it to keep data onsite and off.
WOW, this ends up with 4 copies of the data, probably overkill for them.
I'm guessing they only have two server because the first one ran out of resources and storage slots, so they bought a second one. I have no idea how old the servers are, or what brand (though I'd guess Dell knowing my friend), etc.
Nah, it's more along the lines of one copy. The NASes would only have critical data, not VM level replication. The two systems doing the VM shuffle would be their own "backups". I would take the NAS and have it mount a drive on the file server, be it NFS or SMB, to facilitate that. File sharing is a low intensity service, and it doesn't require much more than the network not be chatting to hell and back.
The secondary server is for failover of the critical systems. Although if you wanted to you could use it also in production, it would be awful crowded on that one machine if the other one popped off though.
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@hubtechagain said:
Since you're stuck with 08, i'd use XenServer. it's all open source now, and purdy nice. I dont have much experience with it but 2 of my home servers are running it. purdy neat. way more robust than the free version of esxi.
@scottalanmiller said:
He, or whoever this is, is stuck with Windows Server 2008 for the OS but not stuck with the matching HyperV. I'd generally prefer XenServer too, but HyperV 2012 R2 is perfectly viable here too.
They are already using Hyper-V as the hypervisor for the other physical box. No reason to mix infrastructure.
If they choose to switch, and have two for a short time, that is fine too. But there is cost to switching to another product when a team is already familiar with a product and have it running in house.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
We haven't spoken about the licensing at all, other than to be told where their current level on that one box was.
On an assumption that no, they can't upgrade the license, because of your warranted concern, I'd take an image of the metal, then install stand alone Hyper-V 2012R2, then push the image down into a VM on that host. This is just an example.. it might not apply to this specific situation. Clearly we need more information about storage setup, etc.Is there something wrong with that process? Correct me if I am wrong but other than some downtime to do the work, what is wrong with it?
OH absolutely nothing - I wanted to leave room for something else incase I was somehow completely off base on that idea.
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@PSX_Defector said:
@Dashrender said:
@PSX_Defector said:
First, take the first machine and P2V it into the second machine. No point leaving it bare metal. Then take the first machine, nuke and pave then install Hyper-V or ESXi stand alone. Move your three VMs over to the first machine, nuke and pave the second machine with Hyper-V or ESXi, setup Veeam replication between them, then map the NAS through whatever way you need to for it to keep data onsite and off.
WOW, this ends up with 4 copies of the data, probably overkill for them.
I'm guessing they only have two server because the first one ran out of resources and storage slots, so they bought a second one. I have no idea how old the servers are, or what brand (though I'd guess Dell knowing my friend), etc.
Nah, it's more along the lines of one copy. The NASes would only have critical data, not VM level replication. The two systems doing the VM shuffle would be their own "backups". I would take the NAS and have it mount a drive on the file server, be it NFS or SMB, to facilitate that. File sharing is a low intensity service, and it doesn't require much more than the network not be chatting to hell and back.
The secondary server is for failover of the critical systems. Although if you wanted to you could use it also in production, it would be awful crowded on that one machine if the other one popped off though.
How do you have full site recovery if the replicated NASs only have the data you're talking about? I think (not positive) that the purpose of the sync'ed NASs is for full site lost recovery - sure it would be slow, they'd have to get a new server, but they could pull the full VM images/backups/whatever from the remote NAS onto a new server and be up and running in less than a day once the server arrived.
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@Dashrender said:
@PSX_Defector said:
@Dashrender said:
@PSX_Defector said:
First, take the first machine and P2V it into the second machine. No point leaving it bare metal. Then take the first machine, nuke and pave then install Hyper-V or ESXi stand alone. Move your three VMs over to the first machine, nuke and pave the second machine with Hyper-V or ESXi, setup Veeam replication between them, then map the NAS through whatever way you need to for it to keep data onsite and off.
WOW, this ends up with 4 copies of the data, probably overkill for them.
I'm guessing they only have two server because the first one ran out of resources and storage slots, so they bought a second one. I have no idea how old the servers are, or what brand (though I'd guess Dell knowing my friend), etc.
Nah, it's more along the lines of one copy. The NASes would only have critical data, not VM level replication. The two systems doing the VM shuffle would be their own "backups". I would take the NAS and have it mount a drive on the file server, be it NFS or SMB, to facilitate that. File sharing is a low intensity service, and it doesn't require much more than the network not be chatting to hell and back.
The secondary server is for failover of the critical systems. Although if you wanted to you could use it also in production, it would be awful crowded on that one machine if the other one popped off though.
How do you have full site recovery if the replicated NASs only have the data you're talking about? I think (not positive) that the purpose of the sync'ed NASs is for full site lost recovery - sure it would be slow, they'd have to get a new server, but they could pull the full VM images/backups/whatever from the remote NAS onto a new server and be up and running in less than a day once the server arrived.
Risk versus cost. To do it right, you would need to replicate VHDs over to the second box as a warm standby, then to the NAS as a cold standby, which is then mirrored across to the other NAS. Yes, it can be done, but why bother? I don't need the bare VHDs to recover a system, I just want my data back. To bring back up Exchange from scratch would be trivial, and not to mention I would have to perform all kinds of stuff anyways to restore the deltas with backups and such. And odds are you are never gonna get a catastrophic failure of all of your drives at once in order to count on this. I almost never keep bare metal restores of VMs. As long as my critical data is backed up, e.g. MDFs, BAKs, and the main Exchange datastore, then I really don't care about the underlying OS.
If BOTH server blow up, you got bigger problems. But there is risk v. cost issue. As of all things holy, it's done in threes. You need a active/passive/DR setup if you want to cover all your bases. And in that case it might be more prudent to ship your VMs over to a cloud provider who would get you a DR point in place.
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@JaredBusch said:
@hubtechagain said:
Since you're stuck with 08, i'd use XenServer. it's all open source now, and purdy nice. I dont have much experience with it but 2 of my home servers are running it. purdy neat. way more robust than the free version of esxi.
@scottalanmiller said:
He, or whoever this is, is stuck with Windows Server 2008 for the OS but not stuck with the matching HyperV. I'd generally prefer XenServer too, but HyperV 2012 R2 is perfectly viable here too.
They are already using Hyper-V as the hypervisor for the other physical box. No reason to mix infrastructure.
If they choose to switch, and have two for a short time, that is fine too. But there is cost to switching to another product when a team is already familiar with a product and have it running in house.
I agree, I was leaning to HyperV 2012 R2 here. Just seems to fit well.
