Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi)
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Should I be considering a couple HCI (like VXRail), or just go with traditional servers?
Seems like at your size, likely still overkill.
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@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m What platform are they currently using? Hyper-V, ESXi, etc?
ESXi in the past too, I'm pretty sure.
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Currently have two R720XDs with OBR10 of 3.5" 7200 RPM NLSAS drives and two sockets with 128GB of RAM. I want to at least double the capabilities/capacities.
Two R740xd with 256GB or more should do the trick no problem. If you need HA, just look at @StarWind_Software which will work with ESXi (or others.) Lower cost, and the higher availability of just two nodes. Going to three adds complexity.
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
SMB with around 25 VMs and 8TB of data . Currently have two R720XDs with OBR10 of 3.5" 7200 RPM NLSAS drives and two sockets with 128GB of RAM. I want to at least double the capabilities/capacities.
At what capacity are you currently operating? Do you need more RAM, storage, cores, or all of the above?
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m What platform are they currently using? Hyper-V, ESXi, etc?
ESXi in the past too, I'm pretty sure.
The first thought that had jumped into my mind was a Scale cluster, but wasn't sure if that was overkill or not. If the environment is Hyper-V, then two more servers makes sense, whereas ESXi gets into different licensing with 4 nodes rather than 3. We really need to know a lot more about the environment too give a good recommendation.
That said, two more servers from xByte and Starwind to share storage is about the best we can do with what we know.
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@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m What platform are they currently using? Hyper-V, ESXi, etc?
ESXi in the past too, I'm pretty sure.
The first thought that had jumped into my mind was a Scale cluster, but wasn't sure if that was overkill or not.
He's still in the two node range. Not in scale out. Scale would make a lot of sense if he needed scale out, and wasn't looking at VMware ESXi. The ESXi requirement makes Starwind the absolutely choice, basically with no competition.
If he needed ten nodes, then Starwind would be up against VxRAIL. But if he needed forty nodes, it would be only Starwind again. Starwind plays in a LOT more spaces than anyone else.
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@travisdh1 - Currently ESXi
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@scottalanmiller - Going to three adds too much complexity even with Starwind?
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@danp said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
SMB with around 25 VMs and 8TB of data . Currently have two R720XDs with OBR10 of 3.5" 7200 RPM NLSAS drives and two sockets with 128GB of RAM. I want to at least double the capabilities/capacities.At what capacity are you currently operating? Do you need more RAM, storage, cores, or all of the above?
Need more of everything.
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@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m What platform are they currently using? Hyper-V, ESXi, etc?
ESXi in the past too, I'm pretty sure.
The first thought that had jumped into my mind was a Scale cluster, but wasn't sure if that was overkill or not. If the environment is Hyper-V, then two more servers makes sense, whereas ESXi gets into different licensing with 4 nodes rather than 3. We really need to know a lot more about the environment too give a good recommendation.
That said, two more servers from xByte and Starwind to share storage is about the best we can do with what we know.
Yeah, we are licensed for essentials plus - 6 CPU licenses of vSphere Essentials Plus (for 3 servers with up to 2 processors each) and 1 license for vCenter Server Essentials.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@travisdh1 said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m What platform are they currently using? Hyper-V, ESXi, etc?
ESXi in the past too, I'm pretty sure.
The first thought that had jumped into my mind was a Scale cluster, but wasn't sure if that was overkill or not.
He's still in the two node range. Not in scale out. Scale would make a lot of sense if he needed scale out, and wasn't looking at VMware ESXi. The ESXi requirement makes Starwind the absolutely choice, basically with no competition.
If he needed ten nodes, then Starwind would be up against VxRAIL. But if he needed forty nodes, it would be only Starwind again. Starwind plays in a LOT more spaces than anyone else.
Interesting
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Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@scottalanmiller - Going to three adds too much complexity even with Starwind?
It adds a lot no matter what. Even if only talking physical complexity from the total number of moving parts.
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.
No, when possible you want fewer CPUs, not more. All other things being equal, more CPUs is a negative. CPU count isn't beneficial.
What you really want is performance per thread, and thread count. Those are what you want to increase as needed. In many cases, you can only get what you need by increasing CPU count, but if you can avoid it, it is better.
At your size, it sounds like you can easily grow dramatically while going down to a single CPU. You can get single CPUs that will create licensing headaches for you. Right now you have eight cores. Consider a single sixteen core CPU as a starting point. That's way more performance per thread (just because these are two generations newer machines) and double the threads and reducing the CPU to CPU overhead. Two huge wins, and one small one.
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@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.
No, when possible you want fewer CPUs, not more. All other things being equal, more CPUs is a negative. CPU count isn't beneficial.
What you really want is performance per thread, and thread count. Those are what you want to increase as needed. In many cases, you can only get what you need by increasing CPU count, but if you can avoid it, it is better.
At your size, it sounds like you can easily grow dramatically while going down to a single CPU. You can get single CPUs that will create licensing headaches for you. Right now you have eight cores. Consider a single sixteen core CPU as a starting point. That's way more performance per thread (just because these are two generations newer machines) and double the threads and reducing the CPU to CPU overhead. Two huge wins, and one small one.
Will I still be able to get 256 GB of RAM on one CPU?
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@scottalanmiller said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.
No, when possible you want fewer CPUs, not more. All other things being equal, more CPUs is a negative. CPU count isn't beneficial.
What you really want is performance per thread, and thread count. Those are what you want to increase as needed. In many cases, you can only get what you need by increasing CPU count, but if you can avoid it, it is better.
At your size, it sounds like you can easily grow dramatically while going down to a single CPU. You can get single CPUs that will create licensing headaches for you. Right now you have eight cores. Consider a single sixteen core CPU as a starting point. That's way more performance per thread (just because these are two generations newer machines) and double the threads and reducing the CPU to CPU overhead. Two huge wins, and one small one.
Will I still be able to get 256 GB of RAM on one CPU?
Double check with your vendor (duh, xByte) but the R740xd should do 1.5TB on a single CPU. 256GB is nothing on a per CPU basis these days.
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@scottalanmiller Cool. Thanks. I will check it out.
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@wrx7m said in Looking at New Virtual Host Servers (ESXi):
Should I stick with 2 CPUs? We currently have 4 cores per CPU and 2 CPUs per server. I would be looking at increasing the core count, too. I don't think adding pCPUs would benefit me.
A pair of 6134 would avoid the Windows Server core tax. It’s the best bang for the GHz buck and our goto for most builds.
Need more pRAM then 6134M to gain access to 3TB per node.
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Even though it's a small workload, I would still look at storage performance requirements closely before you make a purchase so you get the correct speed of drives. How is the OBR10 with 7200 RPM drives performing today? Would looking at 10K RPM drives improve performance and make a true business impact with your applications?
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And since you have already paid for Essentials Plus, I can see how something like Starwind makes sense to pool your storage together. And I like the idea of single CPU. Even though your vSphere license covers up to 2 CPU in each host, you can certainly add a physical CPU later and only if needed to save a little cost on the front side.
I saw VxRail mentioned, and I saw Starwind mentioned. But there is another option here. You could go single CPU and license vSAN for either two or 3 hosts. A two host configuration does require a witness (basically a VM that must run outside the cluster, even if on a free ESXi host), where a 3-node cluster would not. With vSAN Standard, you can do a hybrid vSAN and use disk groups made up of one caching drive (SSD) and multiple capacity drives. With a 3-node cluster, there would be a copy of each VMDK on two hosts in the cluster and a witness component on the 3rd host, allowing one host to be put in maintenance node or even to completely fail without losing data.
https://cormachogan.com/2017/03/27/debunking-behavior-myths-3-node-vsan-cluster
Remember, as you are looking to do this, let your decision fall on something that will give you more capacity, better performance, and easy of management for future upgrades so you can stop focusing quite so much on keeping the lights on and use more time to innovate on other projects. Regardless of what you go with, I would plan this project so that you leave open drive bays in the hosts you are getting so you can scale up the storage in the future if you have the need.
