Virtualization Redemption?
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OK, sorry i posted and vanished. My current single caveat to doing anything right now is storage space. I know SQL and AD will replicate without issue. I also know that they say that their applications data will do the same using robocopy nightly. Would it be stupid for me to overcome the current storage shortage of running all 4 vms on 1 host by switching from raid 10 to raid 6 on the DR server?
Datacenter is connected over vpls and we have a 30x30 pipe between us and DC.
I like the idea of xen just because of all of the built in goodies that aren't included with ESXi, like HA.
I think I have two slots on each server that I could put drives in to expand storage even more. alteast on the DR server.
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and all of the hardware is exactly the same @anonymous so would driver updates be necessary?
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@hubtechagain said:
Would it be stupid for me to overcome the current storage shortage of running all 4 vms on 1 host by switching from raid 10 to raid 6 on the DR server?
I think I have two slots on each server that I could put drives in to expand storage even more. alteast on the DR server.
I would look at the drives in the DR site. If you can add 2 to that and keep RAID10 and then have enough space. If not, then I would think about a RAID6 as this is DR only and not normally mission critical space. Just have to be aware of the risk if the DR site suddenly needs to be used that everything is on a fragile system and replacement primary needs updated ASAP.
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One license of VMWare Essentials (not plus) will cover all three servers. Then you can use third part migration tools. This would likely be cheaper than the time it would take you to migrate to another Hypervisor.
It would come don to what the 3rd party tools can do for you. Are those functions enough to handle your replication/backup needs.
For example, is a 6 socket license of Veeam Essentials something that would give you enough features?
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@anonymous This is not correct. That is the price WITH one year of support. Additional support (And upgrades) are ~1K a year (assuming mission critical 24/7 phone support contract) so comparing that to free anything else is apples/oranges.
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@DustinB3403 There are other "cheap" VMware kits for different purposes (vSphere Robo edition, foundation etc).
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@Dashrender Belive SA is required for Exchange/SQL to move hosts if memory serves.
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@John-Nicholson said:
@Dashrender Belive SA is required for Exchange/SQL to move hosts if memory serves.
That sounds correct.
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@DustinB3403 He said EMR also. Most EMR vendors only support VMware, bare Metal Linux, or AIX (Epic). I haven't seen a EMR vendor officially support Hyper-V.
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AIX is RISC, not EPIC
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Funny,
EPIC is the name of the ERP that Memorial Herman (Houston) uses. Think Texas Children's uses it also. Its one of the most popular platforms out there.
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Ah, okay. Epic and AIX, not AIX on EPIC
For those wondering, AIX is a RISC UNIX OS whereas HP-UX is an EPIC UNIX OS. Hence the confusion.
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back on topic, and bringing this back from the dead. Let's say i was able to go ahead and just snag ESX Essentials, 3 years of upgrades and support for 3 machines with 2 processors each is only $666 (bad omen?). If i went with essentials, what could i use to do a snap of the original VMs, and then just incremental to my DR server from then on out? does veeam free allow this?
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@hubtechagain said:
back on topic, and bringing this back from the dead. Let's say i was able to go ahead and just snag ESX Essentials, 3 years of upgrades and support for 3 machines with 2 processors each is only $666 (bad omen?). If i went with essentials, what could i use to do a snap of the original VMs, and then just incremental to my DR server from then on out? does veeam free allow this?
Essentials has the backup API so Veeam should work fine for it.
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@coliver said:
@hubtechagain said:
back on topic, and bringing this back from the dead. Let's say i was able to go ahead and just snag ESX Essentials, 3 years of upgrades and support for 3 machines with 2 processors each is only $666 (bad omen?). If i went with essentials, what could i use to do a snap of the original VMs, and then just incremental to my DR server from then on out? does veeam free allow this?
Essentials has the backup API so Veeam should work fine for it.
But can you capture incrementals with Veeam Free?
Unitrends might be better assuming you are under 1.5 TB.
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He's got a 2.18TB RAID 10.
No point in gimping him self now.
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but what i'm saying is does the free veeam offer incremental backups, can i schedule them? or will i have to regularly interact with it to keep things current?
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@hubtechagain said:
but what i'm saying is does the free veeam offer incremental backups, can i schedule them? or will i have to regularly interact with it to keep things current?
I don't think you can schedule them. I'm pretty sure Veeam free is on-the-fly.
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are there any free/not super expensive options?
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@hubtechagain said:
are there any free/not super expensive options?
It doesn't look like it is built into the functionality of Veeam Free's GUI. But it looks like Powershell can help you.
http://www.veeam.com/blog/veeam-backup-free-edition-now-with-powershell.html
It should be noted that Veeam Free can't do incremental backups (at least not that I've seen) so every time you ran this it would be a full backup.
