[sdw2003] VMWare and NAS architecture

[Bac Nguyen]

TJ,
1. For storage, if you want to use HA (High Availability), DRS (Distributed
Resource Scheduler) and these features required "shared storage" - SAN/NAS.
Note, DRS leverage VMotion to "live migrate" VM from one physical host to
another. But, from reading what you describe you might not need DRS.

2. For the license, I should buy VMware Esential Plus to have HA and VMwae
Data Recovery (VDR) - quick way to back up and restore your VMs which not a
lot of people know about. However, it's version 1.0 and the limitation is
you can not restore at a file level, yet - VMware is working on it. More
info from the link below
http://www.vmware.com/products/data-recovery/overview.html

I beileved the Essential start at $168/CPU - note VMware has changed their
license with the released of vSphere - from license per dual-CPU to single
CPU.

As for migrate VM from one physical server to another, you can do that as
long as that VM is shut down. However, without shared storage (SAN/NAS) you
will need to move the al the virtual disk(s) belong to that VM which will
take time depending on the size of the virtual disk. If the VMs are on
shared storage then all you need is change the ESX/ESXi host that manage it.
Which is one more benefits of shared storage. Again, for live migration VM
you need VMotion which required Advanced edition
3. For back up, again the Essential Plus included VDR which can do the
backup and restore fairly well for VMs.

As a note, the Essential/Esssential Plus is limited to 3 servers max. Also,
you can buy the vCenter (foundation) for $1495 - again it license to support
up to 3 ESX/ESXi servers. The vCenter normally cost $4,995 but it can
support up to 200 ESX/ESXi and 2000 VMs.

Let me know if you have any questions.

PS: As a side note, Boeing has been gear up to hiring VMware/Network
administrators to support CANES (US Navy) - you can look up CANES and find
out more about it. Boeing is the front runner and expect to win this
contract which is worth 1.5 Billions. So, if you thinking to learn VMware
and get certify as VCP. You need to get the ball rolling. For VCP, you need
to attend VMware 4-days training class which is pretty good and pass the
exam. The class cost $2,995 and they have class in down town every other
month. The VCP exam cost $175.00

Check out VMware jobs in San Diego
http://www.indeed.com/q-VMware-l-San-Diego,-CA-jobs.html

Cheers,
On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 3:43 PM, TJ Galati <tj at cresinsurance.com> wrote:

> Hola all.
>
> At my office we use Parallels for OS Virtualization.  We use an iSCSI
> NAS on a storage network for storage.  My VMs are not in LUNs, but the
> data drives that they VMs use are in LUNs.  We backup our VMs separately
> and also replicate them offsite, bla bla bla
>
>
>
> I want to give a client a VM solution for their simple 20 user, file
> server, exch 2003, 2003 AD domain.
>
> I got them the NAS and 2 new servers but am undecided on the setup.
> Reason is, I don't want to use Parallels.  I would like to use VMWare as
> I have found a lot of things I don't like about parallels and would not
> recommend it for them.
>
> Now, considering the VMare solutions, which I know very little about I
> have 3 questions regarding the solution I want to provide.
>
> 1) The architecture of putting the VMs in the LUNs or not is baffling
> me.  Pros and cons?
>
> 2) 2 boxes with free ESXi vs Essentials Plus package:
> https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html.
>
> We def want to be able to migrate a VM from one server to another, but
> the migration would be manual.  I am unclear as to if I can do this with
> the free version or not.  I would think I could just move\activate the
> LUN on box B, instead of box A.
>
> 3) Backup.  They are still using backup exec 8.6, and NT backup for
> Exch.  Not sure if there is some cool VMWare solution for backing up the
> VMs, exchange data and file data, or if all of that is separate.  We
> need to get something better.  Thoughts
>
> Any comments for 1 or all 3 of these issues are greatly appreciated.
>
> TJ Galati
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