[ngw] ESXI 3.5 vs ESXi 4.0 (multi posted)

Sat Apr 24 17:42:53 UTC 2010

4 Designated GB Ethernet ports for Each GroupWise Production vSwitch on all 4 of the vSphere Host. As of right now 4 vSphere host are still dedicated for GroupWise.  That will allow you to put 10-12 of your Netware/GroupWise VM's per host. 

Regarding the storage. This is a full chassis, which was scoped to handle this environment. 

XIV Specs:

Maximum physical storage capacity - 54 Tb
Number of disk drives - 54
Disk sizes and speed - SATA 1 Tb - 7500 RPM
Number of disk drives per RAID-level array - Entire Solution is configured as a single MDisk
SAN Mirroring Support - Mirroring services via SVC - all data is mirrored to all disks in an XIV
Dynamic Volume Expansion Support -Yes added chassis or drives based on overall sizing specs

>>> Peter Van Lone <petervl at gmail.com> 4/24/2010 7:36 AM >>>
4-6 vms per core works quite well -- as long as you know the particular work loads and as long as you don't have some bottleneck other than CPU

After memory, disk is the first to bottle-neck usually, but that is much more robust with vSphere ... how many Ethernet ports for VM comms?

I would not call XIV tier 2 storage -- it uses commodity drives and parts, but it is a robust beast of a performer and also is very competitive with even the most expensive and traditional "tier 1" units like a Shark or XP. Do you have the full chassis, or the smaller 1/2 sized one? 

On Sat, Apr 24, 2010 at 9:29 AM, Matt Ray <mray at groupwiseguru.com> wrote:

I'm working on 24 server Virtualized GroupWise solution right now. Here are the hardware specs:
6 3950 M2 IBM X Series servers (high end)
128 Gigs of memory in each Host server
4 CPUs, 24 Cores per server
SAN: IBM XIV, Tier 2 storage
Switches: 
CISCO 9516 SAN Switches 
4 Gig for SAN connectivity
NetWare 6.5 SP8
GW703
Running this all on a 6 node, VSphere 4 Update 1 Cluster
Supposedly, each of the X Series Hosts can handle up to 128 servers each. 
I'll let you know how it goes. 
Matt 

Matt Ray
MC Consulting - GroupWiseGuru.com
CNE, MCNE, LPI, CLS, CNS
mray at groupwiseguru.com
661.885.2699 - Office
661.599.3416 - Cell
866.869.9654 - eFax
Skype, Yahoo! & MSN ID: mraymus
Let us help you upgrade to GroupWise System today! 

>>> "Keith Larson" <KLarson at K12GROUP.NET> 4/24/2010 7:12 AM >>>

I would caution anyone against Virtualize NetWare. It can be done and I have a few small utility type servers virtualized, but I tried virtualizing a full server with shared folder and users home directories and nearly had a mutiny because of performance. I also tried virtualizing a server that was nothing more than the Symantec parent server for several hundred workstations. All that they would do is get signature updates from it, nothing else. That didn't go well either. It had been moved back to a physical server and it working well. We haven't gone to EPP yet we are still at Corporate Edition for SAV.
OES2SP1/SLES10SP2 has been fine virtualized with several hundred users hitting an NSS volume.
Keith Larson
Franklin Computer Services - K12 Group
(614) 561-4887
klarson at k12group.net

>>> "zzz" <zzz at minneapolis.edu> 4/23/2010 10:53 PM >>>
Greetings,
If you are worried about VMWARE perfomance on older hardware, possibly
do some testing and monitor memory, CPU and NIC utiiliztion. Should be
present in the local VM client install.

Not sure on the novell end, (I do have a couple of OES2 in virtual,
including GW8 1000 user server) but I have plenty of production WINDOZE
W2K8 64 bit guest VMs running on HP DL380 G5 ESX 3.5 cluster on SAN with
no major performance problems.
NIC utilization has not been an issue at my site with the onboard HP
NICs.

However, if you do have the chance, "VMWARE 4" would be the preferred
option to move to.

Hope this helps.
Thank you

Dana 

>>> Danita Zanre <dzanre.ngwlist at gmail.com> 4/23/2010 4:42:06 PM >>>
I of course can use whatever I want because I'm not a big company, so I
use
ESXi 3.5 on a my 32 bit server, and it works very well. On my 64bit
server,
I'm worried that ESXi 4.0 will not work, but I need 64 bit VMs (thanks
Novell <heehee>), so I'm running Server 2.0 on that for the 64 bit VMs.
So,
my take is that unless you need to actually have 64 bit VMs for
something,
3.5 has been perfectly fine for my needs, which aren't as great as
many
large companies, but greater than most of my small company clients.

Danita

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Joe Acquisto
<joe.acquisto at gmail.com>wrote:

> Certainly there is enough experience and options on these lists to
comment.
>
> Wondering if the "real world" performance difference, if any,
between
> ESXi 3.5 (32 bit) and 4.0 (64 bit) is worth having to go hunt up an
> "approved" 64 bit machine?
>
> Guest performance, of primary interest.
>
> I have several older servers that accept (and seem to run) 3.5, but,
> sigh, none that accept an install of 4.0.
>
> joea
> _______________________________________________
> ngw mailing list
> ngw at ngwlist.com 
> http://ngwlist.com/mailman/listinfo/ngw 
>

-- 
Danita Zanrè
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