Virtualization Help

[bbouzos]

Hey all,
I’m trying to get into virtualization a little bit, so I started looking at a few servers and narrowed my search down to these two:

http://www.unixsurplus.com/product/supermicro-sc809-single-l5420-25ghz-8gb-x7dwt-inf-1u-dual-twin-server

http://www.unixsurplus.com/product/nas-vmware-raid-server-32-bay-35-sas-or-sata-jbod-storage-array-up-to-96tb

Are they both capable of virtualization? Is the hardware RAID card on the Rackable NAS compatible with VMWare 5.0, or would it be better to stick with the Supermicro and purchase a RAID card that is VMWare 5.0 compatible separately?

Finally, am I going about this the right way?

Thanks

 

[imagoon]

What exactly is your goal? The gear looks like it might be capable but you might be limited since the RAM in the nodes is low and I think the NAS only has 1 73GB disk. You would need more parts to run VMWare 5 except in the most basic of configs.

 

[bbouzos]

Thanks for the reply!

I work for a small company that wants to run a Windows 2008 R2 server with 4 Windows 7 Professional workstations, but we currently use 2003, and I want to see if everything will work for us before I permanently implement it. That way, obviously, I don’t have to install it on every workstation one by one, and it makes it a whole lot easier to scrap if 2008 R2 doesn’t work out for us. Only thing is, I’m not the most savvy person when it comes to virtualization and how to go about it. Hence this post!

How much RAM do you think I would need for something like this?

 

[kevnich2]

First off - what's your budget? A simple Dell T110 system with a quad core xeon and about 16gb memory is very capable for virtualization. I use it at home for my testing lab.

The supermicro would work adequately for vmware virtualization. The NAS is only a storage array for centralized storage. Not what I think you're looking for.

 

[talion83]

If you are just looking for testing purposes you could do it with any current desktop, the performance will be lower since you won't have the resources behind it - but again if the goal is to simply 'test' if something will work then that should suffice.

If you have a server currently running 2003 and are looking at buying a new server to 'test' 2008 R2 on - well unless you have a pretty nice server that 2003 is running on, chances are anything you buy now would be better. In which case I would go with Kevnich2's suggestion and look at something like a Dell T110 and once you do your initial test turn this into an actual production server.

Also - what are you worried won't work? Is there a particular application or program? On the infrastructure side unless you are hosting legacy software on the 2003 server, the 2008 R2 should function without an issue.