Simon Gallagher http://vinf.netSimon Seagrave

http://www.techhead.co.uk

Why would you want to do that? Best boxes for vSphere Where to get them Datacentre in a box (virtualized ESX)

Muti-Node TARDIS cluster Demo Performance I/O Demo FT Demo

Cheap/Free SAN Storage Cheap/Free Networking Software Licensing Further Information...

Because you can VCP study Critical home infrastructure (wife & kids

2.0) IT is a vocation, not an occupation Production use cases

Automated install testing Changes (ITIL) VUM patch testing

Need: Cheap Low-Power!!! Quiet

Options eBay an old Proliant Buy something cheap but less “server” Find someone else to pay for it (good luck)

New HP ML115 G5 / ML110 G5 With 160Gb HDD, 8GB RAM, dual/quad core

~£330 ML115 G5 is weapon of choice (AMD x64, FT)

Used HP D530 160Gb HDD, With 4Gb ~£90 ESX 3.5 only (not x64)

Build your own (White-box) Compatibility issues http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/u

pdated-homebrew-esx-hardware-list.html

Community supported H/W http://www.vmware.com/resources/communitysupport/

eBay for old kit http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-deals That “spares” pile – but ask 1st!

2 x Physical HP ML115 G5 with 8Gb RAM vSphere 4 Servers

1 x HP D530 OpenFiler (1TB iSCSI storage, 60Gb SSD)

Cheap VLAN’able GbE switch 10 x virtual ESXi instances in a

HA/DRS cluster 4Gb RAM allocated to each

instance (heavy overcommit!) Software L3 router; Vyatta Trolley & luggage straps (B&Q) Approx cost to buy <£1,000 Non-HA version ~£500 Even cheaper if you can recycle

the OpenFiler box & Storage

VM Network for guest iSCSI VLAN

VM Network for guest

vMotionVLAN

10.0.0.xAdmin Network

VMKernel PortsFor physical hosts

Physical Host Network Config

Virtual ESXi Guest Network

VMKernel Ports in ESXi Guest

These are really vNICs

Note: no need to specify VLAN tag – it

is done on host

It’s bigger on the inside than outside vMotion between physical host & VM ESXi

(Nested VM) Host Profiles VMware Update Manager Nested Virtual Machines (configuration) FT (FT’d vCenter & Vyatta installation)

Separate VLAN’s for storage, vMotion, FT VM Template with multiple vNICs & mounted

.ISO Do not clone installed ESXi/Classic Physical Host – set vSwitch to allow

promiscuous mode otherwise it will not work Pay attention to max number of ESX hosts to

a single shared LUN (or it will stop working) Nested VM with FT needs special VM

configuration & doesn’t work brilliantly Virtual ESX servers need

monitor_control.restrict_backdoor TRUE setting to run nested VMs

SATA, consumer grade SSD is cost-effective Don’t expect amazing performance, but good-enough Beware of iSCSI reservation conflicts OpenFiler

Free, open-source, wide hardware support Will also run as a VM (caution with HA testing) Replication possible if you are a Linux wizz

HP Lefthand Virtual Storage Appliance Not free 30-day eval available Fault-tolerance/replication & failover possible

EMC Celerra Virtual Machine Resource hungry Free Fully featured (..more coming from EMC soon; CLARiiON etc.)

NAS – Drobo/IX StorCentre

There are no cheap L3 switches Old L3 Cisco kit is <£100 but not

Gigabit (eBay) Solution

Cheap SoHo GbE switch that supports VLAN’ing

Linksys SLM series ~£80 for 8 GbE ports & VLAN support

Vyatta software appliance router (VM with multiple vNICs

Configure router VM with FT

VMware software is an expensive problem for the lab 60-day evals out of the box (re-install) ESXi – but no vMotion/etc. NFR via employer Re-using production keys; naughty The Internet; naughty No real product activation at present or viable solution to this

problem from VMware – No more VMTN subscription! Microsoft

Mainly for guest VMs or you could try out Hyper-V or Xen if you can’t get an eval license from VMware to use in your lab

Downloadable evals TechNet Direct – best approach to be legal, and reasonably

priced with lots of copies ~£300 unless you go to TechEd then it’s free

Open-Source Nothing to see here, move along – it’s free!

Reference http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-h

p-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core

http://vinf.net/2009/05/21/cheap-vsphere-server/http://vinf.net/2009/06/07/vsphere-cannot-enable-ft-for-a-nested-vm/http://vinf.net/2008/05/18/running-esx-35-and-3i-under-vmware-workstation-65-beta-build-91182/

http://www.techhead.co.uk/hot-dealshttp://www.serversplus.com/product.asp?s=SVHEW-VIRTBUN1http://vinf.net/2009/10/07/performance-update-on-cheap-vsphere-server/

http://vinf.net/2009/11/19/comparing-the-io-performance-of-2-or-more-virtual-machines-ssd-sata-iometer/

Simon SeagraveBlog http://www.techhead.co.ukTwitter @kiwi_si

Simon Gallagher Blog http://vinf.netTwitter @vinf_net