© 2010 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Small Business and Virtualization:

Benefits, Tools, and Tips

2

Introduction

Paul Woodward Jr.

• Systems Engineer, Swick Technologies

• @ExploreVM

Brian Kirsch, M.Ed

• VMUG Board of Directors

• @BCKirsch

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Virtualization isn’t just for the Enterprise

Using the right tools and techniques the SMB

can thrive with virtualization

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Things to look at…

Architecture

Tools

Licensing

Techniques

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SAN and NAS everywhere…except

Central Storage has been a barrier for SMB

Newer frames offer lower costs

Plus…

Why not make use of local storage?

VMware ESX

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Production / Test - Dev

Splitting Production and Test / Dev

Production on your shared storage

Test / Dev on local storage

Best of both

VMware ESX

VMware ESX

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Storage Performance Options…

Make use of both spinning disks /

RAID and SSD

This can be done for both external

storage and internal storageVMware ESX

VMware ESX

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Mixing Production, Dev and Infrastructure

Don’t dedicate hosts to specific roles

Mixing VM’s on a single host allows for:

•Reduction in Test / Dev in the event of contention

•Less impact in the event of failure

•Better ability to overcommit

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Licenses…

The vSphere ESXi Hypervisor is *Free* - no

really it’s free!

No host memory restrictions

No CPU host restrictions

Virtual Machines are “limited” to 8 virtual CPU’s

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Do I need vCenter…

?

vCenter gives you central management for

production VM’s

Two versions

•vCenter Server Foundation

•vCenter Server Standard

Foundation is limited to

three ESXi Hosts

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Do I need vCenter…

?

If you have a large test /dev environment you

could place it on a non-vCenter managed host

However no vMotion…

It’s not for everyone

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While most versions of Linux are opensource

there are concerns…

•Do you have staff knowledgeable about Linux

•Does you application have runtime on Linux

•What support options exist

What about guest OS’s…

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Windows Standard per VM is a ideal platform

up to a point

•Depending on your price, about 8-10 licenses per

host

•Standard is licensed per install

After that, Windows Datacenter is the key

•Licensed per CPU socket

What about the Microsoft license

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Windows Datacenter allows for unlimited guest

OS’s to be installed

•After 8-10 virtual machines on a dual socket server it

becomes cost effective and savings grow with every

additional install

•Windows Datacenter does not cover desktop

licenses, only servers

What about the Microsoft license

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Real World Examples - Manufacturing

Clients Needs

• Implement a new ERP program (5-10 users) and decommission Windows

Server 2003

Constraints

• Existing Hyper-V host is only 3 years old

• Budget - cost of the ERP program was high; hardware budget is low

Solution

• V2V existing VM to a Temp ESXi Host

• Install additional RAM & 15k SAS drives on the original host

• License using Essentials Kit

• Environment grew from 1 Server 03 VM to 4 Server 2012 R2 VMs & a

vCSA

• DC, File Server, Application Server, Terminal Server

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Real World Examples – Nonprofit Organization

Clients Needs

• Cloud based legacy applications lags / freezes even after network & ISP

improvements

Constraints

• As an NPO, funds were allocated via grants, low cash on hand for IT

projects

Solution

• Migrate application from the cloud to a small local host

• Licensed using ESXi Free

• Application and DC VMs on prem with room to grow in the future

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Free Tools

vCheck by Alan Renouf - @alanrenouf

http://www.virtu-al.net/vcheck-pluginsheaders/vcheck/

PowerShell script that runs as a scheduled task

Requires vCenter Server

Provides over 150 plugins to check the health & status of your VI

Generates an HTML Email Report or saves to a file

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Free Tools

RV Tools

http://www.robware.net/

Program reports on over 20 metrics to monitor VM & Host health

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Free Tools

Veeam Backup Free Edition

Backup Single VMs at a time

Veeam One Free

VM health and history data collection

http://www.veeam.com/

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Free Tools

© 2010 VMware Inc. All rights reserved

Thank You!Any questions?