RECOMMENDATIONS Available Server Hardware??

[JayG30]

So question, if I am running ESXi, can I save the PBX VM to a .vmdk and then open it on my laptop using VirtualBox? Would everything work correctly? I've never done something like that before.

ESXi, in my experience has been a pain. The marketing material doesn't match reality. ESXi only works on certain hardware. Good luck getting your ethernet ports to work on a laptop or any consumer grade hardware. I had a old Asus P5E Deluxe motherboard with a E8400 that I wanted to play around with. The most up-to-date version of ESXi didn't have the necessary drivers for both Ethernet ports (Marvell I think). Certain times I could get one to work, then I'd get the other to work. Older versions of ESXi had support but then they removed it. It was a nightmare. I had to do a bunch of crap to get it to work. It took a few days of research and trial and error before I finally got it working. I had to find something on a forum somewhere plus I think I had to add something related to sky2. I have my notes somewhere but I can't remember. I finally was able to create a ESXi 5.5 ISO with everything necessary for it to work, but it took some time. With two ESXi boxes running on support hardware, then you have a lot of cool options to recovery, load balancing, etc. But unfortunately I don't have that right now, hopefully in the future. Perhaps something other then ESXi would be better but I haven't had a change to look.

 

[magna.vis]

You'd be better off using VMware's desktop virtualization software (to recover an ESXi VM). You may have to convert the disk image before using it, I've never tried from ESXi to VMware Workstation. I bet it would work without converting though.

 

[GomezAddams]

ESX is awesome, but it is not for playing with. To run ESX you need a system that is supported by ESX. Despite what many think, ESX is NOT linux. The ESX kernel is custom built from the ground up and uses a limited number of custom drivers for hardware.

For general use, I'd recommend VMWare ESX server. It is free, available for Windows and linux, and you can have virtuals start automatically when the system starts. VMWare server shares the same virtual disks with ESX (vmdk) and virtuals from ESX will run under VMWare server. I run my home pbx as a virtual under VMWare server.

VMWare workstation is also cool, but costs $. It has some spiffy features that you don't really need for a PBX (sound, usb redirection, full-screen video, etc).

Oracle's virtualbox is awesome, but you can't run it as a service and have virtuals start automatically (well, there are some hacks out there that do that). VirtualBox understands vmdk files (no conversion needed), and I'd expect that a linux vmdk built under VMWare would boot right up under virtualbox.

 

[magna.vis]

I think the inclination here has been toward ESXi rather than ESX, and I believe that's what most people would push toward. If you're referring to the old VMware Server software that runs on Windows, the issue there is obvious. Why take a low powered server, put windows on it, and then run a virtualization platform on the OS, which is already abstracting the hardware enough. Then he's in the licence for his OS as well, just to sit around, need updates, and be liable to break. These same issues apply to VirtualBox, as it needs a host OS to run on.

ESXi is easy, free, and a real hypervisor. It's incredibly widely implemented on a diverse set of hardware that home users are using as labs, and the built-in drivers have worked with anything I've ever installed it on. He's looking at micro-server hardware with Intel NICs and processors, both are well supported by VMware. If he's unfamiliar with ESXi, he can read one of the hundreds (more likely thousands) of documents on setting it up and running a VM. I can go from bare metal to building VMs in less than 20 minutes.

Take this opportunity to try it out. You'll be a better person for it, and your system will ultimately be easier to manage. ESXi will run just fine on option 1 and 2.

 

[krzykat]

Why not use ProxMox? I'm running several servers on a Proxmox and having no issues. Seems to be fast and haven't really seen any downside.

 

[magna.vis]

I'm sure KVM would work fine, I've just never used it so I won't recommend it. Additionally, VMware has been around for a long time, and has a large community to show for it. There's a large degree of synergy in their offerings, and the ability to just move a .vmdk to another system running just about any version of VMware's virtualization platforms and spin your VM up is nice.

You may as well recommend Xen along with KVM. If he's looking to get a complete list, that would just about cover it. I know many people here use ESXi or VMware Server and VirtualBox with .vmdks, so for someone who's just starting out, I figure pointing toward industry standards is best. Can you think of any particular reason he would want to use Xen of KVM over ESXi for a single server, small office setup?

 

[GomezAddams]

I think the inclination here has been toward ESXi rather than ESX, and I believe that's what most people would push toward. If you're referring to the old VMware Server software that runs on Windows, the issue there is obvious. Why take a low powered server, put windows on it, and then run a virtualization platform on the OS, which is already abstracting the hardware enough. Then he's in the licence for his OS as well, just to sit around, need updates, and be liable to break. These same issues apply to VirtualBox, as it needs a host OS to run on.

ESXi is easy, free, and a real hypervisor. It's incredibly widely implemented on a diverse set of hardware that home users are using as labs, and the built-in drivers have worked with anything I've ever installed it on. He's looking at micro-server hardware with Intel NICs and processors, both are well supported by VMware. If he's unfamiliar with ESXi, he can read one of the hundreds (more likely thousands) of documents on setting it up and running a VM. I can go from bare metal to building VMs in less than 20 minutes.

Take this opportunity to try it out. You'll be a better person for it, and your system will ultimately be easier to manage. ESXi will run just fine on option 1 and 2.

Well, I am talking about ESXi, since the old ESX was retired at version 4. Don't get me wrong - ESXi is wonderful - we run several hundred virtuals on ESX hosts where I work. The point I was trying to make is that ESXi has a limited set of hardware devices it will run on - you can't throw it on just any old laptop or desktop system you have laying around. But, by all means, if you have supported hardware, run ESXi - it is dead easy to do simple configurations.

 

[magna.vis]

I am aware of a good many people who throw it on any old laptop or desktop they have laying around, myself included, with great results. Not to argue (because I really don't care that much), but most home lab users do just that. And there is a massive home lab community, much like this one here, where some hardware is better supported than other hardware, and you can get recommendations if you're buying, but most people literally just throw it on old desktops they have laying around. If they need to, maybe they'll pick up a cheep NIC if theirs isn't supported, but that's usually about the extent of incompatible hardware.

 

[wardmundy]

I think the inclination here has been toward ESXi rather than ESX, and I believe that's what most people would push toward. If you're referring to the old VMware Server software that runs on Windows, the issue there is obvious. Why take a low powered server, put windows on it, and then run a virtualization platform on the OS, which is already abstracting the hardware enough. Then he's in the licence for his OS as well, just to sit around, need updates, and be liable to break. These same issues apply to VirtualBox, as it needs a host OS to run on.

The difference with VirtualBox is that (1) it's free and (2) the VirtualBox software will run on almost any platform, not just a Windows PC. Since the .ova images are also portable, it means you can bring up your server on a different platform in a matter of minutes... including the new VirtualBox install on the new platform of your choice.

In our case, we've got a half dozen PCs and Macs around the house, and all of them have VirtualBox already in place. All of our .ova images are stored in numerous places including several cloud-based storage devices like Copy.com. Copy.com actually pushes copies of the .ova images to every other PC and Mac. If our primary machine croaks (and it has), it's Two Minutes to Paradise on another platform.

 

[magna.vis]

it's Two Minutes to Paradise

My wife would tell me I'm being generous, and that honesty is better than generosity any day.


I see two problems with that though. 1) You're now in the cost of the operating system (unless he wanted to use it on a Linux OS, which may be a really good option). 2) that host OS is taking resources away from the system which could be used for other things, especially if the individual would like to tinker with something else at the same time. On a micro-server, like those Atom boards, it may not be feasible to run more than one VM within VB on Windows 7/8/8.1. I guess if they were to install Linux and run it in there, uninstall all the extra toys and eye candy, it could run pretty lean.

Now that I think about it, I don't see any problems with that, assuming you go the Linux route. Good suggestion Ward! I guess that's why you make the big bucks! ::insert emoticon with empty pockets here::

 

[JayG30]

Yea the issue I've had with ESXi (>5.1 and even 5.5) is support for NIC's.

For instance, many of the supermicro motherboards have an Intel 217 NIC. These aren't officially supported by VMWare, and actually I found it incredibly hard to find a vib for it. I eventually found one foreign language article about it that SUPPOSEDLY works according to HardForums. Even the Intel 210 NIC that is on a TON of supermicro boards isn't officially supported by VMWare 5.5 from what I understand. Although finding a vib to add support for that was a lot easier. Still, I have to use Customizer to create a ISO for it. Not hard (if everything actually does work) but still a pain and again not 100% supported to work and could easily be broken in a newer ESXi version. This is the same issue I had on my old desktop motherboards. Most people will say "get a supported NIC card" but that isn't really a great option when you are trying to keep cost down and also have limited expansion slots.

This is the main reason I plan to take a look at Proxmox and the like soon.

So anyway, I've made a decision on what I am going to purchase unless someone here can provide a reason not too. Basically, because I currently don't have a server due to managements complete lack of understanding the importance of it, I've decided to purchase a more powerful machine to hopefully run at least 2 VM's on it. Maybe with this I'll be able to setup something like Zentyal (or just SAMBA4) so I can have a cheap Active Directory server as well.

Supermicro CSE-813MTQ-350CB
Supermicro X10SLM+LN4F-O
Kingston 8GB DDR3 KVR16E11/8
Intel E3-1230V3
WD WD10EZEX 1TB 7200RPM SATAIII
Total: $837.54

I'm going with the E3-1230V3 since it is the cheapest CPU with 4core/8threads. The WD HDD is really cheap and since the case has 3.5" removable drive bays I wasn't sure how trying to install an SSD would work. 8GB RAM stick to start with. The X10SLM+LN4F motherboard became my choice because of cost and it has 4 Intel 210 ports so I don't have to deal with the Intel 217/210 mixture on other cheaper boards like the X10SLM-F or X10SLL-F (even though newegg had a nice combo deal for this board). Plus I'm thinking it is probably going to be nice to have 4 NIC's if I'm going to use it for Zentyal or something other then a PBX. It has 1 x PCI-E 3.0 x 16 slot and 1 x PCI-E 2.0 x2 (in x8) slot. I was going to get a cheaper case like the SC512F-350B but it doesn't come with rails (or less important the hotswap bays) and once I added those in the cost just didn't make sense.

Any thoughts/concerns?

 

[krzykat]

I bought a dual quad-core Dell2950 that had rails and RAID on it, 32Gig of Ram (from fleabay) for a good price. I then loaded it up with Prox, have a couple PBX's on it, a SBS-2011, and now playing with a Linux box with Owncloud (dropbox) and now wanting to install a free Exchange server on it .... thinking OpenChange right now. So yeah, think you can do an all in one. Just make sure your bandwidth is sufficient and its really nice to have a pfSense box on front to make sure everything flows how you want and nobody hogs the wrong bandwidth.

 

[JayG30]

Lots of those Dell 2950's on ebay. Some really cheap deals on there. I'll admit I've never purchased used servers before.
Looks like the E3-1200v3 is as powerful as pretty much any of the dual CPU models I can find on there.

 

[JayG30]

I read about that on servethehome. I don't know what HP is thinking, but I don't foresee buying servers from them ever again and certainly will be reconsidering any other purchases. Did you read anything about if it has any effect on switches? I would expect it would have an effect since it is "firmware". I was looking at some HP 2920's. They would be new but still, down the line...

The other thing is, how do they REALLY expect to enforce this. If someone under a support contract has access to the firmware I wouldn't be surprised to see it leaked all over the internet.

Maybe I'll just pay less and go with Netgear instead now.

 

[wardmundy]

Where's DEC when we need 'em. Of course, they would have required a service contract. And that worked well for them, too.

 

[atsak]

Companies will never learn. People don't want to pay service contracts for you to fix the bugs in your software stacks that you sold to me in the first place WITH BUGS. I will pay a service fee for enhanced features. While I understand it's a very common model, it's frankly a little bit shady ethically, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Mark D. Montgomery II]

Companies will never learn. People don't want to pay service contracts for you to fix the bugs in your software stacks that you sold to me in the first place WITH BUGS. I will pay a service fee for enhanced features. While I understand it's a very common model, it's frankly a little bit shady ethically, as far as I'm concerned.

They'd probably argue that firmware isn't really software. hah.

That said, I agree completely. Upgrades are one thing, patches and fixes are quite a different issue.

 

[GomezAddams]

I read about that on servethehome. I don't know what HP is thinking, but I don't foresee buying servers from them ever again and certainly will be reconsidering any other purchases. Did you read anything about if it has any effect on switches? I would expect it would have an effect since it is "firmware". I was looking at some HP 2920's. They would be new but still, down the line...

The other thing is, how do they REALLY expect to enforce this. If someone under a support contract has access to the firmware I wouldn't be surprised to see it leaked all over the internet.

Maybe I'll just pay less and go with Netgear instead now.

Don't HP switches have lifetime warranties?

 

[GomezAddams]

Where's DEC when we need 'em. Of course, they would have required a service contract. And that worked well for them, too.

Even more ironic considering that HP bought the shriveled remains of DEC after they imploded.

 

[GomezAddams]

I suspect HP is going to find that putting the genie back in the bottle is a tad more difficult than they anticipate.