What do you virtualise on your Gen8?

[danielsan123]

Hi!

 

I´m curious what you all virtualising on your Gen8 server? ESXi or Hyper-V and what are the hypervisor hosting? 

 

Myself I´m still struggling installing the Hyper-V but plans are hosting:

 

Webserver - Server2012R2

AD, DNS    - Server2012R2

Minecraftserver -Ubuntu

SQL-Server - Server2012R2

Fileserver - Server2012R2

Plex/downloadserver - Win8.1

 

Best regards Daniel

[artiom]

I installed Hyper-V 2012 R2 via intelligent provisioning - everything went fine from the first try.

Currently it is running the following VMs:

- Win 2012 R2 - App-V server - serves virtualized and preinstalled apps. I'm not happy yet how it works, probably will just scrap it.

- Win 2012 R2 - Teamcity CI server - continuously builds and deploys my internal projects.

- Win 2012 R2 - Active Directory Domain server (+DHCP +DNS) - really nice thing. No more frustrations with different accounts on different computers, access rights on network, sharing issues, etc.

- Win 2012 R2 - SQL server - manages all used databases.

- Win 2012 R2 - VPN server - provides remote access into network. Not yet happy as haven't managed yet to configure certificate-based authentication.

- Win 2012 R2 - Windows Deployment Services - no more fiddling with ISOs. Serves all needed Windows images for network installation.

- Win 8.1 - Some simple stuff +downloads.

- Ubuntu - git server.

- A few more disabled VMs that I am not using at the moment.

 

All Windows VMs are using dynamic memory feature which allows to pack a lot of VMs and still have some free RAM for experiments

All VMs are backed up via Hyper-V backup once a week.

Everything is running fine since installation in Sep 2014.

[adster01]

Installed esxi 5.5

 

I have Windows Server 2012 Essentials and pfsense running as VM's.

[ikon]

Interesting. People have reported having issues with ESXi 5.5. A number of them have gone back to 5.1.

[rbetogt]

I installed ESXi 5.5 U2 and now it looks like this:

 

WS2012R2

Ubuntu server - plex -samba shares

Ubuntu Desktop - all in one machine

Interesting. People have reported having issues with ESXi 5.5. A number of them have gone back to 5.1.

wow, surely I have not informed myself so well, I will look into it. Thanks for the info

[ikon]

IIRC, it mostly had to do with being able to pass certain devices through to VMs. There are posts about it in these forums.

[danielsan123]

Adding to my planned list - owncloud server

Running one fysical at the moment.  

[Royco]

I've never done virtualisation before.

 

Could someone perhaps explain the benefit of running separate operating systems instead of one? 

 

Example, why not use one Win 2012 instance?

- Win 2012 R2 - App-V server - serves virtualized and preinstalled apps. I'm not happy yet how it works, probably will just scrap it.

- Win 2012 R2 - Teamcity CI server - continuously builds and deploys my internal projects.

- Win 2012 R2 - Active Directory Domain server (+DHCP +DNS) - really nice thing. No more frustrations with different accounts on different computers, access rights on network, sharing issues, etc.

- Win 2012 R2 - SQL server - manages all used databases.

- Win 2012 R2 - VPN server - provides remote access into network. Not yet happy as haven't managed yet to configure certificate-based authentication.

- Win 2012 R2 - Windows Deployment Services - no more fiddling with ISOs. Serves all needed Windows images for network installation.

I don't mean to troll. I'm genuinely interested.

[ikon]

Royco, that could entail a very long answer, because there are many reasons to run VMs. However, to keep it short, here are just a few:

1. testing. Rather than have to set up a physical computer, a VM can be set up to see if a particular OS or application is something you want;
2. separation of applications. It's often better to run heavy-duty applications, such as Exchange or SQL Server in their own environment, to avoid conflicts between apps;
3. upgrading/rebooting. This allows you to install a patch or update that requires a reboot without having to take down all your apps. E.g. you update SQL Server. The update requires a reboot. You can reboot the SQL Server VM without having to reboot the Exchange VM.
4. fewer physical boxes/save space. Many corporations want this. They can set up a somewhat more powerful server than they ordinarily use and run 3, 4, or 5 VMs on it, thus taking 3, 4, or 5 physical computers out of service. This saves space and power.
5. save power. One somewhat more powerful computer uses less power than 3, 4, or 5 physical boxes.

[Trig0r]

At the minute I have my Gen8 running 2012r2, then Hyper-V running a torrent box and a plex server.

 

I am however thinking of changing the setup and having Hyper-V on the server and then setting up a VM for "2012 Essentials", then having the torrent box and plex box, then in theory, if the essentials box started to play up I could rebuild the VM a bit quicker than rebuilding the entire box..