Server configuration + Memory + VMWare question

I'd like to buy this guy: DL 380 G7, http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=11578414&cac=Result

it's coming with 24 GB

q1) what should be the best way to upgrade the memory to utilize the best performance? Right now it has 6 slots occupied with 4 GB modules. Is it possible to add a new 8GB module to this config or should it be always in pairs of the same type (again from best practice point of view)?

q2) I want to establish vmware esxi on it and put the following VMs on it

development VM (PHP/MySQL) development - 2 GB

VM production hosting of PHP 5.0 sites - 6GB

VM production hosting of PHP 5.3 sites - 6GB

VM production hosting of ASP.NET sites (couple, low traffic) - 6 GB

mercurial repositories (source control) - 2 GB

I don't have two much load from production VMs, approximate traffic per month on all these 3 VMs is planned at around 200-300GB with 20-30k of visitors across all sites deployed in these VMs

anything you will suggest to make system more robust - from configuration point of view, memory, cpu?

Later on, I'd like to shift to VMWARE Essential Kit plus with HAvailability, but right now I do have only 10-14K Budget and can't get 3 servers within this price + VMWARE license (3900)

Edit
I thought more about potential alternative and here is what I found: http://www.pcconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Detail.htm?sku=11534294&cac=Result

If I buy 2 servers with HDDs I still be within the budget. But this gives me ability to distribute the VMs accross 2 different physical servers (still not managed through vCenter and no HA), but my thinking is that later on when I need a 3rd machine - I'll buy a Essential Kit Plus, that has HA and basic vCenter license.

What do you think about this option/idea?

Comments

linux - iDRAC6 Virtual Media native library cannot be loaded

When attempting to mount Virtual Media on a iDRAC6 IP KVM session I get the following error: I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 and: $ javaws -version Java(TM) Web Start 1.6.0_16 $ uname -a Linux aud22419-linux 2.6.28-15-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Mon Aug 31 13:39:06 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux $ firefox -version Mozilla Firefox 3.0.14, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 mozilla.org On Windows + IE it (unsurprisingly) works. I've just gotten off the phone with the Dell tech support and I was told it is known to work on Linux + Firefox, albeit Ubuntu is not supported (by Dell, that is). Has anyone out there managed to mount virtual media in the same scenario?

ubuntu - Monitoring CPU, Mem, disk, on a single server

I've been looking for a simple starter solution for monitoring my [currently] single server hosted solution. Other than Nagios and similar, are there other good (simple) solutions people are using? Answer Everything depends on what you want. For example Munin is very simple, you can install and configure it in less then 10 minutes (on one server), it can sends alarms, make graphs from monitoring cpu, mem. apache connections, eaccellerator, disk io and many many more (it has many plugins). But if you are planning in future get some more machines, munin may not be enough. For example in munin you cant monitor state of individual processes, can't monitor changes in files (for security purpose). So if you wanna only see what is the utilization of basics parameters on your server and don't plan to buy some more servers Munin is what you are looking for, but if you wanna be alarmed when some of your service is down, take more control on what is happeninig on...

hp proliant - Smart Array P822 with HBA Mode?

We get an HP DL360 G8 with an Smart Array P822 controller. On that controller will come a HP StorageWorks D2700 . Does anybody know, that it is possible to run the Smart Array P822 in HBA mode? I found only information about the P410i, who can run HBA. If this is not supported, what you think about the LSI 9207-8e controller? Will this fit good in that setup? The Hardware we get is used but all original from HP. The StorageWorks has 25 x 900 GB SAS 10K disks. Because the disks are not new I would like to use only 22 for raid6, and the rest for spare (I need to see if the disk count is optimal or not for zfs). It would be nice if I'm not stick to SAS in future. As OS I would like to install debian stretch with zfs 0.71 as file system and software raid. I have see that hp has an page for debian to. I would like to use hba mode because it is recommend, that zfs know at most as possible about the disk, and I'm independent from the raid controller. For us zfs have many benefits, ...

Blog

Search This Blog