The decision around virtualization servers often comes down to 2 socket or 4 sockets. This week we will focus the chat on the advantages of each and how to choose between them.

Technical Community - Background Reading

5/21/2008 - Chat Transcript - Selecting the Right Server for Virtualization

Server Decision Matrix Wiki

VMotion Compatibility for Dell Servers

Virtualization Frontier Blog

Chat Transcript

	Dell-ToddM	Hello Bridgieb78
		DELL-ScottH joined.
	Dell-ToddM	Welcome Scott
	DELL-ScottH	Hey Todd !
	Dell-ToddM	We're going to wait until a few minutes after the hour to get started
	Dell-ToddM	This gives everybody a chance to get connected
	Dell-ToddM	bridgieb78 - If there is anything specific that you want to chat about we can chat about it a bit now
	bridgieb78	Nope, I'm just waiting to hear what you guys have to say. ::smile
	DELL-ScottH	usually talking about the best places for lunch :-)
	Dell-ToddM	Speaking of lunch
	bridgieb78	I saw that the topic is which servers to get for virtualization. I am under the impression that lots of memory, quad-core Cpu systems with good I/o is the way to go
	Dell-ToddM	I think that Chuy's deserves a mention here
	Dell-ToddM	Yes - You are correct about quad-core and lots of Ram
	Dell-ToddM	The problem is that is now a description of most of our servers
	bridgieb78	any specific suggestions when it comes to Dell servers - model, ram and Cpu?
	Dell-ToddM	Yes - I do have some suggestions / recommendations
	Dell-ToddM	Let me offically start the chat
	DELL-ScottH	Todd, roger just called, he can't get on from Parmer, I think Dell It has shut down the chat ports
	Dell-ToddM	Welcome to the Techtuesday chat on Selecting a Virtualization Server - 2-socket or 4 Sockets
	Dell-ToddM	I guess that Dell It was busy over the long weekend
	DELL-ScottH	guess so, maybe we'll get more customers, and they can view the transcript later
	Dell-ToddM	bridgeieb78 - There is no one single server that I can recommend for all.
	Dell-ToddM	It depends on what your virtulization requirements are
	Dell-ToddM	How many Vms and Servers you will have
	bridgieb78	well, with an average workload and 20 Vms runing on an Esx server, say
	Dell-ToddM	So it is really more of a process where, the more info you get - the better a decision you can make
	bridgieb78	yeah
	Dell-ToddM	So lets go through your specifics
	Dell-ToddM	What types of workload will be running in the Vms?
	Dell-ToddM	When Vms will be running basically a legacy consolidation workload - where older Physical servers have been migrated into Vm
	Dell-ToddM	A higher number of Vms can be run on a single server
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	Dell-ToddM	When the Vms are running Exchange 2007 or Sql Server workloads - there could be as few as 2
	Dell-ToddM	Additionally, the type of workload running can dictate how much you care about high availability
	Dell-ToddM	With Test and Dev - an outage of several hours may be no big deal
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	DELL-ScottH	welcome irina
	Dell-ToddM	Exchange typically needs to be up all the time - with downtime measured in seconds
	Dell-ToddM	Welcom Irina
	DELL-ScottH	use "action .. recent room history" to catch up on the chat
	Irina_diaz	Thanks!
	Dell-ToddM	We were just chatting about how Vm workload type can play a role in deciding what type of server to select
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	Dell-ToddM	But - we would really rather talk about what you want to talk about
	DELL-ScottH	hey marc
	dell-marc	yo!
	Dell-ToddM	Marc - Welcome
	Dell-ToddM	We have had some technical difficulties getting people connected it appears
	Dell-ToddM	Any problem for you?
	Dell-ToddM	So
	Dell-ToddM	The short of it is that there are lots of things that can be part of the decision of what server to use for virtualization.
	Dell-ToddM	I think that the three most people end up picking between are 2-socket, 4-socket, and blades
	Dell-ToddM	Today we are focusing on the 2 vs 4 socket part of the question
	Dell-ToddM	The two 2-socket servers are the 2950iii and R805
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	DELL-ScottH	hi robby
	Dell-ToddM	The 2950iii is intel based and leads the Vmmark performance benchmark for 2-socket servers
	DELL-ScottH	use "action" ... "recent room history" to catch up
	Dell-ToddM	The R805 is Amd based, has twice as many Dimm slots and onboard Nics as the 2950iii
	Dell-ToddM	The R805 was designed for virtualization and that is why it has so much Ram and I/o while still maintaining a 2U form factor
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	Dell-ToddM	On the four-socket server side the two systems are the R900 and R905
	Dell-ToddM	Their specs are very similar - except the R900 is Intel based and the R905 is Amd based
	dell-marc	What are the Nic specs for these?
	Dell-ToddM	2950iii - 2 onboard Nics
	Robby	As far as virtualization is concerned, are there any major benchmark differences between intel and amd?
	Dell-ToddM	R805, R900, R905 - 4 onboard Nics
	Robby	What are the number of available expansion slots between the 2950 and 900 platforms?
	Dell-ToddM	The Intel systems lead the Amd systems by a little bit in the Vmmark benchmark
	Dell-ToddM	The link to the Vmmark site - is www.vmware.com/products/vmmark/results.html
	Dell-ToddM	The 2950 has three Pci slots, The R900 has 7 Pci
	Dell-ToddM	I've put together a wiki page that summarizes the server specs side by side - www.delltechcenter.com/page/virtualization+server+decision+matrix
	Dell-ToddM	Be sure to right click to follow these links - so you don't get disconnected from the chat
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	Dell-ToddM	Robby - Are you only looking at Intel based servers?
	Dell-ToddM	There is the issue of Vmotion compatibility that sometimes leads people to stick with one processor type
	Robby	we've actually settled on the r900s.
	Dell-ToddM	I really like the R900 that we have in our lab - because it has 128gb of Ram
	Dell-ToddM	How cool is that?
	Robby	you've got to love the scalable features that come along with the R900s.
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	Dell-ToddM	I'm expecting to receive a couple of R805s this week - which will have 64GB or Ram each
	Dell-ToddM	The most amazing thing to me about this is the price of servers with 128 Gb and 64 Gb
	Dell-ToddM	The list price of the R805 with 64GB of Ram and top bin procs is under 10K (see dell.com - additional legal disclaimers inserted here :-)
	Robby	there really wasn't that much of a difference when we spec'd out the 32GB Ram and the 64 Gb Ram systems.
	Dell-ToddM	True - Ram isn't as big a driver of the cost of the server as it was in the past
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	Dell-ToddM	Although if you put 128gb of Ram in an R805 - the price does go up quite a bit becuase it has to use the 8GB Dimms to get there
	Dell-MarcF	So what about 2 versus 4 core? What are the general cost differences between them?
	Dell-ToddM	You can basically get either 2 two-sockets or 1 four socket for about the same total hardware cost
	Dell-ToddM	The license cost for Vmware can be a difference - two-socket license for Vmware is less than half of a four-socket Vmware license
	Dell-MarcF	socket 2 me
	Robby	that's pretty good
	Dell-ToddM	From an availability standpoint, two-sockets are much more affordable
	Dell-ToddM	As it is less expensive to have N+1
	Dell-ToddM	When the +1 is a two-socket server instead of a four-socket server
	Dell-ToddM	This becomes less of an issue in larger deployments, but if you are only going to have 2 or 3 servers
	Dell-ToddM	Then it can be a big difference
	Dell-ToddM	Part of this availability or disaster conversation is the egg basket issue
	Dell-ToddM	How many eggs do you want to put in one basket?
	Dell-ToddM	This really becomes a comfort level question with Vmware Ha or clustering
	Dell-ToddM	How fast can you recover or failover an entire server worth of Vms?
	Dell-ToddM	There isn't a right or wrong answer to this question - it is more of an opinion in how to run a farm of virtualization servers
	Dell-ToddM	One area that doesn't get as much attention as it did about a year ago is power consumption.
	Dell-ToddM	It can be more power efficient to use two-socket servers as they have higher performance per socket than four-socket servers
	Dell-MarcF	Todd you mentioned vmotion compatibility between intel and amd. Are there known problems with this?
	Dell-ToddM	Today - you cannot Vmotion between Amd and Intel servers
	DELL-ScottH	http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/solutions/vmotion_compatibility_matix.pdf
	Dell-ToddM	Even between servers of the same processor type (intel or Amd) you must be using the same generation to do Vmotion
	Dell-MarcF	Have I been asleep for not knowing this? Is this gernal knowledge?
	Robby	this is somewhat true on different chip platforms within the same manufatcurer, correct?
	Dell-MarcF	Ok, so I've been sleeping.
	Dell-ToddM	As you can see in the chart that Scott linked to , there are even cases where you can't Vmotion between the same generation of Dell Server
	DELL-ScottH	Marc, it's uber technical :-) ... you being the storage guy ... it's all just ball bearings to you :-)
	Dell-MarcF	Oooooooooooohhhhhhh
	DELL-ScottH	1's and 0's
	Dell-ToddM	There is some effort under way to make these issues go away with future generations of processors and virtualization software - but the arrival date of this is unkown
	Dell-ToddM	Why does the word uber keep coming up today?
	Dell-MarcF	Simple matter of programming
	DELL-ScottH	I don't know I think we are trying to make it our own ... like the Vps have "laser-focus" and "synergy" .. we want "uber"
	Dell-ToddM	Yes - we should try to make uber a part of every chat
	Dell-MarcF	rhymes with tuber
	DELL-ScottH	uber-cool
	Dell-MarcF	a great potato is an uber tuber
	DELL-ScottH	lol
	Robby	is this how most of the sessions wind down :-)
	DELL-ScottH	usually
	Dell-ToddM	Sometimes - esp after long holiday weekend
	Dell-MarcF	but it grows under ground!
	DELL-ScottH	Todd ! Uber me ! .. I'm capping the point !
	Dell-ToddM	Robby - Anything else you want to ask / discuss?
	Robby	no i'm good. thanks
	Dell-ToddM	I would also like to thank Marc for padding our numbers and logging in twice!
	DELL-ScottH	yeahhh ! marc !
	Dell-MarcF	my brouser frozer
	Robby	i noticed scott logging in and out several times.
	Dell-MarcF	ice old java
	DELL-ScottH	I accidently clicked on a link
	Robby	take care
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	Dell-ToddM	Due to some problems with getting conected and the holiday weekend - I think attendance was a bit low today - so we need number padding!
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	Dell-ToddM	Join us next week when we will chat about using blades for virtualization.
	Dell-ToddM	Thanks to all!