Hi
I have big case to do. I think about migration two computers to virtual machine.

Situation now:
Computer_one: dns, firewall, (amd 2000mhz, 1gb ram)
Computer_two: postfix, samba, ftp (2 x Xeon(TM) CPU 3.00GHz, 1GB, 80GB system + 2x750 mirror with samba files)

These computers contains gentoo linux.

Situation after changes:

One physical computer with debian etch and vmware server 2.0.

Two virtual computers:
Virtual_one: firewall, dns, squid
Virtual_two: postfix, ftp

Hardware config for new host computer:
Motherboard and cpu from old computer_two, hdd for system, 2xhdd for raid 0 (virtual machines storage) 2xhdd for raid1 (samba) and one drive for other copy of snapshot.

First I migrate all to core duo 1.80mhz, and after that setup new hardware.

Now please write about yours experience with build virtual structure.
I want ask about:
1 hardware config new computer – it’s ok or not? – in company work about 30 peoples
2 how to fast find all services and config files and migrate to new virtual (these computers setup someone else – I think about debian or freebsd 7.0
3 how to setup limit for processor – in vmware esx I can setup processor speed in MHZ and select core, in vmware server I can’t do that but maybe I can in guest linux setup processor speed or limit 30% processor time.

Thakns for any reply

specs look ok. I dont ever like RAID0 setups so if you can buy more disk i would think hard about a RAID5




VMWare have a very nice P2V tool (physical 2 virtual) that converts a live running system to a VM. it is very handy



VMWare will automatically divy up the CPU and memory. I wouldnt change it from its defaults with 2 xeon CPUs you should be able to easily run 10 VMslices with out any problems

You are only using one hard drive for the OS of the host server?
If you lose the host servers hard drive everything will be down.

Do you have hardware raid?

If so I would suggest, that you have two hard drives set up with RAID 1 for the Host server OS (plus VMWare software)

This leaves four hard drives for everything else, you could set these up as a RAID 5 block, which will give you the maximum amount of storage whilst still providing redundancy for a single disk failure.

Where are your samba shares going to run from? the host OS? Virtual Two?

Answer 1: It depends on how heavily these systems are used, you may find that you get a drop in performance, whether this is exceptable only you can say. You will not know for sure how much of an affect virtualising the environment has until it is operating under a full load.

Answer 2: The best way of migrating the machines would be to use VMWare Converter which will allow you to clone the physical machines, but as you are re-using Computer Two as the virtual host, you are going to have to work out a way to virtualise this first, possibly to a third machine.

The machine that it is being (temporarily) virtualised to will need VMWare Server installed.

Answer 3: VMWare server is very limited on what you can do with regard to processor affinity, etc. You can specify how much RAM a virtual machine, but all you can really do from a processor point is tell it it only has one processor when you create the virtual machine.


Personally I would insist on having a seperate/new machine for creating the VMWare host, so that I could rollback with the least amount of problems (and downtime) Once the VM's have been created (using VMWare Converter) they should be turned off, then you can perform some performance tests (simulating a full load if possible).

EDIT:-
Wow did it really take me more than 9 minutes to write that?