Hello Everyone,
Nice to be here, see so many threads like mine. Spoke to the team at Vates already and they are eager to help.
I have a small network, around 100 users, 3 locations in 1 country, 1 location in another. 12 msft virtual machines, Exchange, Remote Desktops, Remote Apps, Reporting and Accounting Systems, Domain, File Server.
Currently testing xcp-ng with an older R730. It’s nice, but a lot to learn. Interface can be a little confusing at times but I’m sure it will all make sense.
I have been using Hyper-V with local storage and Veeam for nearly a decade, was using ESXi before that, made the move after Windows released Datacenter with unlimited virtual machine activation.
Looking at making a move to xcp-ng and about to pull the trigger on some hardware to start that project fresh and apart from my current servers. I am more interested in setting up servers and rolling new VMs vs. trying to convert… but will go step by step.
Want to run some of my purchases and concepts past all of you before I actually pull the trigger.
1x TrueNAS storage to buy:
Dell PowerEdge R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" 2U Rackmount Server
2x Intel Xeon Gold 6136 3.0GHz 12 Core 24.75MB 10.4GT/s 150W 1st Gen Processor
1024GB [16x 64GB] DDR4 PC4-2666V ECC RDIMM
Dell PERC HBA330 IT mode 12G SAS HBA Mini Mono Controller
24x Dell 1.92TB SAS SSD 2.5" 12Gbps RI Solid State Drives
Dell Dual Port 25GB SFP28 rNDC | Broadcom 57414
Dell Dual M.2 6G PCI-E BOSS-S1 Controller
2x Dell PE 120GB SATA SSD M.2 6Gbps RI Solid State Drives
2x Dell PE 1600W 100-240V 80+ Platinum AC Power Supplies
Still working out the details of my SLOG
2-Way Mirror 11 vdev + 2 spare
3x xcp-ng hosts:
Buying Master:
Dell PowerEdge R650 10-Bay 2.5" 1U Rackmount Server
2x Intel Xeon Gold 6330 2.0GHz 28 Core 42MB 11.2GT/s 205W 3rd Gen Processor
512GB [8x 64GB] DDR4 PC4-3200AA ECC RDIMM
Dell PERC HBA355i 12G SAS HBA Front Controller
2x Dell 800GB SAS SSD 2.5" 12Gbps WI Solid State Drives
Dell Dual Port 1GBASE-T LOM
Dell Dual Port 10GBASE-T Gen3.0 OCP 3.0 Mezzanine Adapter | Intel X710-T2L
Dell Dual Port 25GB SFP28 rNDC | Broadcom 57414
2x Dell PE 800W 100-240V 80+ Platinum AC Power Supplies
Have:
Dell PowerEdge R740xd 24-Bay 2.5" 2U Rackmount Server
2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6142 CPU @ 2.60GHz
512GB [8x 64GB] DDR4 PC4-3200AA ECC RDIMM
Dell Dual Port 25GB SFP28 rNDC | Broadcom 57414
Dell PowerEdge R730
2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2697 v3 @ 2.60GHz
512GB ECC RDIMM
Intel(R) 4P X550-t rNDC 10GB
Backups will still be directed at a TrueNAS server, with replication of backup to 2 other locations. Might continue to use Veeam with Exchange and SQL. Vates team says there are ways to use their backup… just wish their backup was application aware and or had direct Veeam support. Changing hyper-visor is one thing… changing from backups that you know work is another.
Am I setting myself up for success? Issues? I’m a little nervous about any kind of performance hit separating my storage from the hypervisor? Realize PowerChute isn’t going to help me, need to make sure I have Nut setup correctly, want help with that.
Am thinking about bringing Lawrence Systems in for the initial setup (backups, UPS, best practices) as they have helped me with a few projects and very happy with their team.