Hi,

Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This machine has
been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last couple of years
due to an under specked server and software corruption issues.

Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been working
on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open source software. I
have pretty much decided against this as I am not confident
maintaining/repairing the system.

I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am interested
in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would like to run SBS 2003
as a VMware image on one of the servers and have the second server available
for high availability.

I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the new
servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I need to avoid
imaging due to existing software issues?



Thanks in advance,

Kris

While there is no reason to expect that SAS 2003 would not work as a VM,
it is specifically not supported my MS, so you go there at your own risk.

If I wanted to end up with a clean machine with the same domain name and
users and server name and unc paths and not have to rebuild the AD and touch
every desktop I would look at www.sbsmigration.com.

You may need to review the licensing agreement for your SBS. If it is OEM,
you are quite restricted in the rules for installing on new hardware.

-
Larry
Please post the resolution to your
issue so others may benefit
-
Get Your SBS Health Check at
www.sbsbpa.com

> Hi,
>
> Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This
> machine has been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last
> couple of years due to an under specked server and software corruption
> issues.
>
> Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been
> working on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open
> source software. I have pretty much decided against this as I am not
> confident maintaining/repairing the system.
>
> I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am
> interested in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would
> like to run SBS 2003 as a VMware image on one of the servers and have
> the second server available for high availability.
>
> I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the new
> servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I need
> to avoid imaging due to existing software issues?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kris
>

Just to add to what Larry said about SBS 2003 being not supported, but
working. Many of us _have_ run SBS 2003 in a virtual machine. Without
significant issues. You need to consider that you won't have access to USB
inside the VM, unless you use a third-party solution such as FabulaTech USB
over Ethernet. And you'll need to plan your I/O to ensure that you can
handle the normal for SBS level of disk and network I/O without overloading
the I/O subsystem.

Also, wrt www.sbsmigration.com -- highly recommended for this.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Kris" <Kris@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:9BBD8846-6770-4EB9-8F54-B290947DB256@newsgroup

> Hi,
>
> Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This machine
> has
> been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last couple of years
> due to an under specked server and software corruption issues.
>
> Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been
> working
> on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open source software.
> I
> have pretty much decided against this as I am not confident
> maintaining/repairing the system.
>
> I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am
> interested
> in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would like to run SBS
> 2003
> as a VMware image on one of the servers and have the second server
> available
> for high availability.
>
> I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the new
> servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I need to
> avoid
> imaging due to existing software issues?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kris

....and if used, fax modem support considerations.



Charlie Russel - MVP wrote:

> Just to add to what Larry said about SBS 2003 being not supported, but
> working. Many of us _have_ run SBS 2003 in a virtual machine. Without
> significant issues. You need to consider that you won't have access
> to USB inside the VM, unless you use a third-party solution such as
> FabulaTech USB over Ethernet. And you'll need to plan your I/O to
> ensure that you can handle the normal for SBS level of disk and
> network I/O without overloading the I/O subsystem.
>
> Also, wrt www.sbsmigration.com -- highly recommended for this.
>
>
> "Kris" <Kris@newsgroup> wrote in message
> news:9BBD8846-6770-4EB9-8F54-B290947DB256@newsgroup

>> Hi,
>>
>> Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This
>> machine has
>> been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last couple of
>> years due to an under specked server and software corruption issues.
>>
>> Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been
>> working
>> on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open source
>> software. I
>> have pretty much decided against this as I am not confident
>> maintaining/repairing the system.
>>
>> I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am
>> interested
>> in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would like to run
>> SBS 2003
>> as a VMware image on one of the servers and have the second server
>> available
>> for high availability.
>>
>> I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the
>> new servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I
>> need to avoid
>> imaging due to existing software issues?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Kris

--
/kj

I'm gonna take a different tack here and say that although budgets are tight
across the board in this economy, don't cut too many corners. It sounds
like you have *some* sort of budget. Use it. Dell hasn't made 2900's in a
few years (they've been on 2950-II and 2950-III's for at least 2) so even if
they are well spec'd, you are talking about maintenance headaches. Older
machines just start to fail because of heat and age. It happens, and it
sounds like one of your biggest complaints with your existing setup and
concerns with doing open-source setup is maintenance and repairs.

So in my opinion, given the choice between two 2900's and trying to use one
for cold-backup and one *good* (aka brand-new) Dell with dual
power-supplies, a modern RAID card, and dual processors, you'll have less
maintenance issues with the new server. With the 3-yr warranty, even if a
part does fail, you get overnight expedited shipping (and in larger cities
that can actually mean same day) so you'll still be back up about as fast as
it takes to do a FULL bare-metal restore on a spare cold server.

And the cost for an entry-level Dell these days is tight-budget friendly.
So, again, don't cut corners. Buy one good server and you'll be happier.

-Cliff


"Kris" <Kris@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:9BBD8846-6770-4EB9-8F54-B290947DB256@newsgroup

> Hi,
>
> Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This machine
> has
> been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last couple of years
> due to an under specked server and software corruption issues.
>
> Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been
> working
> on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open source software.
> I
> have pretty much decided against this as I am not confident
> maintaining/repairing the system.
>
> I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am
> interested
> in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would like to run SBS
> 2003
> as a VMware image on one of the servers and have the second server
> available
> for high availability.
>
> I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the new
> servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I need to
> avoid
> imaging due to existing software issues?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kris

This is not a supported option but why not try Hyper-V server (free) and
Disk2VHD (free) You could quite quickly try this as an experiment to learn
what the pitfalls of going virtual will be.

http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-ser...s/default.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../ee656415.aspx

--
Kerry Brown
MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience: Systems Administration
http://www.vistahelp.ca/phpBB2/


"Kris" <Kris@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:9BBD8846-6770-4EB9-8F54-B290947DB256@newsgroup

> Hi,
>
> Currently we have a Dell poweredge 2600 running SBS 2003. This machine
> has
> been fairly problematic and high maintenance over the last couple of years
> due to an under specked server and software corruption issues.
>
> Our budgets are extremely tight, over the past 6 months I have been
> working
> on replacing the SBS server with two servers running open source software.
> I
> have pretty much decided against this as I am not confident
> maintaining/repairing the system.
>
> I have two good spec Dell Poweredge 2900's at my disposal. I am
> interested
> in implementing VMware, especially ESXI server. I would like to run SBS
> 2003
> as a VMware image on one of the servers and have the second server
> available
> for high availability.
>
> I would like to migrate the existing SBS 2003 server to one of the new
> servers. Please advise on migration possibilities, obviously I need to
> avoid
> imaging due to existing software issues?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Kris

Kerry Brown wrote:

> This is not a supported option but why not try Hyper-V server (free) and
> Disk2VHD (free) You could quite quickly try this as an experiment to
> learn what the pitfalls of going virtual will be.
>
> http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-ser...s/default.aspx
>
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../ee656415.aspx
>

Hyper-V will require a windows license as it runs on windows. It is
therefore not free and has more overhead.

ESXi on the other hand is free.

> So in my opinion, given the choice between two 2900's and trying to use
> one for cold-backup and one *good* (aka brand-new) Dell with dual
> power-supplies, a modern RAID card, and dual processors, you'll have
> less maintenance issues with the new server. With the 3-yr warranty,
> even if a part does fail, you get overnight expedited shipping (and in
> larger cities that can actually mean same day) so you'll still be back
> up about as fast as it takes to do a FULL bare-metal restore on a spare
> cold server.
>
> And the cost for an entry-level Dell these days is tight-budget
> friendly. So, again, don't cut corners. Buy one good server and you'll
> be happier.

The whole idea behind things like ESXi is not having to do bare metal
restores. One can just move the disk images and boot them. If they're on
iSCSI or NFS or some form of central storage, assuming the storage
doesn't go down, it's just a matter of registering the VM on another
host. This takes about 10 seconds... assuming you have another ESXi host
already running and connected to the storage.

Windows Hyper-V Server is a free download from MS.

It does not install on top of windows, it is a true hypervisor. ie.
operation is very similar to ESXi.

At the moment the key point for most is the official support question is
respect of MS. eg. SBS2008 under Hyper-V is a fully supported scenario.

"Freaky" <wontsay@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:uE$uLRqYKHA.1592@newsgroup

> Kerry Brown wrote:

>> This is not a supported option but why not try Hyper-V server (free) and
>> Disk2VHD (free) You could quite quickly try this as an experiment to
>> learn what the pitfalls of going virtual will be.
>>
>> http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-ser...s/default.aspx
>>
>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../ee656415.aspx
>>

>
> Hyper-V will require a windows license as it runs on windows. It is
> therefore not free and has more overhead.
>
> ESXi on the other hand is free.

There are many reasons to virtualize, so "the whole idea" ...I take issue
with.

With that said, yes there is that benefit *IF* you've invested in a good
SAN. iSCSI or fibre-channel is not cheap...not if you want a good SAN that
isn't as failure-prone as a server. After all, an inexpensive home-brew
iSCSI box with a single controller card or single power supply can lose a
component just as easily as a server. So to *realize* that benefit requires
purchasing expensive SAN equipment with fail-over across the entire
architecture. That is EMC or Sun, and they *start* in the $10k range.
Since the OP speaks of a shoe-string budget, I can safely assume that this
isn't the case.

On a related comment, running a VM off a network file-system would be such a
significant I/O hog that you'd lose any performance you hope to have on a
reasonably spec'd server. So NFS, CIFS, DFS, are out. You need
network/packet-level I/O to run a VM over the wire with any efficiency.

-Cliff


"Freaky" <wontsay@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:uXYysSqYKHA.1592@newsgroup

>

>> So in my opinion, given the choice between two 2900's and trying to use
>> one for cold-backup and one *good* (aka brand-new) Dell with dual
>> power-supplies, a modern RAID card, and dual processors, you'll have
>> less maintenance issues with the new server. With the 3-yr warranty,
>> even if a part does fail, you get overnight expedited shipping (and in
>> larger cities that can actually mean same day) so you'll still be back
>> up about as fast as it takes to do a FULL bare-metal restore on a spare
>> cold server.
>>
>> And the cost for an entry-level Dell these days is tight-budget
>> friendly. So, again, don't cut corners. Buy one good server and you'll
>> be happier.

>
> The whole idea behind things like ESXi is not having to do bare metal
> restores. One can just move the disk images and boot them. If they're on
> iSCSI or NFS or some form of central storage, assuming the storage
> doesn't go down, it's just a matter of registering the VM on another
> host. This takes about 10 seconds... assuming you have another ESXi host
> already running and connected to the storage.