Running Terminal Server 2003 farm on Virtual Server 2005R2

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Don

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I was wondering if anyone could point me to information or give their
thoughts regarding "virtualizing" a Terminal Server 2003 farm onto a x64
Windows Virtual Server 2005R2 box.

Currently we have (7) 32-bit TS2k3 servers in WLB cluster with about 300
terminals. The servers are on separate physical boxes. I'd like to
consolidate those onto 1 or 2 64bit VS05R2 machines with lots of memory.

--
Thanks,
Don
 
Re: Running Terminal Server 2003 farm on Virtual Server 2005R2

Makes no sense at all. Why cripple your TS boxes by virtualizing them and
forcing them to be 32-bit and limited to ~3GB of RAM each? FAR better to
simply run one or two 64bit TS boxes with lots of RAM. Just make sure you've
got good I/O to support it. (A nice _wide_ array with a good controller and
plenty of cache, and good NICs.)

Terminal Services is a core workload for x64. With good I/O, you can run 300
on one 4-way box with sufficient RAM. I think I saw that an HP DL-585 (quad
opteron) did ~700 before it maxed out. But trying to run them in Virtual
Server is just wrong.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/xperts64
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel


"Don" <Don@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:BEC638A5-E5BA-43F2-9FEB-1F0F0A7294BB@microsoft.com...
>I was wondering if anyone could point me to information or give their
> thoughts regarding "virtualizing" a Terminal Server 2003 farm onto a x64
> Windows Virtual Server 2005R2 box.
>
> Currently we have (7) 32-bit TS2k3 servers in WLB cluster with about 300
> terminals. The servers are on separate physical boxes. I'd like to
> consolidate those onto 1 or 2 64bit VS05R2 machines with lots of memory.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Don
 
Re: Running Terminal Server 2003 farm on Virtual Server 2005R2

I agree with Charlie. My 7 year company hosting 32-bit W2K3 'physical' TS for
the user front-end and 32-bit 'virtual' W2K3 on 32-bit W2K3 VS2005 R2 for LAN
back-end services is just now moving to 64-bit blade servers.

The front-end TSs will run on physical 64-bit servers while as many
'virtual' back-end 64-bit AND 32-bit servers as possible will run on other
64-bit W2K3 physical servers.

Your idea to run a virtual 32-bit OS on a 64-bit physical serve does not
increase the value of your situation that much. Once the W2K8 Virtual
Services which allow 64-bit guest OS's with upto 20 GB RAM allocation, then
you can decide via testing if virtual 64-bit TS services are worth it.



"Charlie Russel - MVP" wrote:

> Makes no sense at all. Why cripple your TS boxes by virtualizing them and
> forcing them to be 32-bit and limited to ~3GB of RAM each? FAR better to
> simply run one or two 64bit TS boxes with lots of RAM. Just make sure you've
> got good I/O to support it. (A nice _wide_ array with a good controller and
> plenty of cache, and good NICs.)
>
> Terminal Services is a core workload for x64. With good I/O, you can run 300
> on one 4-way box with sufficient RAM. I think I saw that an HP DL-585 (quad
> opteron) did ~700 before it maxed out. But trying to run them in Virtual
> Server is just wrong.
>
> --
> Charlie.
> http://msmvps.com/xperts64
> http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/charlie.russel
>
>
> "Don" <Don@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:BEC638A5-E5BA-43F2-9FEB-1F0F0A7294BB@microsoft.com...
> >I was wondering if anyone could point me to information or give their
> > thoughts regarding "virtualizing" a Terminal Server 2003 farm onto a x64
> > Windows Virtual Server 2005R2 box.
> >
> > Currently we have (7) 32-bit TS2k3 servers in WLB cluster with about 300
> > terminals. The servers are on separate physical boxes. I'd like to
> > consolidate those onto 1 or 2 64bit VS05R2 machines with lots of memory.
> >
> > --
> > Thanks,
> > Don

>
 
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