The New Dogger
My server virtualisation consists of a Mac mini running Parallels. It has 2GB of RAM and, needless to say, it's not up to much. It functions well enough, as it tends to just run Domino servers inside Windows 2003 VMs, but it's at near capacity with 2 of them running and the measly 150GB HDD is also reaching its limit. I chose the Mini as it was small, but this comes at a price - lack of expansion options.
Now that I find myself needing new servers to install and test SharePoint 2010 I need a 64bit architecture and something with a bit more umfff, so yesterday I ordered a Lenovo ThinkServer TS200v. Say hello to the new Dogger!
Unlike its predecessor and namesake -- a noisy Dell 1U rack server, which lived in the cellar -- this is as quiet as a mouse (you wouldn't know it was on if it weren't for the LEDs) and will live in the office.
It will run Windows 2008 R2 (x64) and Hyper-V, so I can install and run many more VMs than on the Mac mini, which I'll decommission at some point. It came with a 500GB HDD, which should do for now. It came with 2GB of RAM, but I'm expecting a delivery of 6 more some time soon.
Right, where's that SharePoint DVD gone...
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Nice one. I tend to install vmware ESX 4.0 - the free version - and use that for virtualisation. Mind you, the 2008 server is supposed to be good at this - we shall see.
I usually chuck on logmein.com on them too, so i can access em remotely..
--* Bill
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Hi Dogger! Welcome to the family.
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I am looking forward to seeing how you find Sharepoint. Especially Sharepoint development. I look forward to some creative thinking and some inspirations. I tranisitioned from Notes to Sharepoint a couple of years ago. It wasn't the easiest task I have ever undertaken.
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With all the VM's that you're planning on having, I hope you've thought about preventing data loss? At a minimum getting another drive and mirroring the two?
Also, you may want to look at using a baremetal VM system like ESXi (which is free) and installing your VMs in to it (you'll of course need to convert your VMs to the VMWare format - but there's a nice converter utility they provide). Once the ESXi environment is setup, you don't even need a monitor to it. Instead you could use the multiple monitor setup (or whatever you like) with your laptop of choice and using their remote management GUI you can add new VMs, modify existing, and see/manage their screens or setup RDP in them -- in which case you can then setup a development environment VM and then don't need a beefy laptop on which you can just RDP in to the development environment.
I've setup such an environment using a i7 quad core wth 24GB ram and 2 1.5TB drives mirrored. I have 15 VMs in there of different environments all running at the same time and 3 development VM's running XP (I find it faster than Windows 7) and then RDP via a laptop to them.
I've even setup my router to support OpenVPN and VPN in to this environment when I'm away to do all the work.
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On a side note, I am impressed at you running multiple instances of Domino Server. Have you been able to administer all the functionalities offered by lotus domino server from the virtualization box on mac? (in the sense, expose the particular app server/port w/o exposing other apps running on the system?). I was thinking of dual-booting my mac mini, and then install lotus domino server. And I am having a hard time doing that. Please let me know what would be optimal?
Thanks!
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