When Should I use Server 2008 V Machine?

[SergioRD]

I'm going from Server 2003 to Server 2008.

We currenly have 2 Windows 2003 servers, one acts as the Domain Controller, the other as a Data Server.

We have 2 GB of RAM on each.

We have about 25 users.

On the Domain Controller we are also running an older version of GoldMine.

On the Data server we are running Dac Easy by Sage.


We are upgrading the GoldMine software, and it will not run on Server 2003, so we are getting a Server 2008 with about 24 GB of RAM. We will be installing GoldMine on this new Server.

Should I configure Server 2008 V Machine on this computer, or just load GoldMine and SQL on it (GoldMine uses and come with SQL)?

Should I load Dac Easy on it as well? or is that the time to configure Server 2008 V Machine on this computer?

Thank You in advance.


When should one justify configuring Server 2008 V Machine?

 

[twicki]

Looking at your structure, it appears you only have a small setup and still should stay in the physical environment, virtualisation is when you have multiple servers you are wanting to run for example if you were going to install a second domain controller, file server, print server etc then it would be worth virtualising your network as the server sounds like it would be suitable. Your only concern is resiliance as you only have the one box and in most virtual environments you need at least 2 so that you have fail over.

For example we run 2 HP DL380G7 servers with 24Gb of ram in each and 2 six core processors then virtualise with VMware rather than windows but 7 servers.

 

[ShackDaddy]

If you eventually want Dac Easy to run on the new server and you don't want Dac Easy and GoldMine to run in the same OS, then what you want to do is install Win2008, set up two virtual machines, and run GoldMine in one and DacEasy in the other. If you don't mind running both apps on the same server, then I would avoid virtualization and just install everything on the physical server. The costs are higher to virtualize, and if there's no reason why the two apps shouldn't play nice together, I'd just go for the simpler physical-only solution.

Dave Shackelford
ThirdTier.net
TrainSignal.com