Virtualizing a domain controller

The topic seems hot on the VMWare forums. One of the better posts I found in the Strategy & Planning section (forum post, this post started because of this post). That got me thinking about a DC that we put online just before Christmas and we found out that it wasn’t functioning properly.

We were able to fix the problem (the NTP Client on the ESX Server wasn’t running and because of that the DC wasn’t getting the right timing from our NTP server) and everything is running fine now. So in the end: if you put the DC in “Server mode” in stead of “Client mode” (which is the same as flipped the registry key mentioned in the first forum thread) and make sure your NTP Client is running on the ESX server than there is nothing to prevent you from not virtualizing your DC’s.

We are taking it slowly though. Our dedicated Exchange Global Catalog will remain a physical box for the time being and we will probably let the Primary Domain Controller be a physical box. (edit 04/01/07 - 17:17 — in this case I don’t mean the PDC as in the NT4 terminology, just to keep one main DC in physical form)

In my search for additional information I found some links that might be interesting:

• Microsoft KB article on virtual DC: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888794
  • This article also refers to VMWare, not only MS Virtual Server
• The VMWare Whitepaper on timekeeping
  • It’s something you will find pretty soon as it’s the first hit in Google if you search on “vmware virtual domain controller”

The migration continues

Now that the cluster is complete and everybody is back from the holidays we can continue with our migrations.

First on the list is to clear out one of our VMWare GSX Servers with 15 VM’s on it and start with the Oracle database servers on Linux. We have already done several Oracle machines that were on Windows and one on Red Hat Linux so we are not expecting any problems there.

This all starts next week so expect the regular updates to pick up then.

New hosts online, project cluster complete

And with this I wish you all a very happy New Year and good luck on all your virtualization projects. May it work out as well for you as it for us.

To continue the festive spirit we received some gifts from HP just before Christmas: the new DL585G2’s we ordered. And yesterday and today they were fully configured and have found a place in one of our racks next to their older brothers.

Truly impressive machines these G2’s and HP have made some great strides in the layout of the machines. Also for maintenance they are much more engineer-friendly as they don’t have to come all the way out of the rack to replace a CPU or to add memory. You can see something of it on the pictures below (click for larger view) or have a look at the Quickspecs @ HP.com. In effect the whole CPU / memory assembly slides out forward out of the machine after removing to large coolers. This way you can pull the server out half way in stead of with the G1 which needs to be out all the way to open the top lid so that also means less risk of stress on the rail kit.

                           

I know it was mentioned on the VMWare forums: you can not VMotion between a G1 and a G2 without CPU masking. We will work around this for a short time while we get another two 585G2’s and move the G1 servers to a VDI cluster that we are planning.