*Server Type*	*QTY*	*CPU*	*Total CPU*	*RAM*	*Total RAM*	*NIC*	*Total NIC*
*Mail Servers*	5	2	10	2	10	1	5
*Active directory*	4	2	8	2	8	1	4
*Windows File Server*	10	2	20	6	60	1	10
*Web Servers*	8	2	16	6	48	1	8
*Database Servers*	4	2	8	4	16	1	4
*Linux Servers*	6	2	12	2	12	1	6
*Total*	37		74		154		37
*Growth 20%*			18		31		8
*Total incl Growth*			92		185		45

Server Hardware Vendor Comparison

For vendor comparison I looked at the top two Server hardware vendors globally

Dell

Pros. Dell assembles and tests the hardware before shipping whereas HPE ship in parts and requires assembly and testing onsite which will be an extra workload on the Local team. (Schaller, 2018)

Dell has Improved Manageability and Serviceability by integrating with industry leading management consoles like VMware and Hyper-V. With Dell OpenManage Integrations with vCenter you can auto-detect a new server and automate the configuration of the new server and install the Operating system from the vCenter console. Dell offers excellent warranty and support and has many add on packages to support Enterprise business and offers user friendly services for support and hardware and warranty lookup. Dell ProSupport Plus with SupportAssist technology resolves problems 90% faster than systems covered by standard warranty. (EdisonGroupInc, 2018)

Dell enterprise support is noted as being one of the best

Cons. Lead times can be longer for custom built Servers and very minimal flexibility with pricing. (Schaller, 2018)

HPE

Pros. HPE provide predictive alerts for parts that may fail allowing you to replace before impacting on production environments. Ordering of hardware is done through HPE OneView management tools and use plug-ins to integrate with management tools for VMware vCenter and Hyper-V

Cons. HPE ship hardware in pieces and needs to be put together onsite and tested which takes additional resources for IT teams, also their supply chain for replacement parts is not always reliable and their website can be difficult to navigate for information and support (Schaller, 2018)

OneView integration with VMware and Hyper-V main activities for configuration and tuning requires the witching between two systems. Firmware updates require additional tools such as HPE System Update Manager (EdisonGroupInc, 2018)

Comparing Dell and HPE with respect to compatibility and support Dell is the more obvious choice considering that their integration with Hypervisor choice of VMware allows for seamless management compared to HPE. The fact that Dell ships hardware already configured and tested is also a big plus and will reduce the workload of the local IT team.

Hosts	3 plus 1 for redundancy
Model	Dell PowerEdge
No of CPU	2
Cores Per CPU	8 Cores
Network	2 x 10GE
Memory	2 x 32 DIMM
VMware ESXi	Vmware 6.5 build

Hypervisor Comparison

The following is an outline of the significant improvements made in VMware 6.5 and Hyper-V 2016 that make them better applications for enterprise development.

VMware 6.5

Pros. Significant improvements to the VMware 6.5 are as follows. They include The migration tool is built into the VCSA installer, appliance management improvements, VCSA Native high availability, vCenter Native Backup and Restore, performance enhancement of the vSphere Web Client, with inbuilt HTML 5 into the Windows and VCSA versions. Also, enhanced logging, proactive HA for Cisco, Dell, and HP so far, HA orchestrated restart, HA admission control improvements, HA support for vGPU, improvements done to FT, predictive DRS and additional options, Network-Aware DRS, vSphere Integrated Containers, Advanced Format and 512e Disk Support, Automated UNMAP, LUN Scalability, ISCSI Static Routing, and Dedicated Gateways for vmkernel ports. It has a content library, vSphere update manager. An AutoDeploy with GUI, VM encryptions, and SecureBoot options for VMS and ESXi (Shawn, 2017)

Cons. The significant challenges include compatibility issues with other VMware products and some hardware, the Log Insight 4.0 only works for a single host, and the cSphere C# is removed.

Hyper-V 2016

Pros. Some of the new additions to the Hyper-V 2016 include compatibility with connected standby, hot resource protection, hot add and remove for network adapters and memory. It updated the Hyper-V management improvements, integrates service delivery into the windows update, and introduced the Linux secure boot. It allocates more memory and processors for generation 2 virtual machines and hosts, allows discrete device assignment, and provides encryption support for the operating system disk in generation 1 virtual machines. Other features include nested virtualization, new networking features (RDMA, VMMQ, QoS), the introduction of production checkpoints, an upgrade on the Rolling Hyper-V cluster, updated shared virtual disks, new virtual machine backup, shielded virtual machine, virtual machine configuration updated introduction of windows containers, and Windows PowerShell Direct (Davies et al., 2016).

Cons. One of the significant downsides of the Hyper-V 2016 is that it does not include guest operating system licenses which can add up if one is looking to host several VMs.

Comparing the VMware and Hyper-V in relation to enterprise deployment, the former is much better regarding implementing complex virtualization features. These features function better with VMware as long as the licenses are paid for and running on supported hardware. While Hyper-V supports more hardware and is less complicated, it requires more steps to configure (Leoni, 2017). Hence, VMware would be much more manageable.

VCenter deployment

VCenter License	6.5
Target Server	ESXI 1	VCenter will be hosted on ESXI 1
Deployment Type	Embedded Platform Services controller	Connection to VCenter Server and the PSC is not over the network so less prone to outages Less licenses required NO Load balancing to distribute the load across PSC
Setup SSO	Create a new SSO Domain
Set application size	Tiny	Have less than 10 hosts and 100 VMs
Datastore	Datastore 6	120GB
Configure Database	Use an Embedded DB
Customer experience program	Enabled	Provide feedback for improvements

Physical Server

Pros. Would not be impacted in the case of Virtual Infrastructure outages

Cons. A dedicated physical server is required and backup and maintenance would also be necessary. May not be ideal when moving to a virtualised environment to still be using a Physical server for management. Snapshots cannot be used and no load balancing techniques.

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Virtual Server

Pros. No additional physical server are required and virtual resources such as RAM and CPU can be increased. Easy to backup and restore and can use Snapshots for testing and upgrade management. Can utilise DRS and HA Cluster for high availability.

Cons. Must have HA enabled otherwise would be issues in the case of outage of Virtual Infrastructure. Must also compete for resources with other VM’s

I have chosen to deploy the VServer on a Virtual Machine as recommended by VMware and to take advantage of HA which can protect the Management server from a hardware failure.

I will be taking advantage of VCenter Service Appliance in 6.5 to link vCenter servers together as they will be part of the same SSO Domain. This will allow any changes made on any vServer to be replicated to all VServer’s. The VCSA also has an embedded Database that is sufficient for the deployment of this size.(under 20 hosts Will required a disk size of Tiny – 120GB of storage on physical Server.

VMware VSphere Cluster settings

Name	Cluster_Site_1
Hosts	4
Datastore	Datastore 7
License	VMware 6.5
Lockdown Mode	Strict	Only want users to connect via VCenter Server
VMotion	Enabled	Used for planned outages and maintenance
DRS	Enabled
DRS	Fully Automated	Let DRS take care of managing resources. Less time consuming for IT Staff
Predictive DRS	Enabled	Take advantage of this new feature in 6.5 which will allow DRS to respond to forecast metrics provided by realise Server
Virtual Machine Automation	Enabled	May need individual VM’s to set their own Automation
Automation Level	3	Leaving level at default setting
VMware DPM	Enabled	Save power when VM’s are idle by moving VM’s to a few hosts and puts hosts in Standby until needed
DPM Threshold	3	Leaving at Default setting, any lower wound not have any real impact and higher would be too aggressive
HA	Enabled
Host monitoring	Enabled
Host Failure Response	Restarts VM’s	Will restart VM’s once failure has occurred
Automation Level	Automated	Will allow hosts with problems or that need maintenance to be placed into quarantine or maintenance mode
Remediation	Mixed mode	Want to balance the performance and availability – want to leave HA be used to make such decisions
Admission control	Default settings	Leaving as default and can be changed later if need more control over failover capacity
Heartbeat Datastore	Automatically select Datastores accessible from the host

VSphere DRS Cluster with FT enabled

VSphere HA Cluster

DPM – Distributed Resource Schedule

VM Specifications

Name	Mail Server	AD Server	File Server
Cluster	Cluster 1	Cluster 1	Cluster 1
CPU	2	2	2
RAM	2	2	6
Datastore	Datastore 2	Datastore 2	Datastore 1
OS	WS 2016	WS 2016	WS 2016
VNIC	1	1	1
VDisk Size	32GB	32GB	32GB
VDisk	Thin Provisioning	Thin Provisioning	Thin Provisioning
VDisk Option	Store with VM	Store with VM	Store with VM

Name	Database	Web Servers	Linux Servers
Cluster	Cluster	Cluster 1	Cluster 1
CPU	2	2	2
RAM	4	6	4
Datastore	Datastore 4	Datastore 5	Datastore 3
OS	WS 2016	WS 2016	Linux
VNIC	1	1	1
VDisk Size	32GB	32GB	32GB
VDisk	Thin Provisioning	Thin Provisioning	Thin Provisioning
VDisk Option	Store with VM	Store with VM	Store with VM

Virtual Machine Placement

To ensure that Mail Servers, AD Servers and File servers are spread across all hosts in the cluster to avoid downtime DRS Groups are created and associated with Affinity rules. The rules specify that a VM’ in the group will be spread across each host in the Cluster. The rule specifies that the VM’s should run on the host in the group meaning that if the cluster fails then VMotion will move the VM’s to another host. This will ensure the availability of business critical services.

Rule 1 Mail Server

Group Type	DRS Groups VM
Group Name	MS_Group_DRS_VM
Group Members	5 Mail Server VM’s
Rule Name	MS_Affinity_Rule
Enable rule	Enabled
Type	Virtual Machine to Host
VM Group	MS_Group_DRS_VM + MS_Group_Host
Rule	Should run on host in Group
Host Group	Host_Group_1(ESXI 1, ESXI 2, ESXI 3, ESXI 4)

Rule 2 Active Directory rule

Group Type	DRS Groups VM
Group Name	AD_Group_DRS_VM
Group Members	4 Active Directory VM’s
Rule Name	AD_Affinity_Rule
Enable rule	Enabled
Type	Virtual Machine to Host
VM Group	AD_Group_DRS_VM + AD_Group_Host
Rule	Should run on host in Group
Host Group	Host_Group_1(ESXI 1, ESXI 2, ESXI 3, ESXI 4)

Rule 3 File Server rule

Group Type	DRS Groups VM
Group Name	FS_Group_DRS_VM
Group Members	10 File Servers VM’s
Rule Name	FS_Affinity_Rule
Enable rule	Enabled
Type	Virtual Machine to Host
VM Group	FS_Group_DRS_VM + FS_Group_Host
Rule	Should run on host in Group
Host Group	Host_Group_1(ESXI 1, ESXI 2, ESXI 3, ESXI 4)

Network

Storage Requirements

Server Type	Total Disk Space GB	Local Disk Space	Calculation and assumptions
Mail Servers	400	160	I based my calculation on each user having 8GB of storage each
Active directory		128	Here I made an assumption of requirements
Windows File Server	250	320	I based my calculation on each user having 5GB of storage required
Web Servers		256	Here I made an assumption of requirements
Database Servers		128	Here I made an assumption of requirements
Linux Servers		192	Here I made an assumption of requirements
Total	650	1184
Capacity growth 20%	130	236
Total Storage requirements	780	1420
Total Storage required	2200 GB		Bottom of Form

VMFS DATASTORE

The VMFS DATASTORE’s will be created for each of the below VM groups to allow to manage the storage for each Server type as a whole

DATASTORE 1 – File Servers 690GB Total Storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 2 – Mail Servers – 680GB Total storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 3 – Linux – 250GB – Total Storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 4 – DB Servers – 160GB – Total Storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 5 – Web Servers – 310GB – Total storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 6 – Active Directory – 154GB – Total storage plus 20% for growth
DATASTORE 7 – Management

ISCSI Storage Protocol

ISCSI storage protocol is the choice for storage protocol

leverages the existing network and does not require additional Network design and equipment
Cost is lower
Does not require additional training for IT Staff unlike FC deployments which can be difficult to deploy
Supports VMFS, DRS and VMotion
Supports booting from SAN

ISCSI Storage design and configuration

Backup Solution

Veeam is chosen as the backup solution. Veeam was named as Gartner Peer Insights Customer’s choice for Data Center Backup and Recovery Software in 2018. VMware and Veeam have a very strong technical alliance. (Veeam, Veeam Hyper-Availability for VMware, 2018)

Veeam solutions guarantees business continuity, minimizes risk and fast-tracks innovation. Veeam Backup & Replication™ fully supports VMware VSphere 6.5 and offers an easy-to-use, reliable and agnostic solution for virtual, physical and cloud-based workloads which enable faster back-ups through smart logic that reduces network traffic and enables backup and restore according to your storage policy (Veeam, Veeam Hyper-Availability for VMware, 2018)

Veeam operates at the virtualization layer and uses an image based approach for VM back-up and no agent is required to be installed on the Guest OS.

High speed recovery with the ability to restore VM’s within minutes and recover individual files easily. Recover AD objects, Containers and OUs and user accounts and Restore to a point in time for Oracle and SQL DB’s

Ability to create backups from any storage with storage snapshots. 2 in 1 backup and replication allows you to maintain image based replicate onsite for HA or off site for disaster recovery and simplify failover and failback with minimum disruption to business with inbuilt WAN acceleration.

Veeam gives you the ability to work in a production like environment by allowing you to use Backups and replicas to test any new deployment prior to go live. (Veeam, Veeam, 2018)

Veeam Backup & Recovery Architecture

In order to provide an adequate backup strategy to restore operations in the event of any problem the 3-2-1 rule will be enforced.

3 – This will ensure that there are at least 3 copies of all the VMware environment and DATA. This will ensure that if one of the backup fails for any reason that there will be another backup recovery will still be possible
2 – Keep backup’s in different locations. One backup will be held onsite on local storage and second will be held offsite in a different media.
1 – Keep one backup in a different location. One backup will be onsite and the second will be held offsite. For offsite Veeam Cloud Connect will be utilized to get backups off site (Veeam, 2014)

(Veeam, 2014)

References (What’s new in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016, 2017)

EdisonGroupInc. (2018). Retrieved from www.TheEdison.com: www.TheEdison.com
Fenech, J. (2016). vCenter Server for Windows and vCSA compared. Retrieved from https://www.altaro.com/vmware/vcenter-server-windows-vcsa-compared/
Schaller, J. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.exittechnologies.com/blog/data-center/hpe-vs-dell-servers/
Shawn. (2017). VMware vSphere 6.5 – Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Retrieved from https://virtuallyinclined.com/2017/01/22/vmware-vsphere-6-5-cracked/
Veeam. (2014). Retrieved from https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-follow-the-3-2-1-backup-rule-with-veeam-backup-replication.html
Veeam. (2018). Retrieved from Veeam: https://www.veeam.com/vmware-software-defined-data-center-solution-brief_wp.pdf
Veeam. (2018). Veeam Hyper-Availability for VMware. Retrieved from https://www.veeam.com/vmware-vsphere-solutions.html
VMware. (2017). Performance Best Practices for. Retrieved from https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/performance/Perf_Best_Practices_vSphere65.pdf
VMware. (2017). vSphere Networking. Retrieved from vmware.com: https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-65-networking-guide.pdf
VMware. (2018). Veeam Backup & Replication. Retrieved from https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/52533