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I have some questions that I know you guys will be able to answer. I am a new IT guy for a manufacturing plant. I am new to being an IT manager having only a background in Staples Easytech and Hardware support for an international car dealership software design company.

The layout here is that we have 6 servers: File server, and DC ERP Server Dell Appasure server Old DC Server Exchange 2010 Server Terminal Server

I am really wanting to consolidate things down and get some virtualization in here but I am still very new in it. I messed around some with VMware in my Server class in college.

I have a few concerns however and it mostly has to do with the file server:

1.I know that Hyper-v Would be installed on the primary drive on the server and would be running with Windows server installed on it. What would be a good method to do a backup of the file server that is running virtualization?

2.Should I keep the Dell Appasure?

3.Is it wise to have more than 1 VM's running on the file server?

Shane Madden
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Individual101
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    I don't understand the question. Are you asking if you should virtualize your servers? Generally speaking, the answer is yes. Are you asking if you should install the Hyper-V role on your file server? Generally speaking, the answer is no. I really don't understand this part of your question: `What would be a good method to do a backup of the file server that is running virtualization?` - Can you clarify that? IMO, I see fewer and fewer reasons to run workloads on dedicated physical servers these days, except for special cases, and I don't see one in this question. Virtualize? Yes. – joeqwerty Dec 02 '14 at 21:44
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    BTW if this is a new install, please do not use Hyper-V 2008r2. Hyper-V 2012 R2 is free, there basically no good reason to start with a brand new Hyper-V 2008r2 today. – Zoredache Dec 02 '14 at 23:54
  • To clarify I know I should virtualize the servers. It needs done and is long over do. Lets fast forward a bit and say I have a new server and it is running server 2012. I enable the hyper V. Im assuming that the new server would only need a C Partition and I would be creating the partitions on the virtual server. In the case of my file server being on that VM could I replicate the VM's for backup and it would also backup all of the contents of the file server being all the saved data? – Individual101 Dec 05 '14 at 13:30
  • Voting to close- this is a question that is not professional as a professional would know and have an idea about the basics of the operating systems he is using. – TomTom Dec 10 '14 at 18:05

2 Answers2

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What would be a good method to do a backup of the file server that is running virtualization?

Assuming that you actually mean your file server is a virtual machine, you have two options.

  1. Treat the FS VM at if it was physical, and back the contents of the VM using the standard backup tools. Windows Backup, or your favorite 3rd party software.
  2. Backup the VM as a entire VM. There are many products that do this. Windows Server Backup, Veeam, Appasure, Shadowprotect and so on.

Both certainly have merit in different situations. If you backup your VM, then restoring the VM is very easy if the Virtualized system happens to fail in some way.

Restoring individual files within the VM can be very easy with some third party software.

3.Is it wise to have more than 1 VM's running on the file server?

The hyperivosr role should be the only thing running on a server. A system acting as a hypervisor really shouldn't be doing anything else. If you want to run the file server as a guest VM, that may be perfectly fine depending on your workload and hardware.

Zoredache
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  • Which method is better for Disaster Recovery? My biggest worry is that I get these virtual machines up and running and then my server dies completely and I need to migrate stuff over to a backup server. Is this easily do-able with something like Appasure or, in the event I have server 2012, would replication be a good idea? On a side note I am trying to dip into Hyper V on a test server and during the VM setup I need to install the OS for the VM should I use the server disc that came with the server or am I missing something? – Individual101 Dec 05 '14 at 13:36
  • Not having "A" server but reading the docuementation and setting thigns up with replication AND backups so that you have something back up in a short time if "the server dies". – TomTom Dec 10 '14 at 18:06
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1.I know that Hyper-v Would be installed on the primary drive on the server and would be running with Windows server installed on it. What would be a good method to do a backup of the file server that is running virtualization?

You really don't want to be running anything else on the physical server but Hyper-V. You would instead be creating a virtual machine on your hyper-v server and making that your new file-server. Regarding backups, in an ideal world you would be backing up your files and the whole virtual machine. Due to budgetary and space restrictions we just back up on the VM level with Veeam which offers file level restoration.

2.Should I keep the Dell Appasure?

If you are happy with Appassure, it will work fine in a Hyper-V environment. Personally, I'm partial Veeam. It's worked really well for us and it makes it really easy to restore both the whole VM and individual files. It also supports item level SharePoint restoration which was SUPER important to us (might not be for you).

3.Is it wise to have more than 1 VM's running on the file server?

Again, only Hyper-V should be running on your host server, but assuming you mean how many VMS can you run on it- This really depends on the specs of your server, but if your server can't support multiple VMS you really gain nothing from virtualization. In most cases, if you're not doing anything super disk intensive (SQL Applications, Exchange, etc) your cap will be based on RAM and diskspace.

Lets fast forward a bit and say I have a new server and it is running server 2012. I enable the hyper V. Im assuming that the new server would only need a C Partition and I would be creating the partitions on the virtual server.

You'll install windows and the hyper-v role on one volume (C), and have another volume (E) to hold all of your VMs. Each VM will have it's own Virtual HardDrive(s) that will live in a folder on the VM volume (E).

pxed
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  • Ok so I downloaded Hyper-V on my 2008R2 server. I don't want to reformat it just yet with server 2012 even though it is a spare server we had laying around (it was a backup AD for my north site but we don't use it and have no maintenance on it). Lets say I go with Replica to limit my downtime. I have users that remote desktop into our ERP server to do work. Do I have to have different computer names such as VM1 and VM2? If VM1 goes down and VM2 kicks on what will happen when someone logs in to do work and is trying to connect to the RDP to VM1 because it is a present connection on all PCs – Individual101 Dec 16 '14 at 13:56
  • What do you mean by 'Replica' are you trying to configure high-availablilty/failover? You can't have two macihnes (virtual or not) with the same name on the same domain. – pxed Dec 17 '14 at 16:34
  • Nevermind I totally just answered my own question there. The replicated VM's have their own names. I am assuming the computer names get transferred when the primary VM machine goes down the secondary machine kicks those VM's back on – Individual101 Dec 17 '14 at 18:43