Let’s say you wanted to run two file servers and a Microsoft SQL Server database server on a single Hyper-V host in your datacenter. You’ve determined that the file servers will each require 2 virtual processors and 4 GB of RAM to perform as intended, while the database server will require 4 virtual processors and 12 GB of RAM for optimal performance. The total processor and memory requirements of your virtual machines will therefore be:
(2 x 2) + 4 = 8 virtual processors
(2 x 4) + 12 = 20 GB RAM
By including the minimum processor and memory requirements of the underlying host operating system plus room for growth, you might decide that a rack-mounted system with dual Intel Xeon E5-2430 processors and 24 GB of RAM can meet your needs. The Xeon E5-2430 is a 6-core processor, so two of them gives you 12 cores, which easily meets the requirements of 8 dedicated virtual processors needed by the virtual machines. And the 24 GB of RAM provides several GBs of RAM overhead on the host in case extra memory needs to be assigned to the database server workload
The above tip was excerpted from my book Training Guide: Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012 (Microsoft Press, 2012):
http://www.wservernews.com/go/1382687866003
The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
Mitch Tulloch is an eleven-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud computing technologies. Mitch is also Senior Editor of WServerNews. For more information about him see http://www.mtit.com.
