Re: Virtual Server and SBS

Leythos wrote:
In article <OZsKUal7GHA.4500@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys- tems.c*a*m says...
Leythos wrote:
In article <82978B45-9B21-4533-B534-B62482E81140@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
charlie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Simply not true in a test environment. I ran a LOT of SBS in
virtual machines during the writing of my R2 book, and I never
gave the OS more than 1 GB. I frankly didn't need to in order to
have acceptible performance. I'm not suggesting you should run a
25 user production environment on 1GB, but a test environment?
Perfectly adequate.

Ok, in a limited use/test environment, then the minimum specs is
acceptable. I have to ask, other than walking through screens,
what's the point of installing it to TEST if you're not going to
really test it?

I've been doing systems testing for decades, and you can not
properly test SBS and experience the real (read that as production
level) performance or see how it uses RAM or how exchange works
with a proper amount of RAM over a two week span, or how SQL uses
RAM over a two week period or how AV / Exchange aware software
performs, etc.. if you don't have a proper amount of RAM.

Maybe I take exception to the word "Testing Environment" when
"playing around with for fun" should have been used instead.

I agree, if you are going to just walk through the wizards/screens
and do documentation work/snapshots, then 1GB is plenty.

A test could be installing a new program for compatibility testing,
testing Windows updates, testing if a specific network setup will
talk to other computers, testing the results of group policies.
There are many things that you may want to test but don't need to
know how it acts under a load. That comes much farther along in the
testing process. Virtual machines are excellent for proof of concept
type testing. Once you get it working in a virtual environment you
can expand the test. I use a very minimal test machine for stuff
like this. I have an old 1.6 GHz P4 with 2 GB RAM, Server 2003 and
Virtual Server 2005. It is more than adequate for scenario or
concept testing.

I understand the ideal behind the VM and testing, but, I guess I'm a
little too old when it comes to the terms and technology :)

While I see the need for a VM, I have anywhere from 4 to 6 machines to
run tests with, one of them is a Dual Xeon system with 8GB RAM (I take
RAM in/out as needed) for testing what I would want to run for clients
networks - we build their entire solution before installing anything
at clients.

It's kind of like Dual Booting, I never do that, I always remove the
current drive and install a new drive to use for the new OS for
testing. I have three different drives for my laptop just for that
(SBS - 2GB, XP, and Fedora Core 5)....

I also understand that we're in a group with a lot of new users,
people that won't see more than 5 nodes attached for the entire
experience, but for some strange reason, all of those flash-backs to
instructors saying "Don't do this in production, we're only going to
do this in class..." just brings bad feelings.

I'll drop it now, but I still would suggest that 2GB be a starting
point for SBS Standard is any significant testing is going to be done.

If you've got that kind of equipment to test with then great. I agree it's a
better method. Most of the SBS space (users and resellers) probably don't
have that kind of equipment available for testing.

--
Kerry
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


.

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