Am I mad? Virtualize the lot!

Very decent chance I'm looking for a camel for the price of a donkey, and so would be fine with people telling me so immediately if the case! I've already scratched the surface of the topic in the servers & systems forum.

I am looking to build at least three machines, and potentially a NAS, however....

I only want to build/buy one physical machine (p), and ideally spend less than £650 doing so!

What I'd like to be able to get from the server (p)

1. RDP
   most if not all access will be through RDP / VNC / logging in via the network (and internet through port forwarding). Ideally I can leave this headless and only connect to the tv screen for initial setup and once in a blue moon for trouble shooting.
2. Lowish power
   If possible I'd rather not be spending 3 figures a month running it!
3. Quiet
   Will be running away from the TV etc, but would not like something whirring like a helicopter when my missus logs in externally to do some gfx work.

Required Machines (v) within my machine (p)

1. Low weight Lubunutu setup for Python development, simple low requirements (easily virtualised)
2. AutoCad / Drawing machine... This is where it gets complicated and my knowledge plummets to 0. Initial reading is that this will be absolutely pants as a virtual machine unless I passthrough a physical GFX card to it. Licencing etc potentially a nightmare! (probably a win machine, though potential to convince the missus of benefits of running draftsight in linux if it is far cheaper!)
3. File Server - Not even sure that this necessarily needs to be a standalone virtual machine, though I like the idea of it. No problem using a simple Ubuntu Server VM for this and just running cifs/samba or something similar. Could also run FreeNas or similar. Serving the other VMs on the server, and also some kodi htpcs on the physical network.
4. Windows VM for .Net development.
5. VMs for dicking about with Linux distros / containers and other stuff.

Currently my plan is to grab one of these standard enough servers*
http://www.serversplus.com/servers/tower_servers/fujitsu_tower_servers/svfuj-t1311sx190

• increasing the RAM to 32GB (with same RAM as already part)
• adding a GFX card (to be chosen - I haven't a clue!)
• adding a Samsung 850 EVO (already own) as the VM hard drives
• adding a couple of 1TB drives (already have) for storage (potential to add some more at a later date)
• installing a hypervisor to run it all from (probably ESXi but still to be chosen! - probably booting from thumbdrive so as not to waste a SATA)

Simple questions.

1. Am I mental to considering isolating each element of the home needs to it's own VM? Something 'feels' right to me about doing this, but I could be miles off!
2. Is the passthrough to the AutoCad VM going to work? Be honest about the chances!
3. Is AutoCad going to be ****e even with the passthrough?
4. * Lenovo TS140, Fujitsu TX1310, Dell Poweredge T20 etc - Are these all basically the exact same?
5. Is there a better way to spend this money to get a setup that matches the requirements? Wouldn't mind doing some building to learn a bit more hardware side stuff!

So who can offer this free consultancy service for me that I'm clearly angling for? :pac:

and tl;dr

budget ~ £650/€1,000
main purpose ~ file serving, development server, autocad server, plex server
copy of windows ~ not yet (not part of budget)
parts ~ EVO SSD, Storage drives (2.5 and 3.5)
monitor ~ no
peripherals ~ no
overclocking ~ hopefully not
payment ~ any
purchasing ~ within next 8/10 weeks
help building ~ am uk based so I'll be on my own if building!

Johnboy1951

How many VMs do you envisage running concurrently?

How many cores would each guest OS require to run adequately considering the workload they would have to do?

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

How many VMs do you envisage running concurrently?

How many cores would each guest OS require to run adequately considering the workload they would have to do?

realistically, fileserver would be always on (but with low footprint / requirements).

Development servers .Net / Python would probably be mutually exclusive (never on at same time).

AutoCad Server an absolutely massive unknown.

Heaviest use would be ~ FileServer & .Net Development & AutoCad VMs all being run concurrently.

justsomebloke

ye, I would be steering well clear of trying to put autocad on it. Even if you get the graphics card to passthrough, autocad can still be very processor intensive which would basically kill all the other virtual machines as well as making it's own virtual server be dog slow

justsomebloke

justsomebloke wrote: »

ye, I would be steering well clear of trying to put autocad on it. Even if you get the graphics card to passthrough, autocad can still be very processor intensive which would basically kill all the other virtual machines as well as making it's own virtual server be dog slow

Was very worried that this would be the case.

I have no knowledge whatsoever of the bottlenecks / requirements / quirks of AutoCads (and alternatives), and unfortunately neither does the user (artist and not a techie!) so it's tough to figure out what is/isn't' acceptable in terms of performance etc.

I personally am not even certain that AutoCad is the correct software for her to be using, and could be massive massive overkill.

Lu Tze

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Was very worried that this would be the case.

I have no knowledge whatsoever of the bottlenecks / requirements / quirks of AutoCads (and alternatives), and unfortunately neither does the user (artist and not a techie!) so it's tough to figure out what is/isn't' acceptable in terms of performance etc.

I personally am not even certain that AutoCad is the correct software for her to be using, and could be massive massive overkill.

What is she going to be using cad for?

Lu Tze

Lu Tze wrote: »

What is she going to be using cad for?

This certainly is the right question to ask, unfortunately I'm having trouble getting a clear answer myself!

She works in retail design - shop layouts, fixtures and fittings etc.

On a day-to-day basis, designing and working with planograms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram. This is a small part of the point of building the system.

The job she is working towards uses AutoCAD and as such she is eager to get more familiar with it in her own time. The 'what' they use it for is almost totally a mystery to me at this stage.

I can't imagine (though have no real basis for this other than the current -> prospective job path) that she requires more than a bog standard system for this, but as before she is not a techie and we're having some language issues trying to ascertain what exactly I'm trying to build for her! Was hoping to just Overkill it (within budget) and be safe that there is plenty of overhead, but it sounds like I'm going to have to figure out a way to define her needs far better before considering this now.

Lu Tze

[Deleted User] wrote: »

This certainly is the right question to ask, unfortunately I'm having trouble getting a clear answer myself!

She works in retail design - shop layouts, fixtures and fittings etc.

On a day-to-day basis, designing and working with planograms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planogram. This is a small part of the point of building the system.

The job she is working towards uses AutoCAD and as such she is eager to get more familiar with it in her own time. The 'what' they use it for is almost totally a mystery to me at this stage.

I can't imagine (though have no real basis for this other than the current -> prospective job path) that she requires more than a bog standard system for this, but as before she is not a techie and we're having some language issues trying to ascertain what exactly I'm trying to build for her! Was hoping to just Overkill it (within budget) and be safe that there is plenty of overhead, but it sounds like I'm going to have to figure out a way to define her needs far better before considering this now.

Looks like 2d cad only. Which under normal uses isn't all that demanding, but would imagine there will be lots of textures and photos embedded for the planogram?

Would recommend an minimum of 8Gbs of ram if that's the case. It's really only with 3d and rendering that autocad becomes very heavy on the processor. The graphics card shouldn't be of much benefit for 2d either. I don't think it brings that much to the table

Xenoronin

I would recommend dropping the autocad requirement. Everything else has a definite spec attached to it and you can build the server relatively cheaply. I'd advise a second physical machine for autocad just so it doesn't mess with everything else. It also allows you more freedom to upgrade should she move into 3D applications and rendering down the road. It will end up being more expensive probably but will probably save a lot of heartache down the road.

Hmmm, I'll conservatively park the cad machine (not drop it!) until I can get a better handle on the needs. Reducing hardware is a pretty big part of the plan here. I've just moved to a new place and there's significantly less space for 'stuff'! Realistically, the only physical change from not adding this machine to the mix is not requiring the GFX card from the outset...

Anything else I've got above of concern? I'm not doing something stupid by virtualising a file server over just getting a dedicated NAS am I? Anything I'm not including that I need to consider.

seamus

File servers aren't particularly intensive from a CPU or RAM persepctive, so no problem running it as a VM. The only minor thing is that because it's a NAS as far as the other boxes are concerned, you have a small amount of overhead (like tiny), in the data effectively looping back within the machine through the virtual switch.

Plan your backup/recovery strategy on the file server properly. Your data storage virtual disks should at least be separated from the system disk. At least in a hardware NAS if your OS goes tits up, you can attach the disk to another machine to recover your data. If a virtual disk becomes corrupt, the data may be irretrievable.

You are also functionally limited to Ethernet speeds between the file server and the other boxes, even though the discs live in the same hardware. That said, upgrading the virtual NICs to 10Gbps and bonding multiple interfaces is free (and easy) on a VM, and is neither free nor easy on a hardware network.

Johnboy1951

While I can see the need for a Windows VM guest with the host OS Linux, I cannot see the benefit of other VMs.
Your lightweight Linux would be very capable of doing file sharing/serving as well as Python development and be easily managed.

Your Windows .Net VM might easily accommodate Autocad.

A VM for testing other Linux distros could easily be accommodated also.
It would have very little impact due to intermittent use.

Lu Tze

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Hmmm, I'll conservatively park the cad machine (not drop it!) until I can get a better handle on the needs. Reducing hardware is a pretty big part of the plan here. I've just moved to a new place and there's significantly less space for 'stuff'! Realistically, the only physical change from not adding this machine to the mix is not requiring the GFX card from the outset...

Anything else I've got above of concern? I'm not doing something stupid by virtualising a file server over just getting a dedicated NAS am I? Anything I'm not including that I need to consider.

Just another option is phanteks have a case that can accommodate both an itx and m-atx build inside. You could have the benefit of you low wattage file server and Linux distro on the itx and the heavy lifting (cad/vms) on the m-atx board, only on when needed reducing power requirements.

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

While I can see the need for a Windows VM guest with the host OS Linux, I cannot see the benefit of other VMs.
Your lightweight Linux would be very capable of doing file sharing/serving as well as Python development and be easily managed.

Your Windows .Net VM might easily accommodate Autocad.

A VM for testing other Linux distros could easily be accommodated also.
It would have very little impact due to intermittent use.

Yeah I'm not at all certain about the compartmentalisation of aspects of the system, as I said, something just 'feels right' about having single usage machines (i.e a file server that does nothing else, a python dev bench that does nothing else) etc although I don't really have any strong reasoning behind this other than 'It feels like it makes sense'.

I'm aware that there is a cost (overheads etc) to having standalone VM servers instead of just having a Linux/Windows split with 'big spec' do-it-all machines but I think that given that we're talking of <10Vms overall and probably no more than 4 ever running concurrently, on a pretty well specced homelab/home server it should be tolerable.

I have been reading up on ProxMox and dockers / containers with LXC but am very early in my understanding of it as an alternative to several Linux VMs.

Again, happy to be told I'm talking ****e!

ED E

Running an Unraid host on the bare metal, allowing it to be the file server and also hypervisor then plonking the other machines within it could end up with a really nice system.

My concern is CPU horsepower, a deal on a second hand dual socket tower is probably the avenue I'd chase down.

Have almost no working knowledge of Unraid as a hypervisor. Do like that it integrates Dockers well (very useful for plex server etc - docker instead of VM) though.

RE: CAD Build
Had a 'test run' last night to get a handle on some of the CAD requirements. Installed draftsight, sketchup and maya on my laptop workstation (4 years old - 8GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD 6620G, A8-3500M ) and got her to log in from her laptop via team viewer and have a mess around trying to show normal usage.

The laptop handled it absolutely fine, so am now far more comfortable about the CAD build as should be easy enough to give that machine more power than my laptop. As expected, they just kind of touch the edges of the capabilities of CAD and so though its a requirement, it's a very low demand requirement.

Probably should have gone a step further and stuck it on a VM and got her to access that instead of the laptop directly to check, but can do that at some other stage before trigger gets pulled.

Re: Dual socket / extra cores etc, there is the 'pre-loved' route available - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PC-Dell-Precision-T5500-Intel-Xeon-X5570-24GB-RAM-1TB-HDD-NVIDIA-Quadro-2000-/261942075232?hash=item3cfcf6df60:g:5WUAAOSwT5tWH79W

Some very decent dual socket boxes available at good prices here too

http://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/dell-precision-t5500-configure/
http://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/dell-precision-t7400-configure/

Or a single socket Hex Core - http://www.bargainhardware.co.uk/lenovo-thinkstation-s20-/

Taking a slight hit in Ghz for extra cores?

Not too worried about the pre-loved state either. Am a little worried about power/noise from these options though.

Any thoughts?

Serephucus

The CPU in that server you linked to - an E3-1200 v3 - supports both VT-x and VT-d, so you should be able to pass a graphics card through to your AutoCAD VM without any issues, and it should perform pretty much normally. I can't say for certain as I've never done this though.

Something that might be worth looking at is this video, where Linus runs two gaming PCs off one box, using UnRAID as the hypervisor. He passes a dedicated GPU through to each VM, and both of them end up playing Star Wars without issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJYMCbIbPk

As to the compute power needed, or what's best value for money, I'll leave that to someone else. I haven't looked at the compute side of things in a very long time.
It's almost never worth buying Quadros new though, as you pay a premium for what is usually a pretty average GeForce card with some better thermals and drivers. Most people buy GeForce cards and flash them. In recent generations though NVIDIA hasn't been implementing double precision on their GeForce line as much, so only some cards will work with this.

As far as VMs, I'd tend to agree with you here. If you're going to be running a bunch of them, it makes sense to let each thing have its own one, or else what's the point of VMs? If they're not that intensive - file servers, for example - you can always stick them on LXLE or Puppy or something.

The dual socket boards: They could be very nice. Handy to have extra cores to throw at things, generally speaking. As long as whatever you're putting them in has room for third-party coolers, the noise can be taken care of fairly easily. The only thing would obviously be physical size. I dunno how much of a concern for you that is.

Cuddlesworth

Those dual socket systems are relatively loud, pull a fair bit of power and usually involve 2nd CPU sets to add another cpu. I should know, my daily driver is a dual hex core z600.

You seem to be of 2 minds about all this.

Its either a low power, quiet, medium performance device or a beast of a workstation.

Deleted User wrote: »

What I'd like to be able to get from the server (p)

1. RDP
   most if not all access will be through RDP / VNC / logging in via the network (and internet through port forwarding). Ideally I can leave this headless and only connect to the tv screen for initial setup and once in a blue moon for trouble shooting.
2. Lowish power
   If possible I'd rather not be spending 3 figures a month running it!
3. Quiet
   Will be running away from the TV etc, but would not like something whirring like a helicopter when my missus logs in externally to do some gfx work.

When you involve RDP, the graphics card does nothing unless there is some sort of necessary floating point offload or the system is utilizing some specific tech.

Deleted User wrote: »

Required Machines (v) within my machine (p)

1. Low weight Lubunutu setup for Python development, simple low requirements (easily virtualised)
2. AutoCad / Drawing machine... This is where it gets complicated and my knowledge plummets to 0. Initial reading is that this will be absolutely pants as a virtual machine unless I passthrough a physical GFX card to it. Licencing etc potentially a nightmare! (probably a win machine, though potential to convince the missus of benefits of running draftsight in linux if it is far cheaper!)
3. File Server - Not even sure that this necessarily needs to be a standalone virtual machine, though I like the idea of it. No problem using a simple Ubuntu Server VM for this and just running cifs/samba or something similar. Could also run FreeNas or similar. Serving the other VMs on the server, and also some kodi htpcs on the physical network.
4. Windows VM for .Net development.
5. VMs for dicking about with Linux distros / containers and other stuff.

In reality most of that will run fine on a low end core I3 with 16gigs of ram and a SSD.

Definitely in two minds! Basically looking for the coverage and capacity of the larger spec machines but with the size and power usage of the smaller ones.

Kind of a case of aiming too high and falling short will still end up with a better setup than I particularly need.

Slutmonkey57b

Look at it this way; you need to run two separate tests:

A software test of how usable you both find a "multi vm" solution to be. You won't know this unless you set up the main 4 or 5 uses into vm's.

A hardware test of what the software needs in order to run. This is easier to assess, software makers tell you, and making the assumption "midrange specs = minimum spec performance in a VM" is probably reasonable.

I'd load up autocad and a few other vm's on your spare laptop, and then you and the gf should both use some of your heavy duty scenarios concurrently.

Ssd's and ram are your friends where vm's are concerned, obviously.

Cuddlesworth

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

I'd load up autocad and a few other vm's on your spare laptop, and then you and the gf should both use some of your heavy duty scenarios concurrently.

Why bother. The odds of each VM doing anything significant at once is slim and none.

ponzook

Xeon and 32GB of ram do? Will you have more than one vm in use at once maxing out a core and ram at one time? Not giving enough information really.

File sever will use feck all resources and a .net development machine and autocad machine can give 2 cores each and 12 gigs of ram, shud be plenty.

Slutmonkey57b

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Why bother. The odds of each VM doing anything significant at once is slim and none.

Because he's proposing a server which will be used for two people to access simultaneously.

Solitaire

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Why bother. The odds of each VM doing anything significant at once is slim and none.

Not when each VM is being simultaneously used by a different human operator, with a fileserver quietly chugging away in the background to boot. Its basically Two Users (and a NAS), One PC

Cuddlesworth

Slutmonkey57b wrote: »

Because he's proposing a server which will be used for two people to access simultaneously.

Solitaire wrote: »

Not when each VM is being simultaneously used by a different human operator, with a fileserver quietly chugging away in the background to boot. Its basically Two Users (and a NAS), One PC

Its his whitebox, he will be aware of what others on it will be doing. Even if his development VM or her AutoCad VM start to utilize cpu it will have little effect on others if he only assigns 2-3 cores to each. That's the beautiful thing about virtualisation, he can controls what resources a max can use. And am modern day quad core with hyperthreading(or AMD sudo 8 core) is more than capable of handling multiple machines doing tasks.

Xenoronin

I gotta say that watching that 1 CPU 2 Computers build by Linus made this seem a whole lot more realistic to me even with the restricted specs.

ED E

7 games one PC (CPU) works, so this should be childs play

Solitaire

ED E wrote: »

7 games one PC (CPU) works, so this should be childs play

It worked courtesy of tens of thousands worth of server hardware including dual 14-core Xeon processors :P Whereas here even giving each user an i3 worth of power would entail a super-pricey i7 build :eek: Likely overkill, but still...

ED E

Solitaire wrote: »

It worked courtesy of tens of thousands worth of server hardware including dual 14-core Xeon processors :P Whereas here even giving each user an i3 worth of power would entail a super-pricey i7 build :eek: Likely overkill, but still...

Obviously a 30K$ Canadian endeavor this is not, but as a "proof of concept" it was nice.

Its tight, but should be doable *crosses fingers*

Really appreciate the discussion guys, almost certainly questions I've not (but should have) considered!

Any further thoughts on these parts of the puzzle?

Intel Xeon vs AMD FX 8...

Realistically, my current laptop, with its 4 year old CPU is more than powerful enough for 99.99999% of what I would want from the CPU (AMD A8-3500M).
I've only ever really thought / read about using a Xeon (E3-v1226v3 most likely) but am very open to other options! Not sold on anything fully yet. Do I need additional cores?

Off the Shelf Workstation server vs Case & Build

One of Lenovo TS140, Fujitsu TX1310, Dell Poweredge T20 or would someone care to recommend a better option in terms of a mobo and case setup? Would be somewhat interested in the idea of getting my hands dirty and doing it myself if there were some tangible benefits (other than the learning experience!)

DIY was suggested here previously

Group VM - Name Purpose OS Always On? Ram Cores Storage
Servers routServ router pfSense yes 512 1 8
fileServ / dbServ files & databases Ubuntu Server yes 4096 2

Desktop Environments pyLub python Dev Bench Lubuntu no 3072 2 12
oCado Auto Cad / Drawing Windows 7 Pro no 8192 2
netDev .Net Development Windows 7 Pro no 4096 2


Anything I'm not talking/thinking about that's important too?

Thanks