GN4 runs in a totaly virtual environment on Microsoft HyperV (available in Windows 2008 and 2008 R2 server family) and VMWare. Both solutions provide good reliability and performance.

Minimum requirements for a virtual host (e.g. test server)

Although you can install a GN4 test server even on laptops, not all computers qualify for a virtual host. For example, a PC with CPU Intel Core2 Due 2.9 3-4GB or RAM and Windows 7 Pro 32bit OS is not good enough to be used as virtual host. The CPUs need to support the Data Execution Prevention and hardware virtualization to run HypherV. Consider that to run efficiently a virtualized GN4 system, you need at least 8GB RAM. SQL and Exalead are really memory hogs so using less than 6GB RAM will results in a very slow server. We can say that the minimum amount of RAM in a server to run the host OS and one virtualized GN4 system is about 12GB.

Example of a virtual host specs (production environment)

For example, virtual host may be a HP C7000 chassis with BL460c blades in a Vmware ESX 4.1 environment. The blades can have 2 E5649 6 core processors at 2.53 Ghz. The chassis can be is fiber connected to an EMC AX4-5 SAN that can have 2TB of storage. The storage can be split between 15k RPM drives setup in a RAID 10 array and 7200 RPM with RAID 5. The 15k drives can be used for databases and drives that require faster read times, the 7200RPMs for archive and volume storage.

The GN4 environment can be split into the following VMs (virtual machines):

•GN4Web – Web Server, 2 x CPU, 8GB RAM, 40GB primary HD for OS, 100GB secondary HD

•GN4DB – SQL Server, 2 x CPU, 6GB RAM, 40GB primary HD for OS, 250GB Secondary HD for storage connected to 15K RPM drives through fiber

•GN4Index – Index Server, 2 x CPU, 4GB RAM, 40 GB Primary, 100 GB Secondary

•GN4Back4 – Back4, all volumes, scripts, etc. 2 x CPU, 6GB RAM, 60 GB Primary, 500 GB Secondary

For disk space see also Data disk space usage topic.

For big sites a preference might be to have the database server and probably the Exalead serevr on a physical hardware instead than virtual, to eliminate a possible source of performance problems.

GENERAL RULES

Minimum hardware specification (no fault tolerant):

•1 Host server

•2 cores per each VM for Host server

•2 cores for each VM

•2 GB RAM for Host server

•8 GB RAM for each VM

Recommended hardware specification (fault tolerant):

•2 Host servers (replicating the VM on each other)

•2 cores per each VM for Host server

•4 cores for each VM

•2 GB RAM for Host server

•8/16 GB RAM for each VM

•1 physical disk for each VM

PROS

One single piece of hardware to maintain

Cheaper than buy several servers

Easy to backup/restore VM

Energy saving solution

CONS

Having only one hardware with more VMs represents a single point of failure

See also

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463394.aspx.

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