Multipurpose Server

[Jojomatik]

Hi,

I'm currently looking into consoloditating my systems at home. Currently i'm running a Ryzen 5 1600 based Gaming-System and have an uncomfortably large number of raspberry pis running certain smaller web-applications such as OctoPrint, Network Management Software and more. I'm also running a two bay Synology NAS with 4TB of net-storage, connected via Gigabit-Ethernet. I'm currently developing my own Smart-Home-Management Software, which was supposed to be running on a Raspberry Pi as well, but the apparently there is no Java 13 Version for ARM v6 and I'm not wanting to downgrade to an older Java Version. The Raspberry PI 4 (and propably 3 as well) officially support Java 11 and there are also Java 13 Versions available for ARM v7 and v8, but I do not really want to continue to buy more Raspberry PIs :D

I'm currently thinking of buying a server rack and a 4U server to accomplish the following tasks: Replacing my NAS (starting with propably 2x4TB HDD and a SSD for running the OS and caching, with room for future upgradeability), replacing the above mentioned Raspberry Pis with one VM for every Raspberry PI, running the Smart-Home-Management Software. Also my parents are currently running a really old machine and I've been suggesting them to upgrade for a while now. Now I'm thinking wether it might be possbile to run a Windows VM on the server and having them connect via a Thin Client. I was thinking of repurposing one of the currently deployed Pis as a thin client for them. 

When it comes to hardware I'm currently thinking of repurposing my Ryzen 5 1600 and the mainboard in the server and upgrading my Gaming-System with new Hardware.

Is this concept even reasonable or would I run into to many problems on the way?

Even though I'm not super-experienced with networking and especially VMs I have fun tinkering around with technology and usually find solutions to problems occuring along the way (usually with the help of google ;))

If you think its reasonable, what specs should I be expecting for the other components?
How much RAM would I need, could I utilise an old GTX750ti I have lying around, should I consider 10GBE or would you think this is overkill? I'm currently reaching speeds above 900Mbits when transferring video footage from my PC to my NAS and therefore I'm already nearly filling the bandwith. It doesn't feel slow by any means but it might in the future.

Regarding software: I have no real clue which OS I should be opting for and which OS would be the best for those "single-purpose" VMs. Also: I have never tried deploying thin clients myself. Do I need a special windows version for this? Can I automate the connection process on the Thin Client to a point where my parents wouldn't notice, that the PC is not running under their desk? They are not really familiar with tech and simply clicking "continue" on a unfamiliar screen might confuse them enough to call me.

Thank you for helping me out.

Jojomatik

[Windows7ge]

If you're thinking of making VMs for Windows Clients you are going to run into issues when it comes to features like GPU Acceleration. Each VM requires it's own physical GPU if you want a good smooth desktop experience. Unfortunately for both AMD & NVIDIA desktop series GPUs you cannot have multiple VMs hosted on one GPU you have to use up a PCI_e slot or two for every VM.

 

Many of the other network services you want should be able to run in a virtual environment easily on any number of hypervisors. I'm quite partial to PROXMOX or Debian+QEMU+virt-manager.

[Jojomatik]

25 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If you're thinking of making VMs for Windows Clients you are going to run into issues when it comes to features like GPU Acceleration. Each VM requires it's own physical GPU if you want a good smooth desktop experience. Unfortunately for both AMD & NVIDIA desktop series GPUs you cannot have multiple VMs hosted on one GPU you have to use up a PCI_e slot or two for every VM.

 

Many of the other network services you want should be able to run in a virtual environment easily on any number of hypervisors. I'm quite partial to PROXMOX or Debian+QEMU+virt-manager.

So you are saying I need a extra GPU for every Windows VM?
I could propably solve this issue by buying an older/ cheap GPU since my parents don't use their PC for too heavy workloads.

Do you now whether I would need a Server Edition of Windows or would a normal personal copy fullfil the purpose? Also has anybody excperience with using a Raspberry PI as a thin client?
  

[Windows7ge]

7 minutes ago, Jojomatik said:

So you are saying I need a extra GPU for every Windows VM?
I could propably solve this issue by buying an older/ cheap GPU since my parents don't use their PC for too heavy workloads.

Do you now whether I would need a Server Edition of Windows or would a normal personal copy fullfil the purpose? Also has anybody excperience with using a Raspberry PI as a thin client?
  

You can run VMs without GPUs but it's a terrible experience. Not something you want as a daily driver. GPUs that support SR-IOV or vGPU technology can allow you to use one GPU for multiple VMs.

 

For the server or thin-clients? And no. Can't help you with them besides recommending PARSEC.

[Jojomatik]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

For the server or thin-clients?

I meant for the server. I would propably want to run some kind of linux on the raspberry that automatically starts a remote connection to the VM on bootup (and ideally boot it up automatically if its shut down)

[Windows7ge]

3 hours ago, Jojomatik said:

I meant for the server. I would propably want to run some kind of linux on the raspberry that automatically starts a remote connection to the VM on bootup (and ideally boot it up automatically if its shut down)

If you need GPU pass-through you're going to be better off with a distro of Linux as the host. Though my research says some versions of Hyper-V support it. If you want something different ESXi has a free standard license but it only supports hardware RAID.

 

And yes you could write a simple script that executes the remote desktop application on startup.