[Noobie] Questions about building a virtualisation server for 20 concurrent users

[Anonymmm]

Heya everyone,

 

This question is in many ways probably going to resemble the classic “Hey, never build a PC before, what parts do I buy?”, except this time, it’s in the realm of servers. I’ve got a half-decent amount of PC builds under my belt, though perhaps more importantly, I know my “resources” when it comes to building a PC. That is, simply put, I know where and how to pick the right components, what videos to watch for confirmation, or on which Discord to get further help.

 

You probably see where this is going… Here I am, trying to plan out a server build. Suddenly, questions like “What CPU do I pick?” or “Do I pick this or that part?” are relevant again, and I’ve got no idea as to where to look for answers. Obviously, I don’t expect there to be as much as if I’d be building a 500 USD gaming PC, just given the price difference between that and a profesh server alone.

So, to be more specific, here is what I’ll be trying to build:

 

A virtualisation rack-mounted server for a small company, which should be able to run about 20 concurrent users performing your run of the mill office tasks (email, Word, ERP…). CPU budget is around 5500 USD, with a budget of roughly 4500 USD for other components, though bear in mind that I’m from Europe, and prices here run slightly higher than in the US. If there is already a build, or a video of a build that meets these criteria, I’d love to copy it so I don’t have to worry about compatibility hick-ups, however, if not, here are some of my questions:

1. Intel is dead to me, right?

2. Does it ever make sense to choose a Threadripper over an Epyc for a server workload like this?

3. When building a (new) gaming PC, it rarely makes sense to go for an older generation of CPU, rather than the newest thing available. I suspect this won’t exactly be the case here, right? In other words, should I be considering Zen 4, 3, 2…?

4. How do I go about picking out all the other components? What ECC RAM? What motherboard? Rack mounting “case”, or however that’s called? Power supply? Obviously I know that the parts need to be compatible, both in terms of socket, power output/requirement, physical size and so on, but I assume that’ll still leave me with a lot to choose from. So, are there any “go-to”/“you can’t go wrong with this one” parts?

5. Cooling… how? Is water even a thing here? Again, any “go-tos”, like say the infamous Noctua NH-D15 in higher-end gaming pcs?

6. Uh… any other questions I should be asking / know the answer to?

I’ll probably come up with a lot more questions eventually, but I can’t think of anything else right now, so… any help/input on this is very much appreciated, thanks in advance and a great day to everyone!

[Echothedolpin]

Have you considered preconfigured options? In a production environment (in my experience) it’s fairly uncommon to build a system from scratch outside of hobbyists.

[Blue4130]

34 minutes ago, Echothedolpin said:

Have you considered preconfigured options? In a production environment (in my experience) it’s fairly uncommon to build a system from scratch outside of hobbyists.

I second this. This is the type of situation where you go to dell/hpe/etc so that you have one vendor to deal with when a part fries. (and you also usually have on-site replacement options rather than needing to send it back for rma) 

[LIGISTX]

As others said, you don’t. 
 

20 users is no longer “a fun project” and is now critical company infrastructure. If this machine doesn’t work properly for 3 days, how much money does it cost the company if 20 people are having to scramble to do work in some other way, or can’t do work at all. How much is lost if it’s down for a week. What are the ramifications of your assumptions about usage needs and thread requirements are wrong?

 

There is a lot more to this then “I know how to buy parts and I know how to build them into a working PC”. 

[Guest]

On 1/15/2023 at 12:11 AM, Anonymmm said:

Uh… any other questions I should be asking / know the answer to?

Forget hardware all together. Honestly sounds like you're better off going to 3 local consulting companies, say you need a quote for a virtual desktop solution for 20 users and go from there.

 

However, if you're intent on doing this yourself, these are the questions that need to be considered.

• Identity: Where are the user identities (accounts) sourced? Is there an existing Active Directory environment that is being used, is the company cloud (Microsoft 365 / Google) only and only has cloud identity?
  • Traditional VDI solutions: Microsoft Terminal Services / RDS, Citrix and VMWare Horizon all typically require Active Directory integration and cannot run in a standalone mode.
• Apps & OS: What applications are required and what operating system is to be used?
  • You've mentioned Office, were there any others? Was Office already licensed? Otherwise you'll need to purchase Office with Shared Machine Activation support. I.e Office Apps for Enterprise (subscription) or Office ProPlus (perpetual)
  • Licensing Windows 10/11 for VDI use outside of Azure / AWS is a bit of a nightmare. Licensing Windows Server for RDS also has its own considerations too: you could easily spend your budget on licensing here.
• Access: How are users going to access the solution? Are you publishing complete virtual desktops or just using remote app publishing to provide the individual apps virtually.
  • If you're self hosting this, do you have the network and power infrastructure to support it? If not, consider Azure Virtual Desktop instead.

[wseaton]

If you want to virtualize desktops for 20 users please include a budget for a psychiatrist. VDI is expensive and doesn't scale well on prem for 20 users.

 

PCs are stupid cheap. Far cheaper than the cost of desktop virtualization and far easier to manage