VM Inception - Bad idea?

[TubsAlwaysWins]

I use Arcserve software at work to take and manage backups of servers. I would like to start using the 'Ensure images successfully boot' option, which requires Hyper-V. 

Currently, we have 2 ESXi VM's dedicated to running Imagemanager, each with 57 managed folders. 

 

I would like to do one of two things with these VM's.

1. Move them off of the current ESXi host (also runs other servers) and onto their own dedicated ESXi host. I would then move to 3 or 4 windows instances dedicated to running Imagemanager

2. Move to 3 or more bare metal servers. 

 

I would prefer keeping them in ESXi but im concerned that running a Hyper V VM inside ESXi isnt the best idea, hence bare metal. More servers just to reduce load on the existing. It is also located remote to me so ESXi makes managing easier. 

 

Thoughts? I know you can enable Virtualization in ESXi, just seems like an odd thing to do. 

[mineblaster]

layering hypervisors is technically something you can do. i don't think many people have run that sort of config so perhaps problems could arise. I would personally test it at a smaller scale on a test system to see if you could break it and if it works it works. if its not . its time for hardware shopping.

[TubsAlwaysWins]

On 9/2/2023 at 6:40 AM, mineblaster said:

layering hypervisors is technically something you can do. i don't think many people have run that sort of config so perhaps problems could arise. I would personally test it at a smaller scale on a test system to see if you could break it and if it works it works. if its not . its time for hardware shopping.

Yeah I probably will. Just gotta convince the boss ya know

 

[NelizMastr]

20 hours ago, TubsAlwaysWins said:

Yeah I probably will. Just gotta convince the boss ya know

 

Empirical evidence is all your boss should need, especially if money is an issue  

 

Nested virtualisation has its use cases, but is highly unconventional in a production environment due to performance impact. 

 

That said, since this is purely for a quick test to verify a virtual machine backup image, I wouldn't see why it wouldn't be viable. 

 

If there's also a requirement to maintain network connectivity in the nested VM, my advice would be to hook the VMs up to a vSwitch that allows MAC address spoofing and promiscuous mode. A dedicated vSwitch for this is recommended for security's sake. 

This isn't a must, but at least take it into consideration .

[TubsAlwaysWins]

4 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

Empirical evidence is all your boss should need, especially if money is an issue  

 

Nested virtualisation has its use cases, but is highly unconventional in a production environment due to performance impact. 

 

That said, since this is purely for a quick test to verify a virtual machine backup image, I wouldn't see why it wouldn't be viable. 

 

If there's also a requirement to maintain network connectivity in the nested VM, my advice would be to hook the VMs up to a vSwitch that allows MAC address spoofing and promiscuous mode. A dedicated vSwitch for this is recommended for security's sake. 

This isn't a must, but at least take it into consideration .

Its not a quick test though, the 2 VMs now each have 55 'Managed' folders (Less servers than that but not by much.) and all they do is verify backups. Right now all it is is calculating MD5 hash values, but I want to enable the option to test restores. It would do them less frequently but I would think once a month for each minimum

 

Not sure about the networking side, but I will keep in in mind.