12 servers in one?

[1080]

I am looking to start a web hosting service, with my new budget server. Specs: Dual Xeon X5690 3.46Ghz 6 Core CPUs, 16GB DDR3 RAM, Dual Toshiba X300 6TB HDDs running in RAID 0, GigaByte GA-7TESM mobo. What is the best way to go about running up to 12 Ubuntu Servers on this. Would it be virtualization? Is there an alternative, preferably one that makes it easier for me to administrate all servers?

[Lord Nicoll]

6 minutes ago, 1080 said:

I am looking to start a web hosting service, with my new budget server. Specs: Dual Xeon X5690 3.46Ghz 6 Core CPUs, 16GB DDR3 RAM, Dual Toshiba X300 6TB HDDs running in RAID 0, GigaByte GA-7TESM mobo. What is the best way to go about running up to 12 Ubuntu Servers on this. Would it be virtualization? Is there an alternative, preferably one that makes it easier for me to administrate all servers?

Don't use RAID 0 for the love of god, most servers have many redundant drives for data loss prevention. You're gonna need a lot more RAM, but something like unRAID or VMWare would be perfect for hosting 12 linux VM's, I use VMware ESXi 6.5

[1080]

3 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Don't use RAID 0 for the love of god,

I was going to have a separate backup machine, unless that would still be unwise

4 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

You're gonna need a lot more RAM

How much?

[Oshino Shinobu]

RAID 0 is the exact opposite of what you want in a server. 

 

VMWare would likely be the preferred solution. 

 

Just now, 1080 said:

I was going to have a separate backup machine, unless that would still be unwise

 

Yes. If any of the drives in the array go down, you lose all the data on the array and you've got server down time right away. For servers, money is normally invested to make it as stable as possible and reduce the possibility of down time as much as possible. RAID 0 does the complete opposite. 

[Lord Nicoll]

3 minutes ago, 1080 said:

I was going to have a separate backup machine, unless that would still be unwise

How much?

That would be unwise to rely solely on the back up machine, back up machines are good but you don't want to lose any data, so redundant drivers are a must. If you have to take the server down to recover data that could have been prevented by simply having more drivers then that's no good.   

 

Well that depends on what you're hosting. DNS servers don't need much RAM, but some web services devour RAM, Probably best to start from 32GB, I have 60GB in that server. 

[1080]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Yes. If any of the drives in the array go down, you lose all the data on the array and you've got server down time right away. For servers, money is normally invested to make it as stable as possible and reduce the possibility of down time as much as possible. RAID 0 does the complete opposite. 

Ok so 4 drives in RAID 10 would be better... Right?

1 minute ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Well that depends on what you're hosting. DNS servers don't need much RAM, but some web services devour RAM, Probably best to start from 32GB, I have 60GB in that server. 

Ok I'll do 32GB maybe.

[Lord Nicoll]

Just now, 1080 said:

Ok so 4 drives in RAID 10 would be better... Right?

Ok I'll do 32GB maybe.

RAID 5 or RAID 6 is much better, you get good amount of space and redundancy, RAID 6 is RAID 5's replacement, since it has an extra layer of redundancy. With RAID 6 and four drives, you'll get 66% of the storage of 3 drives, with the 4^th solely for automatically rebuilding the array sound any of the other three disks fail. 

[Jessasaurus]

you will need more the 16GB of Ram, maybe 64GB to 120GB depends on what you want to run, what are you planning on running on each VM/Server?

 

and you don't shouldn't use Raid 0 look at Raid 1, 5 or 10 setups

 

and proxmox is a great free/open source virtualization management platform.

[1080]

1 minute ago, Lord Nicoll said:

RAID 5 or RAID 6 is much better, you get good amount of space and redundancy, RAID 6 is RAID 5's replacement, since it has an extra layer of redundancy. With RAID 6 and four drives, you'll get 66% of the storage of 3 drives, with the 4^th solely for automatically rebuilding the array sound any of the other three disks fail.

OK RAID 5 then, because it is supported by my motherboard, and RAID 6 is not (And a RAID card would be another cost)

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, 1080 said:

Ok so 4 drives in RAID 10 would be better... Right?

 

Technically, yeah as it does provide some redundancy. I personally hate RAID 10 though, it doesn't scale very well and has bad and unpredictable worst case scenarios and is wasteful of drive space. 

 

RAID 5 is what I would go for with 4 drives. While you can do RAID 6 with 4 drives, I would personally go for 5 or more. They scale better than RAID 10, use drive space more efficiently.

[1080]

Just now, AJW said:

you will need more the 16GB of Ram, maybe 64GB to 120GB depends on what you want to run, what are you planning on running on each VM/Server?

Ubuntu Server, unless there was something better for webservers

[Jessasaurus]

 

1 minute ago, 1080 said:

Ubuntu Server, unless there was something better for webservers

I use both Windows and Ubuntu OS with Plesk on top for Web/mail/DNS management 

[1080]

Just now, AJW said:

I use both Windows and Ubuntu OS with Plesk on top for Web/mail/DNS management 

Well but again, I am trying to budget, so Windows Server is another cost

[Jessasaurus]

Just now, 1080 said:

Well but again, I am trying to budget, so Windows Server is another cost

You don't need to use/have Windows OS, (that's just what I use on my serves) you can easily do it with Ubuntu 

[.spider.]

Do you have a Windows 10 Pro license? If yes you can activate Hyper-V and get some experience with virtualization and it is free.

[NoobCase]

Esxi is free for up to 8 vms I think

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, NoobCase said:

Esxi is free for up to 8 vms I think

I didn't know they had a VM limit???

 

I know they have a CPU/socket limit though.

[paddy-stone]

Found this about esxi 5.5 with a v.quick google, which suggests 64 V.cpus...https://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r55/vsphere-55-configuration-maximums.pdf

 

 

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, NoobCase said:

Esxi is free for up to 8 vms I think

I saw somewhere the limit FOR a vm is 8 vcpus, but not 8 VMs per esxi server, that would be way too low and hardly anyone would use it. Plus I'm not sure even that;s relevant anymore, I saw somewhere else that the limit was something like 128 vcpus.

[visonare]

Just my 2 cents.  Raid level is completely dependent on what level of redundancy/capacity/performance you want.  I don't run 5/6 because of the parity/performance overhead, but I also run DBMS/Data warehouse applications that are highly sensitive to disk IO performance and only run a few PCIe drives with spares.  If you're running SQL or Oracle raid 5/6 can be the bane of your existence.  A rebuild for me with SSD's wouldn't take long, for 7200 RPM SATA disks it's a different story.  Your mileage may vary.  If you can afford it Raid 10 is the best bang for your buck imo with a small number of drives.  5/6 if you don't need as much performance and want additional capacity while maintaining redundancy.  12 servers if active at once with any real load are going to be painful on 2 drives imo, I'm sure someone else mentioned this but with only 2 drives you can't do RAID 5, 6 or 10.  RAID 0/1 are your options.

 

For a Hypervisor you have multiple free options.  I use Hyper-V myself (Hyper-V is free, running it on top of Windows Standard is not) but there are so many good options these days.  ESXi/KVM/Xen and others are perfectly legit solutions.  I'd suggest that you look at your long term goals to pick your Hypervisor.  

 

Like disk, RAM is dependent on workload.  1GBish per VM seems really low to me for pretty much any workload though.  Plus especially for DDR3 it should be dirt cheap.    

[KuJoe]

For my production servers still running on HDDs I only run RAID10. For my servers with SSDs or high storage density I'll run RAID5 or RAID50 but I still prefer RAID10 when I can get away with it. I also only use hardware RAID controllers, avoid FakeRAID at all costs and only use software RAID if you know what you're doing.

 

For web hosting, RAID1 with 2 SSDs or RAID10 with HDDs is the only way I would go. I only have a few hundred domains on my web servers so it's nothing huge, but the disk IO can get out of control fast if you don't switch to SSDs eventually.

 

If you're going to be selling web hosting the only real solution out there short of building your own is to use cPanel which will require a RHEL based distro like CentOS, CloudLinux, or Scientific Linux. There are a lot of different control panels out there, but clients want cPanel. I tried offering Interworx, Plesk, DirectAdmin, and a ton of free solutions but the only control panel that I could ever sell was cPanel... even when I gave away free web hosting people would rather send me money for cPanel than use another panel for free. And if you want to be serious about selling web hosting and compete in an already saturated market, CloudLinux is the only real OS option these days unless you are a Linux guru who can write your own scripts to manage resources and monitor your servers (spoiler alert, I've done this and even with all of the custom code I still use CloudLinux on all of my web hosting servers).

 

Also, why do you want to split up your server into smaller VMs? If you're going to "load balance" then it makes no sense. If you're going to sell real services (i.e. cPanel on CloudLinux) then the licensing costs aren't worth it and you're better off just using all of the resources on the server.

 

Lastly, instead of building your own server and colocating it in a data center I would just rent a VPS or dedicated server. It would be cheaper and easier for you in the long run and you don't have to worry about the costs of replacing failed hardware. And as somebody who has servers, switches, and routers in multiple data centers around the US I still rent dedicated servers and VPSs for my own personal projects when needed.

[KuJoe]

12 hours ago, NoobCase said:

Esxi is free for up to 8 vms I think

The only real limit (besides some specific features) is 8 vCPUs per VM. Also you're not allowed to use the free license for anything commercial.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, visonare said:

For a Hypervisor you have multiple free options.  I use Hyper-V myself (Hyper-V is free, running it on top of Windows Standard is not) but there are so many good options these days.  ESXi/KVM/Xen and others are perfectly legit solutions.  I'd suggest that you look at your long term goals to pick your Hypervisor.  

Windows Hyper-V Server is actually free though, it only runs Hyper-V and related roles/features.

[Pixel5]

beside the technical stuff that others already covered here there is still the elephant in the room which is you want to start offering a web hosting service but you are looking for advice on a random forum and to make things worse wanted to use RAID 0 for a productive machine.

 

the bottom line is don't run a web hosting service unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing, you are not going to be able to compete with any commercial offer unless you offer ridiculously low prices to the point that people will just accept there might be data loss or less than 99.9% uptime.

 

but this wont make you any money.

[.spider.]

3 hours ago, visonare said:

 I use Hyper-V myself (Hyper-V is free, running it on top of Windows Standard is not) but there are so many good options these days.  

What is Windows Standard?