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moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes

Premium Member

[2K3] Domain Controller in VM?

I have in my workshop a box running several Vm's currently, had installed win2k3 r2 and have set it up as the domain controller, that works fine. but I am wondering about performance issues.

Right now I have dedicated 4gb ram to it and 2 cores from the physical machine and have dedicated a nic to it, separate from the main nic.

I'm wanting to see if this will hand 150 people in the office, do you guys think it will? or should I just built a physical machine for it?

Weasel
Premium Member
join:2001-12-03
Minnesota

Weasel

Premium Member

A VM is fine. In fact I would go so far as to say 4GB of RAM and 2 cpu cores is overkill for a 2k3 DC.

I have two 2K8 R2 DC's running virtually here, each with 1 CPU and 2 GB of RAM serving 700 machines and they hum right along.

workablob
join:2004-06-09
Houston, TX

workablob to moes

Member

to moes
You could run it on much less. You'll do fine.

Dave
moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes

Premium Member

Cool, ok I'll set this up to be pushed live once I decommision the win2k box...

PToN
Premium Member
join:2001-10-04
Houston, TX

PToN to moes

Premium Member

to moes
MS has a guide for "sizing up" servers depending on the amount of users. You might want to also store the AD data into a separate disk.

I have about 200 users and the AD DB is only about 100MB.
moes
Premium Member
join:2009-11-15
Cedar City, UT

moes

Premium Member

I've got that already done, but thanks for the infos non the less.
IamGimli (banned)
join:2004-02-28
Canada

IamGimli (banned) to moes

Member

to moes
Performance-wise your VMs should not have any issue serving up 150 users.

Just make sure you absolutely NEVER user the VM snapshot feature to restore a Domain Controller. ONLY use supported Microsoft backup methodologies on your virtualized Domain Controllers or you could REALLY screw up your AD forest.
DiskDrive
Goin' In Circles
Premium Member
join:2004-11-03
Farmington, MI

DiskDrive to moes

Premium Member

to moes
Be careful never to do a live migration (i.e. VMotion) of the DC. If you need to move it, do it while it's shut down, or you'll learn about USN rollbacks and corruption very fast.

You would also be well-advised to not use the host for time, but instead, set a frequent sync with a reliable NTP server.