I’ve been playing with Virtual Machines for some time now, and after realising I can host a number a machines on one server I’ve come up with a plan to put all my company’s servers on one box. The tower I bought for my plan isn’t cutting it though, what do you recommend?
Putting all your servers on one box is a great plan. It’s definitely more efficient than lots of small servers, both in terms of power and space. However, trying to fit them all on a tower or desktop isn’t the way forward. You need a proper server, located in a proper data centre to ensure that your services keep running without any interruption.
For example, pick a supermicro server from this page. Yes, they’re more expensive that a standard server, but you can run so many clients off one of these powerful machines that it’s easy to justify the cost. They’re certified for VMWare, which means that you have a strong platform to be running your virtual machines off. Any having multiple machines in each rack mounted unit is a great asset, as it lets you manage the deployment of your servers and enable you to spread the load over as many hosts as you need.
As I mentioned before, these servers are designed to be mounted in a proper cabinet, rather than standing alone like the tower you mention. And while you can get yourself a cabinet, it’s worth considering if you want to put it in a data centre. A proper data centre will have resilient data connections and power supplies which means that you service will be more reliable.
I hope that helps!