Virtualization options

In an effort to move away from Microsoft based products, I’m building out a new enterprise infrastructure based on Linux. There are some Windows based servers that supply Application & DB services and I’ll have to migrate them over to VMs, for now. There is no Windows domain. The desktops are Windows PCs. The Servers will most likely be Dell or HP.
What I am trying to accomplish:

  1. Linux virtualization platform to support Linux and Windows based servers and a workstations (XP for a legacy App)
  2. Linux based domain using Univention or other products for Domain, Active Directory, DNS, Print, File services.
  3. Intranet, Mail server, messaging and collaboration server.

I would like a robust full featured messaging and collaboration software that supports screen sharing and whiteboard. Any mobility tie in would be a plus. XMPP seems good but it lacks the bells and whistles I would like.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

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Proxmox or OpenStack is your friend here.

Kolab.

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++ to what sgtawesomesauce said.

Also, I’d like to throw in that I would dearly love to hear more about this project as it unfolds.

SQL 2017 is available on linux and docker contains btw.

Yep, same here.

I currently run a large openstack installation and am always interested in hearing about new migrations. Makes it easier to justify that we’re going to have to

BTW, @Linuxit, VMWare is sort of Linux Based, so if you wanted to pay for ESXi, you could, but keep in mind that they’re in violation of the GPL because they’re using code from Linux and have not released source code for the package that uses it. That’s why I don’t recommend them.

Is it a full release or just alpha/beta?

Preview, so presumably Alpha. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017

implying Microsoft isn’t in constant alpha/beta.

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Yeah, I get that they’re in perpetual alpha, but I’d like to have something a bit more stable. I mean, MariaDB is more stable (and arguably better) than MS SQL.

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https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/dataplatforminsider/2017/07/17/first-release-candidate-of-sql-server-2017-now-available/

This was for RC1, but the latest is RC2. It won’t be stable for at least another year or so but it is a full release.

The paid licenses are for stable, while the express ones are free for developers and personal use; however the express versions are strictly the latest version for testing.

Which is fine by me, because I don’t have to pay an enterprise license for any of my dev work. I actually just set this up yesterday on my FreeNAS box under a CentOS VM; setup was painless.

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As long as there’s stable available, I’m happy.

As far as stable goes, the current express version is very stable AFAIK. Hasn’t crashed or anything, but I only just got it setup yesturday.

It will need to run at least for another month of uptime, but so far I’m optimistic.

I am only using MS SQL because we use 2016 at work and it would be easiest to setup a webapp we’re working by just using whats already there.

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No need to re-engineer your supporting infrastructure.

haha exactly.

What is easiest to install and manage Proxmox, VirtualBox, KVM, other?

Proxmox is going to be the easiest.

  1. Boot from USB
  2. configure disk partitioning
  3. configure primary network interface
  4. install OS
  5. Cluster multiple systems (if applicable)