Cost of a virtualization project

[veternan]

Hello there,

 

A company asked me to estimate the approximate cost of a virtualization project as I explain below:

 

1- Implementation, Installing and settings for VMware vSphere

 

2- Implementation, Installation and virtualization under vSphere for 5 virtual servers(Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1) + Implementation and settings for High-Availability(HA) and Fault-Tolerant(FT) solutions + include learning and instruction guide for all steps

 

3- Converting 5 Physical servers to virtual servers

 

Please don't include price for softwares, because all softwares have been bought already.

 

Thank You So Much

[Nilus]

So somebody is asking you to estimate the cost and yet have already gone out and bought licenses?

 

And you are taking on a job and yet asking others to do the consultancy piece / scope of works for you?

 

There is a lot of work which goes into correctly sizing, scoping, and putting together the requirements and costs for a virtualization project and certainly more than would be fair to go into in a forum thread. That kind of work can vary from a day on site for the really small jobs up to weeks or months putting the correct design together for the larger ones.

[veternan]

Sorry, let me correct it: Company said they will buy softwares(So I considered they have all softwares already) so all they need is information about cost of Implementation, installation and settings etc...

 

Well, can't you give me an approximate price? consider it's a medium job for 2 weeks.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

there are a TON of factors you need to specify here. we're finishing a P2V project right now.... it costs a LOT.

 

• 2 new Procurve switches
• 2 new 10Gbit switches
• 2 new ESX hosts
• new SAN
• cabling, rack, PDUs, UPS, 10Gb network cards
• upgrading existing servers' hardware to convert to new ESX hosts
• vSphere, Windows, SQL Server, etc

lord knows what else im not thinking about

[thefarewellnote]

I agree with Jdawg683. I do projects like this for a living and the price is usually around 60-75k for hardware and labor.

 

We usually bill around 100 hours for a project this size. 

 

2 x Servers with 8 NICs (4 for iSCSI and 4 for Data) 

      2 x CPU 

      Dual Power Supplies 

      64+ GB RAM 

 

2 x Switches (we ususally use 24 port switches) We use 12 ports for only iSCSI traffic and the other 12 for data.  We use different  color cables so that you can see the difference

 

1 x SAN 

 

For the physical to virtual if on a G1 Gbps switch you are looking at about 3+ hours for each migration using VMWare's Physical to Virtual tool.  

 

Here is a quote that I recently gave a client with the prices removed as well as additional information

 

 

Dell Dell PowerEdge R520 ? (2 servers )0 ? (2 servers @ 3,691.49 each)

$7,382.98

Dell PowerVault MD3200i Appliance

 

PowerConnect 6224 Stackable Switches  (2 switches)

 

VMware vSphere v.5.0 Essentials Plus Kit with HA

 

VMware Support and Subscription Service ? 3 year

 

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Standard (2 licenses for three virtual server)

 

Microsoft Windows 2012 Server User CAL Licenses 

 

 

 

[veternan]

Thank You guys for info, seems much harder and complicated than what I considered...

[sc302 Veteran]

You aren't going to slap this together and click your way through it. It doesn't work like that. You need to have a firm understanding about sans, about networking, and about clustering servers.

You also should have a very good understanding about licensing prior to jumping in.

I will tell you this if you don't do this right the servers can over write data on the San causing loss of data. Meaning your vm guests will die a firery death and will need to recover from backups. Speaking of which, how do you plan to backup?