Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better perf

[blason16]

Hi Team,

I am planning to set up Zimbra mail server on Proxmox server which has below configuration for around 500 users.
Server config is = IBM x3650, Dual Processor, 64 GB of RAM, 4 TB SATA

Looking at the ease of backup and restore functionality, I opted for proxmox. I am planning to deploy Zimbra on CentOS 6.3. For this I am planning to create RAID1 for Proxmox and use around 500 GB for it. Remaining 3.5 TB will be used as a data storage in RAID 5 among that 2 TB will be used as /opt partition and remaining I am planning to use for backing up system.

Now my questions would be

1. Which CPU would you recommend? qemu or any other which can give me optimized performance
2. What do you suggest, virtualize a system or create a VPS?
3. Which backup method would you suggest LVM snapshot or native proxmox backup?
4. Also do let me know if the above configuration I decided is OK. Suggestions, questions welcome.

 

[adamb]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

Hi Team,

I am planning to set up Zimbra mail server on Proxmox server which has below configuration for around 500 users.
Server config is = IBM x3650, Dual Processor, 64 GB of RAM, 4 TB SATA

Looking at the ease of backup and restore functionality, I opted for proxmox. I am planning to deploy Zimbra on CentOS 6.3. For this I am planning to create RAID1 for Proxmox and use around 500 GB for it. Remaining 3.5 TB will be used as a data storage in RAID 5 among that 2 TB will be used as /opt partition and remaining I am planning to use for backing up system.

Now my questions would be

1. Which CPU would you recommend? qemu or any other which can give me optimized performance
2. What do you suggest, virtualize a system or create a VPS?
3. Which backup method would you suggest LVM snapshot or native proxmox backup?
4. Also do let me know if the above configuration I decided is OK. Suggestions, questions welcome.

We have a cluster setup for zimbra which consists of 2x IBM x3550 M3's. This is a 2 node DRBD cluster in a primary/primary setup.

1. I use "Host" as my cpu type
- I do this mainly for AES-NI support in the guest
2. I would suggest KVM as we have had little to no issues
3. We currently use the native proxmox backup with no issues
4. Looks good to me, just realize that none of this will be supported by Zimbra

 

[pixelplumber]

1. I use "Host" as my cpu type
- I do this mainly for AES-NI support in the guest
2. I would suggest KVM as we have had little to no issues
3. We currently use the native proxmox backup with no issues
4. Looks good to me, just realize that none of this will be supported by Zimbra

Adding to these:
1 we just use qemu for portability but we have small zimbra installation <100 users
2 go with KVM. We used to use openvz but there are no problems with java heap size vs total system memory with OpenVZ. (There's a few threads on here and openvz.org forums about that)
3 use LVM snapshots with no issues.
4 looks good.

 

[blason16]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

Thanks Guys for your advice.

However I am pretty keen on knowing DRBD cluster that you set up using Proxmox. Would you mind shedding some more light on the setup, plss?

 

[adamb]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

I like to think of DRBD as RAID 1 over the network. Simply mirror one block device to another. For most 2 node setups you will have 2 DRBD RAID volumes and 1 OS RAID volume. Each node will have 2 DRBD resources. Lets call them drbd0 and drbd1. Node1 will replicate data from drbd0 to node2 drbd0. Node2 will replicate data from drbd1 to node1 drbd1.

Node1 Node2
drbd0 -> drbd0
drbd1 <- drbd1

This way each node always has the most up to date version of the disk image. When a migration takes place the ram and config files are transferred.

I would advise that you use 10GB backend for DRBD and cluster communcation. Also ensure you configure enough room on your OS partition for backups of your virtual machines.

 

[blason16]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

Yeah adamb. By the way do you have any document that I csn refer to? I really would appreciate that and also how do you backup on proxmox since drbd is completely different partition?

 

[adamb]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

Best suggestion is to refer to the proxmox wiki on DRBD or linbit.

I believe there are a few ways to backup. I currently backup to the OS partition. Or you could use some type of network storage.

 

[blason16]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

So I was about to start building DRBD before that would like to know which partitiob you kept on drbd? /opt or an entire VM kept on drbd?

 

[adamb]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

So I was about to start building DRBD before that would like to know which partitiob you kept on drbd? /opt or an entire VM kept on drbd?

DRBD is a block device. You will probably end up with 2 devices on each node. drbd0 and drbd1. These don't have a file system.

 

[blason16]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

DRBD is a block device. You will probably end up with 2 devices on each node. drbd0 and drbd1. These don't have a file system.

No I mean how your setup would look? I am talking from Zimbra perspective. Lets say I have cluster built of Proxmox nodes and have DRBD installed, you mean to say the entire vm will be migrated in case of failure?

Or only /opt partition where zimbra is installed?

 

[adamb]

Re: Installing Zimbra Mail server on Proxmox, which CPU would you suggest for better

The entire VM is migrated.