Proxmox for virtual windows enviroment?

[mik_se7]

I'm looking to virtualise my windows network and i came across this soultion and wondered if this could be the cost saving solution i have been looking for? originally i was looking at using VMware ESXi to virtualise 2 physical servers on to one physical set of hardware and then replicate and add more servers on to the old physical servers and then setup virtual desktops and introduce thin clients.

what i want to know is if Proxmox can do the same and be reliable?

I currently have 2 x windows 2008 R2 servers and a network of mainly windows XP Pro and 7 Pro desktops with a few Imacs running OS X and snow leopard, the servers are domain controllers / file servers and no exchange server. i have only played a little with Linux so I'm a newbie in that sense so all the info i can get will be useful.

thanks
Michael

 

[hotwired007]

There are loads of people on the forum who have done the same just be aware that you will/may need to buy some additional hardware if you want to use HA (fencing device) and also for a stable cluster you will need (in my opinion) at least 3 servers probably 4

have a read through the wiki (http://pve.proxmox.com) and have a play on a spare x64 PC/Server and see how simple (and quick) it is to install and configure.

there is some useful information about P2V (Physical to Virtual) conversion in the wiki - my prefered method is the clonezilla method for local machine conversion.

 

[mik_se7]

There are loads of people on the forum who have done the same just be aware that you will/may need to buy some additional hardware if you want to use HA (fencing device) and also for a stable cluster you will need (in my opinion) at least 3 servers probably 4

have a read through the wiki (http://pve.proxmox.com) and have a play on a spare x64 PC/Server and see how simple (and quick) it is to install and configure.

there is some useful information about P2V (Physical to Virtual) conversion in the wiki - my prefered method is the clonezilla method for local machine conversion.

I plan to purchase an additional physical server to install a complete new windows domain because i will be merging 2 seperate networks and the plan is to replicate the server issuing active directory etc to another physical server in case of hardware failure and have a virtual file server / storage area replicated on 2 of the physical servers and so on so everytime i have a standby in case of hardware failure. I'm then hoping if all that goes well to either create another virtual server for virtual desktops or add another physical server for that task and then introduce thin clients.

does that make sense?