Continuing on with my series of beginning system administration questions currently this is what I have to work with:
Dual processor 3 GHz Xeon 64-bit single core, 4 GB RAM server
- Domain Controller
- DNS Server
- File Server
- IIS - ASP.NET
- SQL Server and Reporting Services
- Internally accessible only
Single processor dual-core 3 GHz Xeon 64-bit, 1 GB RAM server
- VPN
- Team Foundation Server
- Externally Accessible (hence why VPN)
As my role is truly software development with system administration being a sub-role, as I was adding these services I really started to realize how cramped the primary server was becoming. Especially when I found out that Team Foundation Server won't even allow itself to be installed on a Domain Controller.
At this point I really started to look into Hyper-V and virtualization. However, I'm not really sure which way would be the best to allocate the machines if I go down the virutalization route. Should I upgrade the RAM on both servers and virtualize everything?
If I go that route does it become that much of an issue for cold starts for the Domain Controllers to be virtual?
If I make one of the virtual machines handle VPN as well, does that increase the security risk to the domain since the machine would house other virtual machines also? Along this question also, what is deemed acceptable to have installed for a network on an externally facing server?
Finally what level of separation becomes more overhead than beneficial? Would it be worthwhile to have each main server role in its own VM?