Systems Management

Hi Folks,

We are planning to use an ESX server purely for our packaging activities. Currently we are using vmware workstations. The requirement is to use vms on the esx server .

REQUIREMENT :

1. 40 VMs to be powered on (Peak/Maximum) at a given point of time.
2. Mostly the vms will be Windows 7 (64 & 32bit) and Windows Xp 32bit. Sometimes Windows server 2003.
3. each Vm will have a memory of 1gb and hdd space of 40gb.

Currently am looking at :

PowerEdge M910 Blade Server or PowerEdge R720 Rack Server
2x Intel® Xeon® E7520 1.86GHz, 18M cache, 4.80 GT/s QPI, Turbo, HT, 4C, 800MHz Max mem
64GB Memory (16x4GB), 1066MHz, Dual Ranked LV RDIMMs for 2 or 4 Processor
500GB 7.2K RPM Near-Line SAS 6Gbps 2.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive 

The problem with the above configuration is that the pricing is going above the budget substantially. Hence can i achieve the requirement mentioned above with the below configuration :

PowerEdge M910 Blade Server or PowerEdge R720 Rack Server
2X Intel® Xeon® E6510 1.73GHz, 12M cache, 4.80 GT/s QPI, Turbo, HT, 6C, 800MHz Max mem
16GB Memory (8x2GB), 1066MHz, Single Ranked LV RDIMMs for 2 or 4 Processor
300GB 10K RPM SAS 6Gbps 2.5in Hot-plug Hard Drive

I have also gone through the below post and various other posts/blogs/articles available on the net. I need some practical help on the planning . I also need some help on choosing the right ESX like ESX or ESi with vcenter/vsphere etc.

http://www.itninja.com/question/what-kind-of-hardware-do-you-use-for-repackaging

Thanks,

hrs