We are going to be rolling out new Branch server hardware in the next few months and with that new hardware will come Windows Server 2008 R2 using Hyper-V. The VM's will take the place of the physical servers at the branches. I looked up the specs on deploying an SCVMM server to manage the Hosts and the highest configuration is gives specs for is for more than 150 agents. My issue is our rollout will be to almost 750 Host servers (basically one per branch). Has anyone worked in an SCVMM environment this size (larger or close to it) and if so what were the SCVMM server specs? Also what about any issues? We have an SCVMM server already in our datacenter but it only manages about 20 Host servers and it was kind of a rough start when first implemented. R2 has fixed many of these issues but we're talking about a very large deployment. Thanks.
I'd agree you want error to the side of a bit extra in terms of resources. Have you planned for a library share at each branch as well? Don't want to drag .iso files across the WAN. Using PRO Integration? Need to consider OpsMgr mgmt groups in the design as well.
For the actual design decision criteria, I strongly suggest you have a look at the Infrastructure Plannning and Design Solution Accelerator for SCVMM 2008
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=ad3921fb-8224-4681-9064-075fdf042b0c&displaylang=en
It currently says :Updated! System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 – version 2.0 updated for SCVMM 2008 R2
The Infrastructure Plannning and Design Solution Accelerators have design guidance you will not find anywhere else. I wrote a bit about what exactly, which you'll find here.
Microsoft Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides: What do they provide and why do I need them?