Configuration in multi-installation scenario

JanGD

Hello all,

i am currently working out some general requirements for a multi installation scenario, which we are planning. I tried the search but haven't found anything similar.
We are hosting (going to host) multiple installations from various countries (including Far-East with Doublebyte characterset). We plan on serious hardware, nothing cheap, but reasonable.
Final installation would be about 20 countries with each 20 concurrent users (slowly growing) in some years (5-8).
Now i am thinking about the best hosting solution.

The SQL Solution i think is not so complex to plan.
I am thinking of a machine with 8-16 cores, 48GB RAM with our *sick* SAN connected. Maybe 2 of these machines for fallover.
I thought about setting up 2 Hyper-V win2k8r2 servers with sql2008r2 on that host machine:
One for doublebyte characterset countries (Korea, China, Japan, etc) and another for the "other" countries.

My problem is now the configuration of the up to 20 Service Tiers. (per country/db one ST)
I read somewhere that MS suggests to have a dedicated virtual server per service tier. This would make a total of 20 virtual servers. That can't be hosted if these Hyper-Vs each need 4 cores, 4 GB RAM.

Aside that, if i am not mistaken the Client and Service Tier needs to be on the same timezone to be able to connect. This would split it to "for each timezone" at least. I am not sure if this problem of Dynamics NAV 2009 was resolved in SP1.

The "other" solution would be to consolidate all Service Tiers on a "timezone-basis" with multiple timezone-matching Service Tiers installed on one Hyper-V server. This would require less virtual servers, but as stated earlier, i read somewhere that MS suggest 1 service tier per virtual server.

A Service-Tier hosting server could look like the sql server spec i wrote above.

Suggestions/Ideas are appreciated
Thanks in advance!
~jan