Right I have an N36L sat here doing nothing, and want to start looking at running some low power VMs making migrations of hardware a little easier in the future, will also give me a test box to install stuff on and play with before rolling out.
Question is which VM OS
V-sphere 5 - seems to have time limitation, some say you can use limited features if you install a free licence, can't work out how to do this after much googling, and think there are other options without limitations.
Xen - looks like this may be an option, doesn't have the limitations, not had a real play yet.
Hyper-V - seems you can't install the legit management software on W7 home, which is a PITA.
I've got 6GB ram and will add an additional Nic if I can setup something I'm happy with, I don't want to dick around in the command line, so want something I can manage via a GUI. Any advice from someone who actually running one would be handy, and if you can get me past any limitations would also be useful!
Haven't used XEN so can't comment.
I've just built my lab again (trash it after each lab). Last one was esxi 5.5. Not bad - but having to have a separate server for each function is a PITA (vcenter, SRM etc..). Also vsphere console is far more laggy then hyper-v console (vmware fans will shoot me down here but as a complete neutral it is by some way). Either way you'll want RDP on the VM's ASAP.
HYPERV is what I've gone for now using server 2012 (I don't mind the time limit on unlicensed) - usefully though as Windows 8 will run hyperv VM's. Absolutely love it so far - its fast, reliable, and I can co-locate services right on the hypervisor which is perfect for labs (AD, DNS, clustering, tools etc...). Dynamic memory is really useful as it allows RAM to be allocated but also expanded on request. Also USB compatibility is as per any server OS so mouse,keyboards,USB disk drives can all be attached without issue. Older versions of ESXi were ok but I've had loads of unsupported devices using 5.5. Also more likely to use command line in Vmware - I've had to use it a few times to fix a few issues, I've never really had to use powershell for HYPERV (although it is useful if you want to use it).
HYPERV is my shout - but they'll all do the same thing at the end of the day.
So both ESXi and Hyper-V I have discounted due to trivial issues (Licencing and not being able to run management software on my laptop)
Xen however, feels like ESXi from a management point of view and doesn't have the limitations from what I can see..
I've setup a couple of VMs with very little issue, only to have a play at the moment, can also pretty much get full control from my phone, which is an added bonus..
It's running on an N36L, so the console view is a little slow (I assume its the computer not Xen)
But I'm quite impressed from a usability perspetive, I'm obviously not using this to the same level as yourself, it was more that I had a system sitting round doing nothing and I wanted to have a play.
Will order another network card and give pfSense (probably) a proper play in a VM and see if it still maintains reliability. I'f nothing else will mean an easier migration in the future
Hmm didn't realise Xen had gone open source - no brainer for what you're after!! Might have to check that out myself.
If you do let me know how it compares! It's difficult to find any decent reviews online!
Might seem like a n00by question but for the uninitiated...
I have to use VMs at work running through VirtualBox (to boot a copy of our site from a linux server ISO), what's the difference between something like that and what these do?
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 29, 2014, 21:01:03 PM
Might seem like a n00by question but for the uninitiated...
I have to use VMs at work running through VirtualBox (to boot a copy of our site from a linux server ISO), what's the difference between something like that and what these do?
As a very basic indicator Nige its stuff like high availability, migration of VM's between different hosts and centralised management for large numbers of VM's etc.. There's far far more than that but that's the sort of thing.
Right, so massive amounts of extra server-side type functionality, rather than VirtualBox which is more of a workstation tool.
I also use virtual box, which is essentially a bit of software that sits on your computer, so you will have all the additional overheads, however essentially if you are running one computer this will give you a very similar experience, and I have found a better experience if you want to use the GUI of the hosted OS.
However what we are talking about below is the more commercial side of things, where you are looking at dedicated computers, and usually server farms. You can install a server on the host, then move to a different physical machine if required with very little disruption, you can "upgrade" components for that particular machine.. you could increase the RAM or move the storage to a different location (i.e. faster disks).
Also think of it this way.. if you have 5 servers... One as a domain server, one as email, one as storage etc etc.. but 95% of the time they are all at only 20% resource utilisation or less, then what you could do is install all on the same physical server, occasionally one may require more CPU or RAM, but at the same time it's likely others wouldn't... It's all about providing virtual resources..
There are a lot of benefits to VMs, in my instance the benefits are small in a commercial aspect they are huge... Think of the dedicated web servers you buy for next to no money on the internet, you don't think that somewhere that there is a physical computer with a CPU and a 1TB hard disk in it, it'll all be VMs with a virtual pool of HDD space and RAM, as most users for example will only ever use a few hundred MBs of space at best :)
Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 30, 2014, 11:49:43 AM
Right, so massive amounts of extra server-side type functionality, rather than VirtualBox which is more of a workstation tool.
Pretty much. The Vmware equivalent of virtual box isn't Esxi - its VMware Workstation currently version 10 I think... This is running multiple VM's on top of your laptop OS setup, same as virtual box. You have to pay for VMware workstation - I have it on my work laptop. Its great - a lot slicker and easier to use, but like you I use Virtual Box at home because for a free tool its superb.
I do stuff with Hyper-V. It's great - install your host, pull a sysprepped image of a server across (or PXE boot to WDS) add a few simple power shell scripts and you can build a new domain plus add a dozen member servers in under an hour.
Xen is OK but the GUI ain't great IMO and you still need to fall back to the CLI quite often.
I'd vote Hyper-V any day. It's just a shame you need a win8 or a server 2012 box to manage it. I tend to put the Hyper-V RSAT on a guest os and work from that.
Might install windows 8 on Virtual Box and give it another play then :)
RSAT tools are good - SCVMM is great too if you've more than 1 host.