Virtulisation and Virtual Server

[Kyle]

Can someone point me to some reading for this. I know nothing about this at all and keep hearing people mention it all over the place.

What triggered my thoughts off is that a techie from another school said he had several SQL databases configured as a virtual server spread across 3 servers. He said if one goes down no one ever notices which gives him time to get it up and runnig nagain.

Not got a clue on this.

[Ric_]

http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/ is as good a place as any to begin learning.

The handy thing about virtualisation is that it allows you to play so that you can 'learn by doing'. Simply download VMWare Server, install a guest OS and that explore the features.

[Kyle]

Bloody hell Ric, you replied while i was editing the post.

[DMcCoy]

Can someone point me to some reading for this. I know nothing about this at all and keep hearing people mention it all over the place.

What triggered my thoughts off is that a techie from another school said he had several SQL databases configured as a virtual server spread across 3 servers. He said if one goes down no one ever notices which gives him time to get it up and runnig nagain.

Not got a clue on this.

Hmm, sounds more like a cluster to me. You can create clusters with virtual machines, but they are not ideal, needing a shared storage area - with all the limitations that clustering has.

[maniac]

I've got a box running virtual server.

I use it mainly for testing purposes, as it's very easy to wipe the virtual machines and start from scratch, or even restore them to a previous state by copying the virtual harddrive files. To be honest I found the whole virtual server application very easy to setup and configure, I don't think I ever read any instructions on setting it up, just followed my nose.

The other use of this in my school at the moment is as a webserver. Some of the year 9 students wanted to know if they could establish their own intranet in the school. We thought about this for a bit, and they got the go-ahead from SLT, so I thought the safest option was to host this intranet on a virtual server, and give the students responsible for it FTP access to the htdocs directory. This is good because if for some reason they find a way round the servers security, they can't do a lot of damage other than to the virtual machine, which only hosts their intranet anyway!

I've also got another virtual machine that is an exact copy of my main domain controller (although on a different domain name) this allows me to test active directory changes etc. in the virtual environment before introducing them to the main network.



Mike.

[Kyle]

I've also got another virtual machine that is an exact copy of my main domain controller

How did you do this?

[Geoff]

You could use the VMWare machine converter.

http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/

[PiqueABoo]

sounds more like a cluster to me

Agreed.. the term "virtual server" applies to stuff besides the VMWare product.

[Ric_]

@PiqueABoo: Isn't a cluster called a cluster though?

[PiqueABoo]

Yep but "virtual server" was an installation option and what you called SQL on a cluster. Note "was", I haven't done much with serious SQL for a while and 2005 says:

"The previous terminology was known as a "virtual server," but the[sic] has been changed to avoid confusion with the Microsoft Virtual Server product."

Ughh.. hard day (VMWare Server != MS Virtual Server).

[Ric_]

@PiqueABoo: Just seeing if you would bite Your point explains nicely why it is safer to use the term "virtual machine"