Virtualisation - where to start?

[speckytecky]

I know nothing about virtualisation - where would be the best place to look to start gaining knowledge please.

[comedydave]

If its just to try running virtual machines try a piece of software called VMWare.

 

Server virtualisation, I don't have a clue if it is any different or not?

[Michael]

Server Virtualisation - Is essentially one physical server which is divided/split into several isolated virtual environments.

 

The advantage here is because servers have so much power, they can serve multiple operating systems (at the same time), which contain their own applications. It allows much higher densities and lower costs. It's also very green too so it's a win-win situation for everyone.

 

Another way to look at it is with traditional dual booting, of say Windows 98 and Windows XP which a lot of users did when XP first came out. Problem being you chose one or the other. Virtualisation would allow you to run both operating systems on the same hardware at the same time.

[Nozza]

An easy way to mess around with the basics is to get Virtual PC - it's free from Microsoft and install an OS. You soon get the hang of the concepts once you try configuring it. I've set up a little virtual network on my home PC, to assist with my MCSE study, with servers, workstations, domains, DNS, DHCP, subnets, NAT server etc. Only took an evening and I don't know what I'm doing!

[Zoom7000]

If you're looking to just pick up some knowledge, the way I did it was just to take the plunge and try it out.

 

I tried Microsoft's offerings: Virtual PC, Virtual Server and Hyper-V. With the exception of Hyper-V, the former 2 are very simple interfaces with very little in terms of features. They are free so give them a try. If you have a free workstation and it's relatively powerful enough, then give Hyper-V a try, much better than the other 2. Better still, if you can get your hands on a copy of Windows Server 2008, try Hyper-V on that.

 

I did all that before actually running Smoothwall's Network Guardian in our live environment. After finding that Smoothwall didn't go too well with Hyper-V (Hello Microsoft, meet my friend, Linux... err... no) We then moved over to the free VMware Server and I saw the differences straight away. For a free product it's great and definately worth a look at to get a true feel for virtualisation.

 

On my main desktop, I'm using VMware Workstation just for playing around. It's all bundled into a nice application as opposed to the web based interface with VMware Server and it has LOTS more features. It costs about £80 (Ramesys) and I love it! The kind of program that demonstrates why VMware is the market leader in Virtualisation.

 

There is also VMware ESXi (Free, I think - Again, needs a free workstation) and VirtualBox by Sun, albeit I haven't tried those 2.

[EduTech]

I Agree with the above.

 

When i wanted to take the plunge all i did was download VMware Server 2 (infact i downloaded a few different Virtulisation products) and installed server 2003 on it so i could mess around with that at home as a test server. once i did that i then created a windows xp virtual machine and started creating a virtual network

 

I never really got any books etc i just messed around at home and picked it up that way.

 

Its all good fun! on Vmware make sure you test our the snapshot functions etc so you know how they work it comes in useful

 

If you need any help though just give us a shout

 

James.

[OverWorked]

VMWare Server is how I got started, and it's still my product of choice. I haven't tried the MS products. It will run on a Windows OS. Just make sure you use a machine that has plenty of RAM (ideally 2GB or more), and also preferably run the virtual machines on a different drive from your host OS (for speed).

 

I've also looked at ESXi. It's also free and installs on the bare metal, rather than on a host OS. Because of this, it has a narrower range of machines it will run on.

 

EDIT: I second all that EduTech just said!

[ZeroHour]

I have used VM's virtual server and virtual pc but currently we are using 2008's hyper-v and its very straight forward to use.

[ServersPlus]

We work closely with a chap called Simon who runs Techhead.co.uk, a site devoted to virtualisation - It's a great source of information to get you started.

[Guest monkeyx]

Proxmox is a great open source solution. OpenVZ via Centos/Debian is also good. Proxmox provides a nice front end to OpenVZ and KVM. Well worth a look. We have got proxmox doing live machine migrations and is working great

[TronXP]

We are using VirtualBox All my techies have it installed on there machines and they use it quite a lot. I found it a good place to start personally when looking into virtualisation.

[diggory]

Using VMWare here. Tried it out using VM Workstation (free and installs as a normal windows program).

Found that VMWare do a free utility for converting machines to virtual ones, as well as converting between most virtual machines.

 

Running vSphere 4 on our servers - works very well.

 

Watch out for a few gotchas...

 

VM's will eat RAM - you'll need more

They'll also eat a fair amount of disk space.

 

They don't fair quite so well with disk intensive stuff - SQL databases and the like (although we are happily running exchange VM).

 

I'd try VMWare workstation on your machine - or even better, ESXi on a 'spare' machine to host a load of servers.

You can download fully setup virtual machines from the net or get a free P2V (physical to virtual) converter from VMWare to copy an existing machine to a virtual one

Edited June 12, 2009 by diggory

[john]

I'm a Microsoft Virtual Server guy and that works really well, use it on one server to run 2 VMs and I use it on my XP Pro PC to run 3 or 4 VMs on that which also is good

[tmcd35]

If you're serious about learning server virtualisation then one of the best places on the internet (even if it is brand specific) is the VMWare Community Forums: VMware Communities: Online Community for Virtualization and vSphere Experts

 

A very active community with an extremely good shared skill set and knowledge base. They helped me out tremendously while I was studying for my VCP and implementing my first virtual infrastructure at my last school.

[Dos_Box]

I'm moving this thread to the Virtualisation forum. Perhaps that would be a good place to start?

[Sandman]

I know nothing about virtualisation - where would be the best place to look to start gaining knowledge please.

 

Best bet is to install ESXi and mess about with VMs

 

Xtravirt have a load of good papers to help you get started

 

VMware ESXi 4 Quick Install Guide: VMware ESXi 4 Quick Install Guide | Xtravirt

[flashsnaps]

Are virtual machines still prone to system and file errors preventing them from booting? If I have a physical server running a couple of virtual servers, Do they all pick up their own IP addresses and do I need additional network cards?

[CyberNerd]

Are virtual machines still prone to system and file errors preventing them from booting?

 

yep, they are still computers

Computers have a funny habit of killing themselves when users 'use' them.

+ side is that recovery of v-servers is usually quicker.

 

If I have a physical server running a couple of virtual servers, Do they all pick up their own IP addresses and do I need additional network cards?

 

It depends on how you setup the networking, if you bridge the network card you don't need an additional network card and you can set them to DHCP from a virtual network card.

[tmcd35]

I know nothing about virtualisation - where would be the best place to look to start gaining knowledge please.

Best bet is to install ESXi and mess about with VMs

 

No offence but not really the best advice IMHO. ESX is very hardware picky - to the point of not running VM's off of IDE/SATA hard drive unless they part of a NFS or iSCSI storage.

 

ESX is for server class hardware and something you play with once you know a) what you want from Virtualisation, and b) that you have compatible hardware to run it.

 

 

A better starting point would be either VMWare Server or Microsoft Virtual Server. Both run on top of a regular Windows XP/Vista/2003/2008 workstation. Best bet is to install one of these and then mess about with a few VM's.

[CyberNerd]

@tmcd35

 

you make good points about ESXi - but ESX is the market leader, and arguably best, server virtualisation product. ESXi is VMware's entry level product and designed for 'testing' - only cheapskates like me who didn't have time to learn free KVM/XEN got suckered into it. but it is still a good product with good upgrade prospects.

[apaton]

ESXi is VMware's entry level product and designed for 'testing'.

 

Sorry I can't agree. ESXi is a fully robust enterprise solution and has the same core features as ESX. ESXi is strongly recommended to be deployed in production environments.

 

The free version of ESXi is limited by its management facilities, as it can't be managed by VCENTER.

 

For testing of virtualisation I would favour VMWARE Server or Sun's VirtualBox.

 

Andy

[CyberNerd]

Sorry I can't agree. ESXi is a fully robust enterprise solution and has the same core features as ESX. ESXi is strongly recommended to be deployed in production environments.

 

The free version of ESXi is limited by its management facilities, as it can't be managed by VCENTER.

 

For testing of virtualisation I would favour VMWARE Server or Sun's VirtualBox.

 

Andy

 

That is a fair point. We do use EXSi in production.

 

Surely to test something you need to test in the same environment that that you intend to use the software.

- theres is little point 'testing' an XP installation if you replace it with vista/

[DMcCoy]

ESXi is just an embeded version of the ESX hypervisor, without the Linux VM for managment. Virtually all features are the same, and many server have usb ports on the inside to use this version.

 

The only difficulties are when you don't have sufficient CIM provider support for all your hardware, whereas with the ESX console you can install things like OpenManage, Powerchute etc.

[tmcd35]

@tmcd35

 

you make good points about ESXi - but ESX is the market leader, and arguably best, server virtualisation product. ESXi is VMware's entry level product and designed for 'testing' - only cheapskates like me who didn't have time to learn free KVM/XEN got suckered into it. but it is still a good product with good upgrade prospects.

 

Then use VMWare Server for testing, the .vmdk files are easy to transfer to ESX(i) if you decide to go full virtualisation later.

 

To suggest to a noob (no offence to the OP) that they should either a)re-format their server or b) spend £100's or £1000's upgrading or buying a compatible server in order to test virtualisation is crazy.

 

Yes ESXi is for testing. But only after you've tested virtualisation in other ways, know 100% it's what you need/want and are evaluating a servers suitability for the full ESX product.