Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Free VMware Server software

<< < (2/3) > >>

Rover:
The free server stuff was only launched yesterday (according to the email I got) ... the other stuff yes ... but I figured an extra link wouldn't do any harm!
-Carol Haynes (March 28, 2006, 02:13 AM)
--- End quote ---
I've been using the VMServer Beta for about 6 weeks.  They did release a new build on 3/9/06...that's Mar. 9, 2006 for those not in the USA. :)

mouser:
i use vmware workstation a lot but
im still not entirely sure how one "uses" the server - i.e. what you use it to do.
rover could you tell us a little how you are *using* it?

Rover:
mouser - so glad you asked  :D

I do some consulting work for a local school system.  The have a special grant/fund for technology so they have a lot more money than most schools.  We're in the process of installing a 10 TB SAN.  They just purchased 4 HP/Compaq DL380 Servers w/ Dual P4 Xeons.

They run Netware for file/print and NDS services.  Netware (even OES Linux) doesn't take advantage of 64-bit chips.  So I installed CentOS 4.2 x86_64, and VMWare Server (Beta).  I can run 5 Virtual Servers on this box with about 5% CPU utilization.  Using the SAN Storage we carved out two 100 G Virtual drives.  I have two servers in this configuration, 100 G for each.  Storing the entire Virtual Machine on SAN allows me to switch between physical servers.  VM Server does not allow running transfers between VM Servers but the ESX version does.  For our purposes a 5 minute outage is acceptable while the VM spins up on the 2nd VMHost.

We just finished the testing phase and are starting to really plan VMs.  So far we have:
1 Win2K3 VM
1 CentOS i386 VM
1 Windows XP Pro workstation VM
1 Netware 6.5 SP 4 VM
1 OES Linux SP2 VM

These don't really tax the system, so we have room for more.  We plan on adding at least 1 more Netware VM and 1 more CentOS VM.  That will give us a 3:1 advantage over physical boxes.  Using 2 bonded 1Gbit NICs, we should see no performance lag in any of these systems.

One really cool thing about the SAN is the ability to hide virtual drives.  The VM Server can ONLY see the 2 100 G Virtual drives we created.  Other V Drives will be available only to other server.  The cool thing about Linux is that I can see both VDrives from both servers, but I only mount partitions on 1 at a time.

Answer your question?   ;)

mouser:
so
basically it lets you create virtual servers and *run them at the same time* (is that right?), so basically you can have a set of isolated independent servers, each protected from harming one another, and you run your system on a virtual server, which makes it easier to do certain things (like backups, experiments,etc.).
is that about right

Rover:
You've got it mouser.

The theory is that most servers sit idle most of the time and there is usually more horsepower available than is actually used.  So you put them togeather on a hight end machine and get more value from your hardware.


Product Note:  The Free VMWare Server requires an operating system to run from.  They have a product called ESX that is it's own OS.  Cool stuff.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page