advantages to virtualization

[TechBoyJK]

I know there are many advantages to virtualization, but I'm curious if any ATOT members have any specific examples where their job and life was made easier from it.

If you can cite what virtualization technology you used to that would be great..

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I know there are many advantages to virtualization, but I'm curious if any ATOT members have any specific examples where their job and life was made easier from it.

If you can cite what virtualization technology you used to that would be great..

For some apps, using a virtualized version of Windows Server can help consolidate the servers which require specific functions and need to be up 24 / 7 but aren't often used. You can consolidate several onto a hardware platform that is much smaller in size than it may have been 5 years ago for instance.

 

[Kadarin]

On my MacBook Pro, it's very helpful for me to use the bootcamp image of XP in a Parallels VM.

 

[PrimoTurbo]

I used it to figure out the install process of arch linux, so a real install would not mess up my system.

 

[Genx87]

I am in the process of working on a virtualization project. Consolidating servers, using a virtual desktop for end users, DR ease, and deployment are all helped by virtualization.

 

[Aberforth]

Virtualization takes care of deployment and compatibility issues especially with legacy software/os.

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

I run Windows XP Pro and have a apache server within it to keep things separate from my main OS. It will soon have Visual Studio 2005 so I can do some web development in .NET. I'd like to create my own forum software.

In the business world I know they upgraded some machines to Windows XP, then created a virtual machine for dos to use some really old legacy software.

 

[sourceninja]

Vmware ESX has saved the place I work hundreds of thousands of dallors in soft and hard costs. First, we would of been required to buy about 18 dell servers to handle what our vmware blade handles. Then there is the power costs, heat generated, rack space, maintenance costs, and remote management costs (the esx client is a lot cheaper then a kvm solution). I no longer need to maintain a testing environment for every production system.

Here are a few case uses.

Our print server runs on ubuntu and is virtualized. It was installed on Ubuntu 6.06. We wanted to migrate to 8.04. I simply shut the machine down and made a snapshot. Then I installed 8.04. The installation went perfectly. Normally I would require a test machine to work with first, before the production machine.

We have a wiki server used by employees for documentation of processes and procedures. We require a 6am to 8pm uptime monday-friday on this server. Before we moved it to ESX, I would have to come in after 8pm or on weekends to do maintenance. Again this server is ubuntu. We again wanted to migrate from 6.06 to 8.04. I went a different route this time for some special reasons (we do not want any downtime). First I cloned the server to a new virtual machine, next I booted in single user mode and changed the hostname and ip on the clone. I then shutdown the clone and took a snapshot of it. Next I booted into the clone and ran the upgrade. It failed because the wiki was designed to use python 2.4 and dist-upgrade replaced that with 2.5. We had expected this and planned to upgrade the wiki to a version that supported 2.5. Unfortunately that upgrade process failed. Now had this been a production machine, I would be screwed because the wiki was no longer in a usable state. Instead, I reverted back to my snapshot and tried again, found my mistake and corrected it. Finally I booted back into single user mode, changed the IP and hostname back to the correct values. I then set a scheduled task on the old 6.06 wiki server to shutdown at 8:30pm. I then set a task in ESX to boot up the new wiki server at 8:40pm. I went home for the night. The next day I come to work and everything is running perfectly.

 

[Brovane]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
I know there are many advantages to virtualization, but I'm curious if any ATOT members have any specific examples where their job and life was made easier from it.

If you can cite what virtualization technology you used to that would be great..

Well from the Desktop side I think that virtualization has been great. I use it almost every day at work and also at home. I have a Domain VM at home so when I need to work instead of having to break out my laptop I just startup my VM and VPN into the network and I can work.

From the work side VMware ESX Server 3.5 is incredibly powerful. We have 3 Dell R900 Servers on the VM cluster each with 2 Quad Core CPU and 64GB of RAM. I have ran over 40 VM's on one R900 with it using about 50% of the resources of the Physical Server. With the ESX virtualization I am not bound by hardware limitations. I need to increase the RAM no problem, increase hard disk space no problem, take a snap shot of a VM before I patch it no problem, make a clone of VM for development purposes no problem. I can move VM's around the physical boxes on the ESX cluster without them ever going down. I can even move the VM"s between LUN's on the SAN while still keeping the VM up and running. A Developer needs a Server 2003 VM for testing. NP We have base clone VM that has a template already setup for it and in less than 15-mins I can give them a VM. I was in a meeting a couple of months ago and the Developer Manager wanted two new VM's to do some testing for a new application. While we were still in the meeting I provisioned both the new machines and by the time I left the meeting I sent him the Server names and said have at it. Also by using the import tool on ESX Server I can P2V (Physical to Virtual) a box. I basically tell it the name of the Server that I want to virtualize and it will convert the machine running on physical hardware into a virtual machine. We have a old desktop machine still running Server 2000 with a application that was developed by a developer that is no longer with the company. Management didn't know what to do. I basically virtualized the box and turned off the Desktop and now the Development team has time to develop a replacement application.

Also I can save myself on licensing costs. Microsoft in 07 changed some licensing on there Data Center server OS. Basically you can run unlimited OS's on a server licensed for DataCenter. We checked with Microsoft and you don't even have to load the Data Center OS on the VM server. We can buy DataCenter server for around $1600 per socket. So you spend $3200 for a 2-socket license for Data Center and you ESX server can have unlimited OS's on it and you don't pay anything more. You basically designate that the DataCenter License is registered to the VM server even thought you will never load DataCenter on the server. Yes the corporate licensing person did call MS on this and they did confirm in writing that this is exactly how it works. So as long as you are running more than 10 VM's on a physical server you come out ahead.

 

[RebateMonger]

Very informative stuff, sourceninja and Brovane. Thanks.

 

[Jeff7181]

I use virtualization at home daily. I run some investing software I have in an XP virtual machine so I can move the disk image between computers and have the exact same data rather than different data sets on different PCs.
I used to run Windows Home Server on a spare box, and then ran an XP virtual machine for the family to use to browse the web and check email.