best platform to run vmware from

[lockmac]

Hi guys. I have just purchased 2x Dell PE 1750's (2.4ghz)

Anyways, I purchased these amongth a whole lot of Cisco gear to study my CCNA as wel as using the servers to learn various operating systems and stuff, such as Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft Exchange and anything else you guys can suggest.

How would I go about setting up the virtual servers for these?

Would I just install a copy of Windows XP on both of these, install VMWare on these two machines and run my virtual servers from their or is their a beter platform that I can load onto these before running the VMware?

Many thanks

 

[VinylxScratches]

VMware ESXi might be worth looking into since a lot of companies are trending towards that.

 

[Viper GTS]

+1 for ESXi

Powerful and free.

Viper GTS

 

[MrChad]

ESXi is certainly ideal in terms of its tiny footprint and performance. You'll need to see if your hardware is compatible though, as pure hypervisors are pickier than other VMWare products that run within host operating systems.

If ESXi does not work, I would load Ubuntu on there and run VMWare Server.

 

[lockmac]

OK so I am downloading ESXi. How does it work, do I install VMWare Server on top of this or...

sorry new to this

 

[Viper GTS]

Given that he's purchased a Dell server the odds are very good he'll have full support for everything.

The best way to run ESXi is off of a flash drive, do your servers have an internal USB port? The 1950/2950 have a standard USB port inside that you can plug an ordinary flash drive into. ESXi can be installed on a 1 GB flash drive, which leaves your disks entirely for VM use.

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2...2-on-a-usb-memory-key/

Follow those instructions (it works equally well with the Update 3 download that was on VMware's website the last time I downloaded it). After you have it up & running you'll want to update to the latest version of Update 4.

ESXi is a bare-metal hypervisor, it's all you need to be up & running.

1) Prepare your USB key (or install to hdd if you'd prefer)
2) Configure your password/ip adress via the console
3) Connect to the management IP address using any web browser & download the infrastructure client
4) Install Update 4

Viper GTS

 

[lockmac]

Just watched a video on it and am starting to understand it.

Ill see how I go.. will give it a go this arvo or possibly tomorrow and let you guys know.

Cheeers

 

[lockmac]

Hi guys. Whats the minimum system requirement to run Exsi in terms of memory? As these are older servers (only 512 meg), its saying something like "not enough of the above memory). Is this suggesting that theirs not enough system memory?

Thanks

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: lockmac
Hi guys. Whats the minimum system requirement to run Exsi in terms of memory? As these are older servers (only 512 meg), its saying something like "not enough of the above memory). Is this suggesting that theirs not enough system memory?

Thanks

It has a minimum requirement of 1GB of RAM. More is highly recommended.

 

[Viper GTS]

To accomplish anything with VMware you need a lot more than 512 MB. This is not just an ESXi limitation, the same thing applies to ANY virtualization. The good news is those servers appear to accept up to 8 GB, the bad news is that it is DDR (As in DDR1). And registered/ECC at that. You're going to spend more on memory than you likely spent on the servers if you try to upgrade to 8 GB per machine. It looks like you could do 4 GB for about $250 per machine (crucial prices here) so I would be looking on ebay for used memory.

Viper GTS

 

[Genx87]

How do you manage the VM's without infrastructure?

 

[LuckyTaxi]

I have 3 ESX host running a little over 10 VMs. We paid almost $9k for the entire suite (licenses for 6 CPUs). I started out with the free edition but we upgraded to get the VMotion and DRS features. So far it's been a learning experience and it's been fun. TO answer your question, now this is coming from a ESX standpoint but I'm sure its somewhat similar to running ESXi.

- MORE ram the better. Two of my boxes have 40G and the third has 64G
- VMs can be used w/o the VirtualCenter client but it gets a little tricky (you'll have to log into each server individual to do certain tasks).

 

[Chiefcrowe]

another vote for VMWare. they make some great stuff!!

 

[quikah]

you can use VI client to connect to the ESXi server.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: LuckyTaxi
I have 3 ESX host running a little over 10 VMs. We paid almost $9k for the entire suite (licenses for 6 CPUs). I started out with the free edition but we upgraded to get the VMotion and DRS features. So far it's been a learning experience and it's been fun. TO answer your question, now this is coming from a ESX standpoint but I'm sure its somewhat similar to running ESXi.

- MORE ram the better. Two of my boxes have 40G and the third has 64G
- VMs can be used w/o the VirtualCenter client but it gets a little tricky (you'll have to log into each server individual to do certain tasks).

144GB of RAM on 3 hosts for just 10 VMs? Surely you meant 100 VMs? Are you running 64 bit OSs with 10GB of RAM or so on each? Can you explain a bit more please? That's a stunning amount of RAM!

I'm running about 4-10 VMs on a single quad-core 8GB Dell consumer Inspiron 518 box - $500 or so all told, works great. ESXi. Totally free. Great stuff.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

how's the performance when all or most of the VMs are running? also what kind of hard drives do you have and what speed/size?

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: LuckyTaxi
I have 3 ESX host running a little over 10 VMs. We paid almost $9k for the entire suite (licenses for 6 CPUs). I started out with the free edition but we upgraded to get the VMotion and DRS features. So far it's been a learning experience and it's been fun. TO answer your question, now this is coming from a ESX standpoint but I'm sure its somewhat similar to running ESXi.

- MORE ram the better. Two of my boxes have 40G and the third has 64G
- VMs can be used w/o the VirtualCenter client but it gets a little tricky (you'll have to log into each server individual to do certain tasks).

144GB of RAM on 3 hosts for just 10 VMs? Surely you meant 100 VMs? Are you running 64 bit OSs with 10GB of RAM or so on each? Can you explain a bit more please? That's a stunning amount of RAM!

I'm running about 4-10 VMs on a single quad-core 8GB Dell consumer Inspiron 518 box - $500 or so all told, works great. ESXi. Totally free. Great stuff.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Chiefcrowe
how's the performance when all or most of the VMs are running? also what kind of hard drives do you have and what speed/size?

I don't have a RAID setup; performance is perfect for everything but disk. I have 3 physical disks, and there is contention when multiple VMs need to hit the same physical disk for some reason (for example, 3-4 of them booting at once, installing MS updates at once, etc.) Most of the time you'll never notice, but if performance is a major, major issue, a RAID card can help. For me it's not a mission critical box - it's a testbox / playbox, and all of this can be scheduled, so it's not an issue.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: dclive

Originally posted by: Chiefcrowe
how's the performance when all or most of the VMs are running? also what kind of hard drives do you have and what speed/size?

The other issue I'd like to raise is that performance is essentially the same as physical hardware, but drastically more efficient (because I have 10 VMs on 1 physical box, 4-10 of them running at any given time).

I've done away with using physical hardware anymore; it's pointless. (I have an XBOX360/PS3 for games and an Apple laptop for user-interactive tasks.)

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS
To accomplish anything with VMware you need a lot more than 512 MB. This is not just an ESXi limitation, the same thing applies to ANY virtualization. The good news is those servers appear to accept up to 8 GB, the bad news is that it is DDR (As in DDR1). And registered/ECC at that. You're going to spend more on memory than you likely spent on the servers if you try to upgrade to 8 GB per machine. It looks like you could do 4 GB for about $250 per machine (crucial prices here) so I would be looking on ebay for used memory.

Viper GTS

The hypervisor will PSOD with 512 MB when the contents of the bootbank are expanded into memory. Even with some OEM extensions 1 GB is not enough. IIRC, the minimum has been moved to 2 GB as of Update 4.

 

[dclive]

Given that I'd suggest just selling the servers, buying a basic Dell Inspiron 518 / 530 or similar (Intel ICH8-9-10 chipset) and going from there if this is for use as a simple home setup. That's more than sufficient, far cheaper, far simpler, far cooler, and will use far less electricity.