ESXi and multiple Windows Server builds

[VinylxScratches]

Hey, so I want to get into doing Active Directory and stuff like that.

I have 2x Windows Server 2008, 2x Windows Server 2003 (from college and from Microsoft). What I would like to do is setup various functions in VMware or should I run Windows Server 2008 natively and use Virtual PC for other servers?

I would like to have a domain, active directory, run a web server/MS SQL, maybe a Linux server to run MySQL. Is this possible? I also want to run a Windows XP build to stream to my Xbox 360. Does this sound like too much for one PC? I have a feeling it does.

I have a Pentium Dual-Core machine with 4 GB of ram.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

As for separate VMs on this one machine, it sounds like way too much. first of all you will need a LOT of ram for servers..
I think that one machine can support 2-3 max.

 

[Viper GTS]

It's definitely doable, particularly if they're not getting heavy load.

I've run 10 XP VM's at once on a dual dual-core Xeon workstation w/4 GB (XP x64 + VMware Workstation). These were NetBurst based Xeons @ 3.2 GHz, so nothing special by modern standards. Performance sucked at that point but I was more disk and RAM limited than CPU.

If you avoid heavy load stuff (like encoding video) you'll probably be fine. Assign as much RAM as you can to each machine (upgrade to 8 GB if possible), and get as many hard drives as you can. Assign only one vCore per machine, & make use of ESXi's resource management to make sure one machine doesn't totally nuke your performance.

I think you'll get by just fine for home use.

Viper GTS

 

[RebateMonger]

Since you want to run Server 2008, you might look at Hyper-V. Your Server 2008 license, at a minimum, allows you to run Server 2008 with the Hyper-V role, and then run another instance as a VM inside of that.

I don't anticipate any problems running 2x Server 2008 plus 2x Server 2003 in 4 GB of RAM. You can give 1 GB of memory to each instance of Server 2008 (three in all) and give 512 MB of memory to each instance of Server 2003 (two of those). Hyper-V is a lot more fun to work with than Virtual PC.

Edit: I forgot about your XP box. It'd be nice if you could fit in another GB of memory for that. Your CPU should be fine, but the memory could be tight with XP in the mix. I don't know how much you can cut back on the Server 2008 memory. I haven't experimented with anything less than 1 GB of RAM.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches
Hey, so I want to get into doing Active Directory and stuff like that.

I have 2x Windows Server 2008, 2x Windows Server 2003 (from college and from Microsoft). What I would like to do is setup various functions in VMware or should I run Windows Server 2008 natively and use Virtual PC for other servers?

I would like to have a domain, active directory, run a web server/MS SQL, maybe a Linux server to run MySQL. Is this possible? I also want to run a Windows XP build to stream to my Xbox 360. Does this sound like too much for one PC? I have a feeling it does.

I have a Pentium Dual-Core machine with 4 GB of ram.

Running ESXi you can easily do the above. I'd add another 4GB of ram as another poster said, but that machine is more than enough for the very light load you've described running under ESXi.

Download the CD, add a few hard drives, add some RAM if you want, and you're off to the races.