[news] - Free VMware Server?

[Handruin]

Sweet! Looks like VMware is going to start giving away its low-end server
product, in addition to the VMware "player" application it's already made available.

Link Source

 

[ddrueding]

I'm really looking forward to this. It looks to me like their "low end" product is still really fricking powerful. I've been wanting to play with it in a production enviroment for some time now.

 

[sechs]

Beyond the management tools, how different is GSX server from Workstation?

Sounds to me like they're going to be giving away one product and undercutting sales of another.

 

[Handruin]

Code-wise, I can't really say, but it does scale better than workstation. It can support more concurrent VM's over and above workstation.

GSX server allows for:
Supports servers with up to 32 processors *(max 2 virtual CPU per VM)
Supports up to 64GB of memory on the host system
Virtual disks up to 256GB in capacity
Virtual machines with up to 3.6GB of configured memory

Workstation:
Up to 3.6GB, depending on host memory
Maximum of 4GB total available for all virtual machines
IDE virtual disks up to 950GB

Only now in workstation 5.5 is there experimental support for 2 virtual cpus. If you want full support you need GSX or ESX server.

Both GSX and WS support about the same when it comes to guest OS's. For a complete list of support guest OS with respect to each product, click here.

The management tools do help and shouldn't be overlooked as fluff. The vmware remote console is very handy and is capable of more than and other remote connection such as VNC. The remote console keeps you connected during reboots and allows for power cycling and device controls. VirtualCenter is debatable for GSX, but preferable for ESX because of the vmotion functionality (which is damn cool I might add).

 

[mubs]

For me the only issue is that if one want's to use a Windows OS as the host, it's got to be a server OS, which I don't have. I think I can use Linux as a host, but will have 2 learning curves to go through, Linux and GSX.

 

[Bozo]

From the chart it looks like it runs on XP, 2000, & Server.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[mubs]

Nope. Non-server Windows OSes are supported as guests. For GSX to run, it needs a Windows server OS. See this page and scroll down to "Windows Host Operating Systems".

 

[theSwede]

This actually looks really nice. Unbeatable considering the price.

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/
http://www.vmware.com/products/server_comp.html

 

[Anathor21]

Nope. Non-server Windows OSes are supported as guests. For GSX to run, it needs a Windows server OS. See this page and scroll down to "Windows Host Operating Systems".

Of course "Supported" and "will run" are different things... I have a copy of GSX running on W2k Professional right now... Non-production environment and I have not done a lot to push it, but it seems to do what I ask of it at the moment.

 

[mubs]

Thanks, Anathor21, that's good to know!

 

[ddrueding]

I'm now very interested in this technology. I'm looking at building a server that I can test out in low-importance, production machines. Here's the spec I have so far:

Tyan Transport GX28$890
Samsung 250GB Drives 1 $100 $100
Dual-Core Opteron 265 1 $350 $350
Crucial 1GB PC3200 2 $85 $170
$1,510

 

[Mercutio]

I think you're insane spending that much money on something "low importance", but that may just be me.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm now very interested in this technology. I'm looking at building a server that I can test out in low-importance, production machines. Here's the spec I have so far:

Tyan Transport GX28
Samsung 250GB Drive
Dual-Core Opteron 265
2x Crucial 1GB PC3200

Total - $1,510

Which scales well into:

Tyan Transport GX28
4x Samsung 250GB Drives
2x Dual-Core Opteron 265
8x Crucial 1GB PC3200

Total - $2,670

Looks to me like these systems could handle 2 and 6 VMs respectively? That's a great savings on hardware...

 

[ddrueding]

I think you're insane spending that much money on something "low importance", but that may just be me.

Low importance is a relative term I guess. In many of my companies, many of the departments run software that "requires" it's own server (in other words, they are whiny about sharing server space with other apps). In some cases this is for good reason (like not changing the name of your SQL database from the default, and having it hard-coded into your app - don't laugh, we had 2 apps do this and one overwrote the other's dataset). These aren't rescource-intensive programs for the most part, some are only used rarely, some never get above 5% CPU util on the minimum spec machine.

I feel that sticking a bunch of these on a couple of these servers would save some dough and also give the flexability to load-balance easily.

 

[Mercutio]

You'll want to check the performance first. I don't think there's anything wrong with dual core or with that 2GB of RAM, but what's up with the super-custom 1U chassis and motherboard?

If you're spending that much why not go SuperMicro?

 

[ddrueding]

The VMWare forums say good things about running on dual-core Opterons and I've had good experiences with Tyan in the past, and the 1U chassis with 4 hot-swappable SATA drives looked really slick. I don't think it's overpriced at all considering the features:

Motherboard with:
Dual Dual-Core Opteron
Dual Gbe
Support for 16GB RAM (supports, but doesn't require, Reg and ECC)
Support for 4 SATA (supports RAID 0/1)
Typical server onboard video
PCI-X

And a chassis with:
4 Hot-swap SATA drive bays
400W Power Supply
CD-ROM

Not a bad deal, really. A similarly equipped server from Sun comes out to $4,300 and $8,600 respectively.

 

[CougTek]

Is space that much of a concern? If not, you would have more features and flexibility with either a 3U or a 4U chassis. A Supermicro H8DCE + SC833T-550 3U rackmount would cost you slightly less, while giving you a better PSU, better airflow, more expandability (8 hot-swappable SATA bays) and more possibility in the future if you plan to upgrade it with another motherboard.

 

[ddrueding]

Neat stuff, I'd forgotten that Supermicro did Opteron stuff. Does anyone have a reccomended reseller for them?

 

[CougTek]

No idea if it's a reliable store, but it has the H8DCE for cheap. Same thing for these guys.

 

[ddrueding]

Just registered for a seminar

No cool stuff, though. They could take a lesson from Microsoft.

 

[P5-133XL]

I'd go, but they aren't appearing in my state ....

 

[ddrueding]

I just got my first VMWare server in, just for testing. It's a Tyan B2865 Transport GT20 which features a S2865 Toncat K8E motherboard. I also threw in a 3800+ X2, 3GB of RAM and a pair of 300GB Seagate HDDs. I'm very impressed with the hardware so far, it went together very nicely and all seems to be built incredibly well. The fans are very noisy, there's a bank of 6 of them spinning at 10,000 RPM across the middle of the case, and that's throttled to 30%!

I'm installing Windows Server 2003 x64 edition now, and will be testing Microsoft's VM agains VMWare.

Any thoughts on possible advantages of x64 vs. 32-bit on this hardware for this task?

Any thoughts on the best free VM software?

 

[Mercutio]

I would kill for a disk imaging product that could be used to transition from a physical computer and OS installation to a virtual machine.

Just went to see a new job site. Simple job: I'm just deploying a dozen new PCs, a printer and a Linux machine for file and proxy serving.

These people currently have a massive Compaq Proliant of Pentium Pro vintage sitting in their equipment closet. It's running Windows NT with Citrix Winframe (i.e. NT3.51!), and it supports some-or-other sales application that their field sales people use. They don't want to pay for a new server or to have down time for their sales people, but the server is old and kind of sounds to me like it's going to die before too long, based on the noises the disks make.

The app is custom, no one knows how to install it or for that matter where it came from ("Some guy came in and set it all up"). They depend on that machine.

Oh, and they direct-dial in to that machine. It's not connected to the Internet or even their office LAN.

I'm not brave enough to want to touch it, but if I knew I could move the whole thing to a virtual machine on my quiet little Linux machine, that seems like it would a logical solution.

 

[theSwede]

Perhaps this could work?
http://www.vmware.com/products/p2v/

 

[Handruin]

The first think I thought of was exactly what theSwede linked to. P2V assistant can do what you ask and you wouldn't have to kill for it.

 

[Mercutio]

I was not aware of P2V Assistant, and VMware send me crap (mail, email) all the time. I even actually look at it.

Now I have to find out how much it costs/i]. Blah.

 

[Handruin]

Grab a free vmware t-shirt while you're at it.

 

[Mercutio]

Have you actually used P2V, Handy? $475 is fairly reasonable for Enterprise-ish software, but it'll sound like a ton of money to my client, especially when it's software I haven't used.

 

[Handruin]

Sadly, I have not. I read the manual, but there was no need for us to use it at work (yet). In your situation the cost does seem high, but in general it isn't that bad.