[lugip] vmware?

[John Martinetti]

well, if you want opinion, do *NOT* use Ubuntu.
My opinion is based upon experience having 22 production servers in the
field running Ubuntu with Vmware Server (the free version) hosting Windows
2000 Server images.
We're currently in the planning and testing phase of a project to replace
Ubuntu with CentOS and the *paid* version of VMWare, ESX server.  It's nice
being able to open a trouble ticket with Vmware when you're out of options.

Main reasons for my displeasure?  Stability. Ubuntu was not playing nicely
with Vmware after running updates.  On multiple occasions we had to move the
working Windows image over the the "hot-spare" server hardware in the branch
location due to an administrator running updates on the Ubuntu host.
Now - keep in mind...our host machines were not bare-bones Ubuntu systems,
much to my dismay, my cohorts insisted upon having full blown Gnome Desktops
on each machine so we could access them over crappy WAN lines using
NoMachines' NX client/server remote control package.   And it's also
arguable, that we really didn't take a good hard look at all the packages
installed on the servers that really weren't necessary....so there ya have
it.  Still -in the long run...I'd advise against Ubuntu, it's a desktop
OS...not a server.  For those people who think it can be molded into a
reliable server platform..that's great....but for actually geting stuff
done, you want a distro that's suitable for the task, not one that *could
be* after you've fscked with it for a month.

Another thing to keep i mind about Vmware, definitely pay careful attention
to the hardware compatibility list.  Dont go thinking you can use just any
old white-box....that's a reciped for disaster and sleepless nights.  Stick
to a proven hardware platform straight from the list or your liable to
experince Vmware's wonderful "pink-screen-of-death".  Seen it?  It's
alarming...and it definitely means you'll need a mop. Surpisingly, Dell has
*many* options on the Vmware hardware compatibility list and also surpising
to me, not nearly as many HP/Compaq choices, although the standard DL and ML
series are well represented.  We're waiting for approval on a project now to
completely virtualize a small engineering firm with Dell hardware and Vmware
running their Windows server images on top of ESX.  Using vizioncore's
VRangerPro utility, you can snapshot each Windows image daily and sync them
across all hardware, so in the event that one piece of hardare fails,
recovery is trivial and pretty quick with little to no data loss - so there
are some interesting niches for Vmware now that weren't really viable until
recently.

That's my $.02 - good luck with your decision.  Consider CentOS....for that
matter...consider CentOS for *any* Linux Server application over a desktop
distribution.



On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:04 AM, Edward M. Corrado <ecorrado at ecorrado.us>wrote:

> I would like to start using VMware for some of our servers. The guest
> operating system on these will normally be some form of Linux at this
> point. I would like to have a stable platform for the underlying host
> and am considering Ubuntu 8.04 because of the long term support. What
> are other people using? Is there a reason to use something other than
> Ubuntu as the host? It seems that they  Also, what version of VMware are
> you using? I was looking at the free VMware server, but I know there are
> other options.
>
> How about other virtualzation products?
>
> Edward
> _______________________________________________
> Lugip mailing list
> Lugip at lugip.org
> http://www.lugip.org/mailman/listinfo/lugip
>
> LUG/IP Hardware Sig meets first Tuesday of the month at the Hamilton Public
> Library at 7pm
>
> LUG/IP meets Second Wednesday of the month at the Lawrence Headquarters
> Branch of the Mercer County Library at 7pm
>
> LUG/IP Coffee Klatch meets on the fourth Sunday of the month at the Panera
> Bread in West Windsor near Target at 8am
>
> For more information go to http://www.lugip.org
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.lugip.org/pipermail/lugip/attachments/20081125/5437783b/attachment.html