[lugip] vmware?

Tue Nov 25 11:02:37 EST 2008

Hi all,

Hey John, what do you mean moving to CentOS and ESX? If you're running
ESX, there is no host OS -- ESX *is* the base OS. The only OSes you
install are in the VMs themselves.

As for Ubuntu, it's listed in the VMWare Server Admin Guide as being a
supported host OS. In addition, you can actually install vmware server
on ubuntu straight from the Canonical commercial software repository.
When it comes to VMWare, I really do advocate looking at all of the
documentation even before you purchase the product, because there's a
lot of information to digest, and if you don't read it, especially for
hardware and host OS compatibility, you're likely to make an error in
your deployment plan that'll cost you a lot of time (at least).

If you have some budget for this project, I would *strongly* recommend
going with ESX for production boxes, perhaps using the free server for
prototyping and testing new VM builds that can then be migrated to an
ESX server and launched into production. I'll leave out the VMotion
details, since that requires an enormous budget and probably hardware
purchases on top of that :)

My experience with ESX has been unbelievably good, and all of you who
know me know I don't say that much. ;-P  They release updates in a
timely manner and performing updates in my experience has been dead
easy, and flawless, and has never affected the stability of anything
running on it. I've run both Windows and Linux on ESX (on the same
hardware, in fact). It "just works".

Good luck!

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 10:44 AM, Edward M. Corrado
<ecorrado at ecorrado.us> wrote:
> Thanks for relaying your experiences. This si the type of thing I need
> to know. I have used vmware for desktop purposes and it has worked
> great, but when you are talkign about servers, it is a whole diffeent
> ball of wax.
>
> I'm not sure if it would be any better then the desktop edition with
> VMware, but for the record, Ubuntu does have a server edition. I
> generally agree about the issue of running an install designed for a
> desktop as a server. I have been playing with xubuntu for servers. You
> get a little bit of graphic-goodness and it doesn't require a great deal
> of overhead.
>
> Edward
>
> John Martinetti wrote:
>> 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
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 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
>>>
>>>
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>> 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
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
>

-- 
Brian K. Jones
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