[lugip] vmware?

Tue Nov 25 12:41:56 EST 2008

I actually completely forgot about ESXi, but it is actually
incorporated in a project plan I did a few months ago for one of my
clients. It's not a definite that we'll use it, but it will be
evaluated as a part of the project. I don't expect to pick that up
until Q1 '09, but I'll let you know how it goes.

I do remember seeing that there were some management portions of ESX
that were removed from ESXi, but I don't remember any of that being
considered a 'show stopper'.

On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Edward M. Corrado
<ecorrado at ecorrado.us> wrote:
> It looks like VMware ESXi is now available for free (with, of course,
> support available for a fee). Has anyone looked at that instead of ESX?
> While I may get a budget in the future, at this point for testing I
> don't have one to speak of. I'll be lucky if I can get a new server:-(.
>
> Edward
>
>
> John Martinetti wrote:
>> yes - you are correct.  I was confused, most likely due to low caffiene
>> levels.
>> We've piloted both Centos and the free Vmware Server package along side of
>> the paid "ESX" for that particular customer, on the production hardware
>> (white boxes with supermicro main-boards).
>> Still - we're awaiting the customers decision and have strongly urged him to
>> consider purchasing ESX for production servers mainly for the support.  As
>> far as our pilot is concerned, the performance for both configurations
>> (CentOS/Vmware server free vs. ESX) was satisfactory.
>>
>> I think our biggest mistake from this case study was the whitebox
>> hardware...it was cheap and the customer wanted 2 servers per location with
>> one acting as a hot spare.  This actually worked quite well with custom
>> scripting to snapshot the vm's and rysnc them across both physical
>> machines....so that's something to keep in mind.
>>
>> One last thought about the latest versions of Vmware server, they changed
>> the GTK based GUI mangement application to a web-based application and
>> removed an number of the command-line tools, which I found disappointing.
>> The web based GUI management application is slick and has new features (esp
>> regarding snapshots), but it's slow and cumbersome over WAN lines that
>> aren't up to par.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Brian Jones <bkjones at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> 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
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> 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
>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> 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
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> 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
>>> Python Magazine  http://www.pythonmagazine.com
>>> My Blog          http://www.protocolostomy.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL: http://www.lugip.org/pipermail/lugip/attachments/20081125/8e6694cc/attachment.html
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
Python Magazine  http://www.pythonmagazine.com
My Blog          http://www.protocolostomy.com