Virtualization

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The_Unbeliever

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Hi there

Which hardware will be best suited to run virtual machines (QEmu, M$ Virtual PC etc)?

I will make the assumption that a single-core CPU won't be up to the task to run a virtual session, but dual and quad-core CPU's should be able to handle it easily.

What says you guys?

Regards

Libs
 
I just started installing VMWare on my home PC. Opteron 146 with 2GB ram. Seems to run fine so far.

For real world environments I would say dual or quad with heaps of ram. 1GB should be enough and lots of drive space.
 
The main thing is Disk IO as well as memory. Running 1 VM with your host is fine, no one will hardly ever see issues, but when you seriously start using virtual machines, 10, 15, 20 per host... It get's to be fun :)
 
savage said:
The main thing is Disk IO as well as memory. Running 1 VM with your host is fine, no one will hardly ever see issues, but when you seriously start using virtual machines, 10, 15, 20 per host... It get's to be fun :)
Click to expand...

Do you have a lot of experience with VMWare?

Also, do you know where I can do a course? I need to be able to run and manage a farm of VM's and understand and manage VMotion.
 
Vmware server will run pretty happily on a single core 2.4Ghz P4 - memory is an issue, the more the merrier.

I've run multiple vm's simultaneosly, the rrick being to ensure that the sum of the memory used is less than the host machine's less a chunk for the OS you are running on top of. What you really dont want is for the host to start swapping, as often the only way of resuming control is a reboot!

I also found that win vm is more of a hog than vmware - in some cases win vm wouldn't even start the vm, saying it was out of resources.

If you install vmware server on an xp system, you'll get a warning due to the fact that xp doesn't support iis sites. as you are probably not going to want the web interface, this can safely be ignored. Do make sure that you install vmtools and set the video acceleartion to max on the vm, otherwise your mouse will jerk around worse than a drunken sailor and your display won't handle higher density.

If you are serious about using vm's then have a look at vmware esx. It's an enterprise piece of software i.e. ain't cheap, performs best on a san while running on a multiprocessor, multihost blade solution.
 
I'm playing around with QEmu at the moment. :)

But it's fun.

Want to install win95 for giggles, and browse some dubious sites to see what happens :D
 
bekdik said:
If you are serious about using vm's then have a look at vmware esx. It's an enterprise piece of software i.e. ain't cheap, performs best on a san while running on a multiprocessor, multihost blade solution.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I'm doing. SAN with 9 HP blade servers running everything virtualised.

It's going to be fun.
 
Personally if you are going to run more than 1 OS at a time, you should not have anything less than 4GB RAM...
 
Im running VMWare on a vista x64 host, and Fedora 8 as client. No probs.

The only thing is I have NO IDEA how to set up the network!! :(

Other than that on a Core2 E6420, 2GB ram, there is almost NO appreciable difference. :cool:

If I knew how to use VMWare effectively, I'd say VMWare FTW !!!!!! :confused:;)
 
memory, memory and more memory, and a fast Sata disk, 3 vm machne max per machine is my recommendation, when your running vista or server 2008, memory memory memory, big bottleneck
 
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