VMWare for dev environment

[sh33n]

Which software do you use or recommend for the use of centrally hosted dev environment?

We want something that will be able to run a number of sessions, about 5, with SQL, IIS, etc.

Our live systems will be moving to ESX Server in the near future however the licensing costs here are quite high for a dev system.

Essentially we want to be able to connect to the sessions, all running a flavour of Win 2K3, in the normal fashion, RDC, etc.

Something that can be remotely manage, ie stop sessions, clone sessions, maybe, etc.

Cheers.

 

[McBunny]

xen would do it

ms virtual server

the free version of vmware

 

[sh33n]

Yer the VMWare Server (free one) was the one I was considering, I think we could then move easily sessions from our dev to live environment which would be very cool and useful.

 

[dk]

indeed, might as well go for the vmware server if going to esx at a later date.

oooorrrrrrrrr you could just download esx, use it for the trial period with all features, think its 30 or 60 days and then get another trial key using a different email address etc until the project starts and you buy a license key and you don't need to do anything to migrate as it just gets licensed. ON our dev box I generated a few trial keys before going live and purchasing (read getting NFR key ) the license and it worked fine.

 

[sh33n]

indeed, might as well go for the vmware server if going to esx at a later date.

oooorrrrrrrrr you could just download esx, use it for the trial period with all features, think its 30 or 60 days and then get another trial key using a different email address etc until the project starts and you buy a license key and you don't need to do anything to migrate as it just gets licensed. ON our dev box I generated a few trial keys before going live and purchasing (read getting NFR key ) the license and it worked fine.

Naughty naughty!

Think I'll keep this 100% legit though, as IT got audited by MS not long ago and go into big trouble, lol.

 

[dk]

its not really against the rules, i still put the same company details down just a different name, at the end of the day if you are using it to test the software but need a bit more time before you put it into production then they aren't going to bother if you end up buying the license at the end of it like we did, you are always licensed as you have an eval license on there, they can't tell how many you have. Also, when the eval license runs out, the software doesn't just stop working, you just can't create new virtual machines etc.

Its a better option than using vmware server, which is free anyway, so vmware aren't losing out you going for an eval version of esx than the server product, its just the server product doesn't have the same functionality and performance as it has a much higher overhead than the 3% esx uses. Or if you know you are going to go for esx after the testing you might as well go for that now anyway, but might aswell also get an eval out of it, its just so much better than the hassle of vmware server and then having to v-to-v it.

 

[sh33n]

Its a better option than using vmware server, which is free anyway, so vmware aren't losing out you going for an eval version of esx than the server product, its just the server product doesn't have the same functionality and performance as it has a much higher overhead than the 3% esx uses. Or if you know you are going to go for esx after the testing you might as well go for that now anyway, but might aswell also get an eval out of it, its just so much better than the hassle of vmware server and then having to v-to-v it.

Do you have more info on the overheads of vmware server vs esx mate? What other features does server miss out on?

This system will always be in place and will run along side our live system, which at somepoint will be ESX server, but probably not for a year or so.

Cheers.

 

[dk]

i believe the overhead is around 15-20% with vmware server, plus the main issue is that its running on windows, so needs a windows license aswell (which isn't much less than vmware esx foundation license!) but then if you have msdn subscriptions the windows won't bother you too much, but its a hell of lot more likely to crash than esx is, and when you have 5 or so servers running on it the host OS crashing has a lot more of an impact.

Most of the fancy features vmware gives you are designed for multiple systems, like vmotion, the ability to move a virtual server from one physcial host to another without ANY interruption to the user, they can't tell the different, most of the time it won't even drop a single ping to the server its that slick, has to be seen to be believed though. Then HA (high availability) which allows vm's to be brought up on another host automatically if the host they are on fails and then DRS (distributed Resource Scheduler) which moves vm's around hosts depending on how much resouce they need to keep them balanced, it does this automatically using vmotion so the user doesn't have any downtime. Plus hosts can be taken down for maintenance during the daywith no issues etc. Tehse features need shared storage though, hence why its only for multiple vmware servers.

Another thing most people don't know is that if you buy an enterprise windows license it licenses you for 4 virtual machines and a datacentre license gives you unlimited vm's on that server so is cheaper than buying a standard license for each vm seeing as every vm needs a full ms license.

 

[sh33n]

Thanks dk some good info there ^

Yer we aren't interested in VMotion and the like on this box, I think I'll get a trial of VMWare Workstation, it provides some better functions but still at a minimal cost, if that proves to be slow or problematic we may have to bite the bullet for ESX.

Cheers.