Virtualization: VirtualBox, VMware Server and Other Stuff
Tags: Software
Virtualization is all the rage these days, with good reason. Virtualization lets you run multiple computers on one piece of hardware. Larger companies are using it to host multiple servers on fewer physical boxes, saving in administration problems, electricity, and heat generated to name just a few benefits. Come to think of it, smaller companies are doing the same. I know because I'm one. I also really like virtualization for ease of backup and fast disaster recovery - more on that later.
Several months ago I started virtualizing my own infrastructure. First, I built a hefty machine with a Gigabyte UltraDurable series motherboard, quad core AMD Phenom processor, 8 GB of RAM, and mirrored 1 TB hard drives. I am using 64-bit Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 as my host operating system. I chose Ubuntu because of a few reasons: it's free, light weight, and (fairly) stable. (I've also played around with VMware's ESX3i which is also free and very nice, but is very picky about what hardware it runs on. Hypervisors are a bit out of the scope of this article anyway.)
Once I decided on an operating system (and NOT the hypervisor route) I had to choose my virtualization platform. The two biggest right now are Sun VirtualBox and VMware. I initially went with VirtualBox becasue it is free, open source, and my buddy Shane at Southeastern Technical Consulting had gone that way. Nothing is really simple in Linux but eventually things were working OK under VirtualBox. I now have 4 virtual machines running there: my primary Domino server running on Windows Server 2003, a client's backup Domino server, my Asterisk phone system, and a test Domino server running the managed beta 8.5.1 and Lotus Notes Traveler (for push e-mail to my iPhone.) Eventually I'd like to get my Untangle firewall running on there, too.
I haven't been completely happy with VirtualBox though and have been looking into VMware Server again. In fact, the possible final nail in the VirtualBox coffin was recently when I tried to set it up for a client using the same setup I have for myself. Windows guest machines freeze up when shutting down, requiring a reboot of the host. That's a big no-no when it comes to virtualization. I do NOT want to have to take down ALL of my machines just because one is misbehaving. I've seen other people with this issue but no solutions. Also, USB support, important for external drive backups, is kind of flaky. Bridged networking was flaky and difficult to get working right. Finally, remote access consists of either native remote support to the individual machines or VNC to the Ubuntu host, which is a bit sloppy. With VirtualBox there is no remote access to the management console.
VMware Server, though, has a slick new web-based interface for version 2. There is no client anywhere but it is accessible from any machine. Installation was not difficult and everything from networking to USB support worked out of the box. The management console has many more features than the VirtualBox client and there seems to be more mainstream support for VMware. The machines I have set up under VMware are fast and easy to access, either on the host itself or comfortably from my chair at my desktop.
I'm not really sure why VirtualBox seems to have more grass-roots love - I'm having a much better experience with VMware. I even have a Mac OS X virtual machine running to do iPhone development. More on VMware and other virtualization topics later. I'm going to cover backup and disaster recovery next.
Virtualization is all the rage these days, with good reason. Virtualization lets you run multiple computers on one piece of hardware. Larger companies are using it to host multiple servers on fewer physical boxes, saving in administration problems, electricity, and heat generated to name just a few benefits. Come to think of it, smaller companies are doing the same. I know because I'm one. I also really like virtualization for ease of backup and fast disaster recovery - more on that later.
Several months ago I started virtualizing my own infrastructure. First, I built a hefty machine with a Gigabyte UltraDurable series motherboard, quad core AMD Phenom processor, 8 GB of RAM, and mirrored 1 TB hard drives. I am using 64-bit Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 as my host operating system. I chose Ubuntu because of a few reasons: it's free, light weight, and (fairly) stable. (I've also played around with VMware's ESX3i which is also free and very nice, but is very picky about what hardware it runs on. Hypervisors are a bit out of the scope of this article anyway.)
Once I decided on an operating system (and NOT the hypervisor route) I had to choose my virtualization platform. The two biggest right now are Sun VirtualBox and VMware. I initially went with VirtualBox becasue it is free, open source, and my buddy Shane at Southeastern Technical Consulting had gone that way. Nothing is really simple in Linux but eventually things were working OK under VirtualBox. I now have 4 virtual machines running there: my primary Domino server running on Windows Server 2003, a client's backup Domino server, my Asterisk phone system, and a test Domino server running the managed beta 8.5.1 and Lotus Notes Traveler (for push e-mail to my iPhone.) Eventually I'd like to get my Untangle firewall running on there, too.
I haven't been completely happy with VirtualBox though and have been looking into VMware Server again. In fact, the possible final nail in the VirtualBox coffin was recently when I tried to set it up for a client using the same setup I have for myself. Windows guest machines freeze up when shutting down, requiring a reboot of the host. That's a big no-no when it comes to virtualization. I do NOT want to have to take down ALL of my machines just because one is misbehaving. I've seen other people with this issue but no solutions. Also, USB support, important for external drive backups, is kind of flaky. Bridged networking was flaky and difficult to get working right. Finally, remote access consists of either native remote support to the individual machines or VNC to the Ubuntu host, which is a bit sloppy. With VirtualBox there is no remote access to the management console.
VMware Server, though, has a slick new web-based interface for version 2. There is no client anywhere but it is accessible from any machine. Installation was not difficult and everything from networking to USB support worked out of the box. The management console has many more features than the VirtualBox client and there seems to be more mainstream support for VMware. The machines I have set up under VMware are fast and easy to access, either on the host itself or comfortably from my chair at my desktop.
I'm not really sure why VirtualBox seems to have more grass-roots love - I'm having a much better experience with VMware. I even have a Mac OS X virtual machine running to do iPhone development. More on VMware and other virtualization topics later. I'm going to cover backup and disaster recovery next.
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Comments
Posted by Jeremy At 10:31:02 PM On 11/16/2009 | - Website - |