I'm interested in VMware..plz help me with basics

[Aquinus]

I plan to do so as well as I am doing this for general learning but, frankly, he should really be focusing on whatever infrastructure(s) is predominant at his particular datacenter and try to replicate that on a smaller scale. He worked there already and just scored a great opportunity on the actual tech/IT side of things...

I get that. He never said what he would be using though.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

That's true and I guess I did speculate on vmware.

 

[Deleted member 6693]

I actually boot EXSi off a thumb drive. Not production-worthy in the least but fine for learning.

Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
and HP 4000 SAN ´s)

All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)

 

[happita]

I get that. He never said what he would be using though.

I would be more comfortable learning more about VMWare (vSphere5.1, I want to be as current as possible) more than anything seeing as they pretty much dominate the market right now in virtulization. I'm not stubborn though and I'm open to other companies that have their own software to use for virtulization. I was more or less looking at the big picture in the next 5-10 years down the road.

Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
and HP 4000 SAN ´s)

All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)

How would 2-3 small/fast 64GB SSDs in a small box fit into an equation of getting ESXi 5.1 to run on them? Would it be financially sound? Educationally sound? SANELY SOUND???

I will end up building a new rig anyway that's compatible for this small endeavor that I'm trying to accomplish. I want things to run decently fast, but not too hot.

 

[Deleted member 6693]

ESXi 5.0/5.1 does not require a fast disk to run on - it is a host.
It would be waste of good disks to put vSpere on them.

The SSD´s or other fast disks (10.000 or 15.000 rpm SAS/Sata/SCSI disks) are for the virtual machines and storage.....

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yes it is....I run a hole production farm (HP ProLiant DL385 G7 servers vSphere ESXi 5.1)
and HP 4000 SAN ´s)

All the DL385 are running ESXi 5.1 on 2 GB SD cards......so thumb drives / SD cards are goldies relative to traditional harddrives (SAS/SATA/SCSI)

I was referring to my "consumer" old-gaming-PC-turned-server-box as not being 'production-worthy'...

Yes the SSDs are for the virtual machine guest OS's themselves. That's what really benefits from the high IOPS they bring to the table over regular HDD even in RAID. Though, honestly, the load you are going to see and the bandwidth required is a lot less in a testlab but SSDs are still worth it. Especially when booting up the VMs which can happen more often in a lab as you change and add to your setup. You also will probably shut it off when not actively using it unless you happen to get free power somehow.

 

[Aquinus]

You also will probably shut it off when not actively using it unless you happen to get free power somehow.

I just thought that I should mention that idle VMs allow the host to idle as well. Turning off VMs won't reduce power usage unless the VM is actually loaded and doing things, in which case you probably don't want to go turning it off. So generally speaking, what you said isn't true.

 

[remixedcat]

I also want to get a dedicated SSD drive for my VMs.


also if you wanna see vmception (vmware esxi within hyper-v):
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/427502?start=0&tstart=0

we are still getting the full networking to work, however we are making a lot of progress!!

 

[Aquinus]

also if you wanna see vmception (vmware esxi within hyper-v):
http://communities.vmware.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

we are still getting the full networking to work, however we are making a lot of progress!!

Is this just a proof-of-concept thing? I can't think of any reason why you would want to run a virtualization layer inside a virtualization layer. It seems counter productive. Even more so when ESXi offers you more than Hyper-V does.

 

[remixedcat]

Portable labs. (at least for me). As well as other stuff

 

[Aquinus]

Portable labs. (at least for me). As well as other stuff

No offense but your plan isn't very good since Hyper-V can't support more than 4 CPUs. Also you're probably emulating instead of virtualizing on ESXi because it might not be able to tunnel VT commands through a VT layer. If you want it to be portable, Hyper-V and ESXi are not the tools you want to be using together. VMs themselves are supposed to be easily portable since all it really is, is a configuration and a virtual disk. You copy it and you're done.

If you start a new thread about it, I'm sure some of us could help you think of a better, less limited, option. Nifty proof-of-concept project imho though, but I would never use something like that in production.

 

[remixedcat]

Like I said I'm not taking that seriously.... it's a challenge and it's fun.

 

[Deleted member 6693]

No offense but your plan isn't very good since Hyper-V can't support more than 4 CPUs. Also you're probably emulating instead of virtualizing on ESXi because it might not be able to tunnel VT commands through a VT layer. If you want it to be portable, Hyper-V and ESXi are not the tools you want to be using together. VMs themselves are supposed to be easily portable since all it really is, is a configuration and a virtual disk. You copy it and you're done.

+1 for that

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I just thought that I should mention that idle VMs allow the host to idle as well. Turning off VMs won't reduce power usage unless the VM is actually loaded and doing things, in which case you probably don't want to go turning it off. So generally speaking, what you said isn't true.

I meant shutting off the whole host machine but good to know about the idling capabilities as power management under ESXi is something I still needed to look into.

And I have heard of people virtualizing ESXi itself (mainly in lab settings) but never under Hyper V.

 

[happita]

So what kind of hardware do you suggest that I get? I know that I'm completely new to all of this, but I've made up my mind about learning all about this stuff and applying into my resume for the next 10-15 years down the road. I want to spend as much as I can so that a system can last me at least 7-8 years doing virtualization stuff with VMWare vSphere/ESXi. Max budget is ~$1200

Stuff to take into consideration:
1. I like a hybrid of a high-end performance setup but at the same time being considerate with regards to power consumption.
2. Don't have much room on my desk for another PC, most likely going to go with a Micro-ATX setup.


p.s. You guys are awesome My mom always said be thankful for what you've got