virtual but why...

[schtek]

hi all in my endevor to learn more i have had visitors just lately talking about virtual networks.

I have downloaded and run virtual pc 2007 (xp PRO), then i tried out server r2 over the last few days..

I can see that i could test new software before deployment!!
but i have not much free time to use it with all the other jobs that need doing

can i ask why i would use this in a live situation ?

what are the benifits ?

how would my schools benifit?

as i see it at present i would have to load a op before i can set up virtual pc's, if i have a problem with a client i just ghost the machine back to standard set..

thanks for any responses

Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window and yell as loud as you can, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.'

http://www.schtek.co.uk

 

[ADB100]

I can't really see any benefits from a Workstation/Client scenario, but from a server point of view I can see a couple of benefits:

1. Reduced footprint in a Data Centre - i.e. one physical server and multiple logical servers running on the same physical hardware.
2. Reduced cost - only need to purchase one physical server

The downsides are it's a single point of failure, any updates to the host operating system mean all the logical servers need restarting.
Personally for testing/development I think virtual servers are good, but for a production environment I wouldn't go there.....

My 2cents....

Andy

 

[schtek]

thanks i agree with u, anymore please???

Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window and yell as loud as you can, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.'

http://www.schtek.co.uk

 

[sparkbyte]

I have had experience with virtualization at two different levels. Let me explain this a bit, first a business critical production environment is vastly different in implimentation and cost. Second, there are two distinct levels of virtualization products commonly used.

The first are products such as MS Virtual Server R2, and VMware Virtual Server (both free). These are great for testing environments but as you found they are limited in scalability. Not something I would suggest for a production envirnment.

The Second is VMware ESX Server. This is NOT a VM product you load onto a windows server like the previous products. ESX server is an OS that was designed to be a virtual environment host from start to finish.

http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/

With the later product, we were able to virtualize about 20 hard servers onto one VM host. Not bad but, this number depends on the type of servers your attempting to virtualize. Also, for high availability you also need a product called Virtual Center. This allows all the VM hosting servers to act like a clustered farm with very nice management tools. (Mostly web based.)

OK, now the cost shock. These servers are BIG.

8 processors
64 GB RAM
2.5 Tera SAN

and we had 12 in our initial config. The SAN was sized so that we could grow another 7 hosts.

Now the cool part. Once everything was configured and running, we started to test the high availability features.

6 Guest OS's on Host01

DVD video running on 2 of the guests being watched on 10 clients, 5 for each guest OS.

Pulled the power plugs from the back of Host01. Virtual Center detected the server outage and 'rolled' the VM's accross the other 11 Hosts, based on load availability on each of the Hosts. The video flickered on the clients but continued to play unfaultered.

For this type of environment be ready to have pretty deep pockets to get it off the ground but, once in place it quickly begins to pay for itself in savings.

Hope this helps you understand some of the differences. So in finishing, it mostly depends on the scope of your environment on whether or not virtualizing would be a smart choice.



Thanks

John Fuhrman
Titan Global Services

http://www.titangs.com

 

[58sniper]

Virtualization is perfect from an engineering standpoint. It's an excellent platform to test migrations. It's also great for testing disaster recovery, application deployment, alternative configurations, etc.

You can even setup clustering.

But - the only time I've used it in a production network was to virtualize a copy of XP so I could run some funky PDA sync software for a bunch of users. That's it.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Microsoft Exchange MVP
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[schtek]

so for the poor old secondary school with a couple of grand in their pockets i is not going to last long next year lol

thanks for all of that john and pat i'm starting to get the idea for what it can be used for!!!

Stand up wherever you are, go to the nearest window and yell as loud as you can, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore.'

http://www.schtek.co.uk

 

[TheLad]

It really depends on what you want from a server. You can pick up low end servers for not too much these days and that might outweigh the cost of testing and configuring virtual servers and any issues that may crop up.

For example Schtek, a couple of grand will buy a nice low (or even mid) range HP ML or DL range server plus disks and memory.

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