I'm with you, We're a State of Florida contractor and we're looking at budget cuts yet again. I just happen to be in a position to present the value of spending on certain technologies and EVERY business has "green" money for specialized projects. We've mobilized nearly half of our workforce without adding a single support position, these are the dollars and sense kind of things one hopes to be able to spend money on. The VMWare piece of this just makes my job easier so I can troubleshoot the bosses Blackberry!
From: Jon Harris [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 4:30 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Virtual Server Training? When I was doing this any pay out was too much. Keep in mind they were laying off staff at Florida Universities in 2008 and I sure did not want to rock the boat and get my name on that list. Jon On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:49 PM, John Cook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Agreed, sometimes free is the only option. VMWare Snapshot Manager does quite nicely for backing up live machines. I use both in my environment, each has its place, I prefer running my critical servers in VMWare. Just as an aside, VMWare just recently started giving non-profits and EDUs a substantial discount so it's not as big an outlay as it once was. From: Jon Harris [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:41 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Virtual Server Training? I had no money to spend on tools does not mean I needed any to the the software up and running. I did not see any free tools to backup live VM's which I can do if I am running Hyper-V. The native 2008 backup software would do that. Will it backup live VMWare machines? I never saw anything that said it would. Since I did not have another box that would run 2008 with Hyper-V the rest of the tools whether VMWare or Hyper-V was moot. The other box I had was only for storage and that was it. There always is better and then there is free but sometimes it does not matter what is better if you can only go with free. Jon On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:34 PM, John Cook <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Now I'm curious, what tools did you need to make VMWare work? I only just recently added my first 3rd party app to work with VMWare (Veeam) and never had any issues making it run right out of the box. You can take snapshots, do patch remediation( both host and guest) manage and segregate virtual networks plus a boatload of other things without spending any $ on third party apps. It would also be wise to review the licensing restrictions as well as the performance levels, VMWare can show you some compelling reasons why "free" isn't exactly free and spending money on VSphere can end up costing less in the long run for some businesses. Sorry, back to my koolaid............ From: Jon Harris [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 3:24 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Virtual Server Training? +2 Storage is a major concern as is networking. If you have a good handle on this most of the rest is easy. I just did not have the money to spend trying to get tools for VMWare's products. Hyper-V was free it works and the way the server can be backed-up with the VM's running just made it impossible to go with VMWares products. Jon On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:16 PM, Malcolm Reitz <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: +1 on what ASB is saying. Our server admins expend much more effort in dealing with the storage side of virtualization than anything else. If you are planning on moving in to any type of shared storage, use some of your training budget to really learn how to manage that. -Malcolm From: Andrew S. Baker [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 12:09 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Virtual Server Training? Much of what you need to learn about virtualization is generic to the technology in general and serve you well regardless of whether you go with Citrix, VMWare or Microsoft for your virtualization needs. Server virtualization introduces a lot more storage and networking configuration, and if you don't currently have that experience, it is good to understand so that you can architecture things properly. Other than that, a virtual server behaves largely like a physical server in 99% of the scenarios you will care about. Product specific virtualization information is good to get if you know which one you're going to run with. The cost of the training will depend on how much of it you need. Usually 2-3 days (8-12 hours or so) of real time will do you good for starters. -ASB: http://XeeSM.com/AndrewBaker<http://xeesm.com/AndrewBaker> On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 11:55 AM, Stephen Wimberly <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: What training would you consider 'recommended' for a server admin going into virtual servers for the first time? We have used Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 before, but did not care for the setup. We are currently looking at a recommendation from Dell which covers two server host boxes, one storage box and one management switch. 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