Greetings!
For anyone interested in virtualization for running multiple concurrent machines on a host system, this is for you! Anyone else is invited to read and store the info for later. I am hoping to fend off grief for folks seeking virtual Nirvana. For the past few years I have been bouncing from M$ Virtual PC, to VirtualBox, to Parallels, to VMware and several other virtualization apps between. My first taste of virtualization was with Virtual PC, and I found it very useful (as many of us have) for testing my VFP apps in various OS platforms, with various RAM and disk capacity, etc. Once I dove into the World Of Mac I tried out both VMWare Fusion and the Parallels solutions, both with decent results. When I concurrently ripped into Linux, along with my Mac venture, I began to play with virtualization with Linux, Mac Unix and Windows host machinery and Windows & Linux guest OS platforms. One thing I learned is I could not find anything that beat VMware for stability under load. Later on I found myself getting involved in a commercial project that has the potential of gaining me over 400 End User clients that will need daily data translation and performance reports to be processed (for NY alone)! Yikes! Not so much due to the 2Gb file limit, but due to translation and report processing time requirements, I can only get about 15 stores handled per physical PC. I was looking at having to purchase nearly 30 physical PCs, and licensing whatever software was needed for each of those PCs (starting with an XP Pro downgrade OS, then adding Ghost imaging and SyncBack backups), and a electrical power drain of $8/month/PC. Sure, the income stream is going to be nice, but what a huge outlay of cash! So I began to look at virtualization for a solutions. I had already licensed VMware Workstation for both Linux and Windows, and found on a 4Gb XP Pro machine I could run 2 concurrent Win2k, 768Mg RAM virtual machines and get decent performance. As soon as I tried to light up a 3rd virtual machine things got real doggy, despite the fact I had the base RAM and other resources to technically handle a 3rd virtual machine. My next move was the VMWare Server 2, which is designed to handle several concurrent virtual machines, and installs on top of Windows or Linux. So I installed it on top of an Ubuntu 64 bit OS platform with a 2 duo core 8Gb RAM Dell T3400 Precision machine. I was able to get 3 concurrent Win2k virtual machines to run well, a 4th one slowed things down a bit, but it was still tolerable, but with a 5 virtual machines things really got slow. So, I was getting virtual density, but not to the degree I was looking for. That said, even when the virtual machines slowed down they remained stable. I did some more research, and called VMware for some suggestions. I was told about their ESXi Bare Metal Server, which is offered for free. It is its own OS (ESXi is NOT based on a Linux core, whereas ESX uses Linux for its management console). The OS only eats up a bit over 30Mg of core RAM from the Host machine, but you have to use a host machine that is capable of running ESXi. The T2400, 8Gb RAM, dual (non-RAID) SATA HDD machines I have are not ESXi certified by Dell, but it run well on them. In reading a book on ESX/ESXi it turns out more machines can technically run ESX/ESXi, but may not be callable of taking advantage of all its performance features. In my case I got lucky, as I am doing just fine. So, I download the ESXi ISO and burn a CD. The CD boots up great, and the installation went very smoothly (all before I read any how-to install ESXi docs!). Very intuitive. But, then what? No management console on the Host machine with ESXi!! A little more reading and I find I can use a browser (Windows only, sorry) to connect to the ESXi assigned IP address, and I am then given the opportunity to download the Virtual Interface (VI Client, now called vSphere Client) Client app, which allows me to manage the ESXi Host and any guest machines. By the way, ESXi is totally FREE! I see some links on how to set up ESXi and decide to read the documentation before proceeding. What a great idea that turned out to be. I am truly glad I saw those links. In my case I have several VMWare Workstation machines built, and wanted to migrate them to the ESXi machines instead of rebuilding everything from scratch. Well, can't be done directly. But wait! VMWare has a free VM_Converter app, and I figured out how to convert (while migrating) a VMware workstation to the ESXi machines! And following the documentation I see how to tweak the virtual machines on the ESXi Server, how to get the virtual machines to see the 2nd physical HDD on the ESXi Server etc. I also read where the rule of thumb is on average I can expect to get 2 near-native performing virtual machines running concurrently per CPU core. Wow! That means I can get 4 virtual machines on these T3400 puppies, for free? Cool. That would handle 60 stores per T3400 if that works. I got the virtual machines running on the first T3400 ESXi Server, 5 of them, and found the performance to be really snappy. I then (using VMware Converter) migrated the same 5 virtual machines to the 2nd ESXi T3400 machine. I figured I would run 2 virtual machines on one Server, and 3 on the other for now, so as to not unduly burden the ESXi Servers. I was pretty surprised at how well the 5 virtual machines ran on a single ESXi Server - but why push the issue? With all 5 virtual machines loaded on both T3400 ESXi Servers I had a poor man's recovery system in place <g>. I then attended a locally held VMware/Dell presentation, met with my NY based VMware reps, learned a lot about how Dell is working with VMware for specialty virtualization equipment, and why it was my VI Client app was displaying a message advising I had "nn" number of days remaining on my evaluation software. Heck, I thought free was free <g>. I found at the seminar that free is free, but I do not get any of the higher end goodies that come with one of several different versions of VirtualCenter. Heck, I like some of those features, others would be wasted on me (for now). But at $1,000 per Server/CPU I need more clients lit up and paying to invest justify the VirtualCenter app. The folks I spoke with were helpful, but could not figure out what my concern was. So, here is where I think I can help reduce frustration for any ProFox folks interested in ESXi (which kicks ass, by the way). When I downloaded the ESXi ISO file I was asked to provide an eMail address, and a count of how many ESXi Servers I planned to use (I said 40, which now I said the max at 100). I received an email with a Serial #, but no instructions re: where to put that info. So, I spent a bit of time today (with 28 days remaining for evaluation I was beginning to panic) looking for how to get the evaluation license kicked over to the free license. I found it. Yes, ESXi and VI Client (now called Virtual Client) are truly free, where VMware is hoping folks like it enough to move to VirtualCenter (which I will once I hit 8 or more ESXi Servers). I found that in the VI Client app there is a tab named "configuration", and under configuration there is a link for "license". Go into the license link, and LeftClick the first non-evaluation option button, then in that field paste or key in the ESXi Free License code. You will get a "warning" that the higher end VirtualCenter capabilities of the evaluation version will be clipped, and "are you sure" (yes we are). That's it, you now have a nice ESXi Bare Metal Virtual Server that has a functional VI Client app through which you can manage the Server and all virtual machines, for free. The downside? You will not have goodies like High Availability or be able to see multiple ESXi Servers through a single interface. Big deal in my case <g>. I do not mind logging off one ESXi Server in VI Client, then lighting it up for the other ESXi Server IP address. Until I have lot of these running it will not be an issue. But, once I am ready to move into VirtualCenter, I will know it is worth the price of admission. By the way, it turns out the "real" rule of thumb is 4 virtual machines per CPU/Core. So my T3400 ESXi Servers ought to be able to handle a total of 8 virtual PCs (1Gb RAM each, as ESXi does memory page sharing so we can assign more RAM to virtual machines to a significant degree without collapsing the whole machine). I know it ran great with 5 machines, and plan to test for 6, then 7. After that I do not plan to press my luck, 7 machines times 15 stores = 105 stores per ESXi Server I can manage. So with 4 ESXi Servers I ought to be able to do what I have to do, far better than 30 physical PCs! I hope this is helpful to anyone looking at virtualization. Ciao! Gil Gilbert M. Hale <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] 585-359-8085 - Office (Rolls To Cellular) 585-202-4341 - Cellular/Voice Mail Legal Advisory: I have had a security expert advise me to embed the following statement in all outgoing eMails. Please read it. 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