Installing Windows on IBM P5 570 using VMWare 2

[khalidaaa]

Hi All,

We have recently consolidated our applications into two P5 570 machines and i was asked by one of the managers that question "Is there a way to consolidate other Windows applications on the same or similar boxes using VMWare?"

It seems that he heard that it is possible as a concept to install aix on an intel box using VMWare and visa versa.

All I found is that link which is not a good reference!

http://whitepapers.techrepublic.com.com/whitepaper.aspx?docid=150408

Regards,
Khalid

 

[chgwhat]

You can use vmware on an intel box to cosolidate windows servers. But you cannot run vmware or windows on a pseries box and AIX does not run on Intel / AMD, too bad would be interesting to show and spec the difference.

Tony ... aka chgwhat

When in doubt,,, Power out...

 

[khalidaaa]

Thanks chgwhat. That's what i always thought! This guy was so confident to the extent that he said come and i will give you the vmware version that you can install on your intel box and run unix virtual machines and he said he thinks (or he is somewhat certain) that vmware can run on unix machine and windows virtual machines can be created! He said that he will lead me to a company that is doing it!

Off course i will chase him to see what exactly he is talking about but i thought of sharing this with you first and see whether it is true in general as a concept!

Regards,
Khalid

 

[p5wizard]

Well, IMHO he's only partly right: vmware can run on linux (intel/amd hardware, not linux on power), and yes linux can host windows/unix/linux guest (virtual) servers, but only those OSs that run on intel/amd. The only hardware emulation that is possible AFAIK is 32bit virtual CPUs on native 64bit CPUs.

So if you want AIX in the picture as host-OS: NO because vmware doesn't run on AIX; as guest-OS: NO because AIX doesn't run on intel/amd and NO because vmware doesn't (yet?) run on linux-on-power. (As an aside: why would you want to spend money on a 3rd party software to be able to run AIX virtual machines under one big linux LPAR anyway? Just create the LPARs that you need with VIO architecture)

So yes, you can run vmware on an intel/amd server and host windows/unix/linux. Either vmware/workstation on windows/linux host OS or vmware/esx as a native OS on the box. All OSs in this picture need to be able to run on intel/amd hardware.



HTH,

p5wizard

 

[khalidaaa]

Thanks p5wizard for the nice explanation. I totally agree with you regarding using the 3rd party which is ineffecient any way!

Do you have any kind of document that i can share with the manager regarding this?

Regards,
Khalid

 

[p5wizard]

No, I had a gut feeling (or latent knowledge?) about this and checked with a VMWare specialist I know.

Don't know about VMWare being inefficient though.


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[khalidaaa]

By ineffecient i meant using VMWare instead of VIO which is more feasible in my case i didn't mean VMWare being inefficient.

Thanks for your input p5wizard, i know you will get this coz you are p5

Stars for your inputs gents

Regards,
Khalid