VMware or MS Virtual Server 2005 4

[snootalope]

The company I work for hasn't virtualized any servers yet, but the need is definitely here for us and I'm in the of determining what's best.

So, I've tested VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Besides all the details, if I had to choose now, it'd be for the Microsoft product.

However, with as much talk is there is for VMWare, I think I might be missing something possibly.

Anyone here have experience with either? What's your opinions? Anyone using virtual terminal servers/Citrix machines? What about domain controllers?

Thanks for any opinions and/or advice!

 

[lhuegele]

Have you considered using XenSource? It's another great VM server and worth your while to look into it.

Other than that, we use VMWARE here to great success.

 

[itsp1965]

If you are a pure MS shop, then I'd say go with Virtual Server. If you are planning to virtualize other OSses besides Windows, then Vmware is the way to go. I heard Xen is getting up there but I have not had much experience with it.

 

[snootalope]

Yeah, we're probably 95% Microsoft here and don't see that changing anytime soon. Suprisingly, the licenses for the MS Virtual Server are relatively inexpensive. Shocker!

I'll check out this Xen though.

Thanks guys!

 

[LWComputingMVP]

In most tests I've read, VMWare performs better than Virtual PC, though those tests were done on hardware that did not specifically support virtual systems.

The other bad thing about MS products is that USB support under virtual server is not very good (nearly non-existent). It's not perfect in VMWare, but you can use storage devices, for example.

 

[snootalope]

Good point lw. Hadn't even considered that.

Thanks!

 

[kmcferrin]

If those are you two choices, then it's VMWare ESX by a large margin. Microsoft Virtual Server, while being inexpensive and a Microsoft product, pales in comparison to what is available on VMWare ESX. Of course, I assuming that you are trying to choose between ESX and MS Virtual Server 2005. Of course, if you're not looking at ESX and trying to make a decision between MS Virtual Server (cheap licenses) and VMWare Server (the free version, not the ESX edition) then featurewise they're about the same.

But frankly, if I were going to virtualize my server environment I wouldn't consider anything but ESX, because no other currently available product has a comparable feature set (i.e., HA, VMotion, built in performance monitoring, etc). Comparing MS Virtual Server and VMWare ESX is like comparing DOS 6.22 to Windows XP.

 

[snootalope]

Good info kmcferrin.

So the VMWare Server edition truly is free? Wasn't aware of that... Is there any stipulations to that though? Can I still use all of my own media or do I have to download their pre-configured vm's?

What's the price look like on the ESX?

 

[Davetoo]

ESX will run you about $5k per server...it's a bare metal install.

VMWare Server is free, no strings attached. I'm running a half dozen VMWare servers right now, didn't pay a dime except for the MS server licenses.

Looking to migrate my entire domain to ESX servers over the next few months.

I'm Certifiable, not cert-ified.
It just means my answers are from experience, not a book.

 

[kmcferrin]

Correct, VMWare Server is completely free. The nice part is that you can start playing with VMWare Server, and then converting your virtual servers to ESX is relatively painless.

VMWare ESX server is can be fairly expensive. Usually they don't sell it as a stand-alone, but as part of their Virtual Infrastrucutre 3 Suite. If I recall correctly, it is priced per CPU, so if you're using single socket dual core blades the price would be lower per server than if you were using 5U 4- or 8-socket servers.

 

[Cstorms]

The price of course comes with what you have in mind for capability, I think the base license for ESX without any real DR functionality is fairly cheap (under 2k the last time we looked). I will echo most peoples opinion and say VMWare by a large margin, in our personal tests we found not only operation of the hypervisor to be much more efficient, but the user interface is leaps and bounds ahead of the craptastic web interface that Microsofts solution provides.

I know a fellow who runs his entire shop on the free VMServer application including his DC and Exchange... I cringe every time he talks about it, but as a testament to its ability not one thing has gone wrong in regards to VMware functioning.

Cory

 

[kmcferrin]

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't run everything on VMWare. You'd want at least one physical DC in case the virtual environment somehow went completely belly up (not that it's likely to happen).

I would also recommend against running heavily I/O intensive applications (like Exchange and SQL) on a virtual environment. You can get away with it, especially if you're running Exchange/SQL on VMWare to get a better HA/DR scenario, and you're willing to forgo any notion of server consolidation in that area. In other words, buy as at least as much hardware for your virtual Exchange/SQL boxes as you would for a physical, at least from a disk subsystem standpoint.

Of course, the other side is that Microsoft doesn't officially support Exchange or SQL in a virutal environment. Their official stance is that they'll support it as far as it is "commercially feasible", but at some point you may be requested to reproduce the issue on physical hardware (i.e., it's not our software, it's VMWare). I suspect that will change when as Microsoft Virtual Server matures.

On a side note, the biggest issue that I've seen with people virtualizing their environment is with disk I/O. If you have 10 physical servers, in most cases those boxes are only using 20-30% of their CPU power and maybe 50-60% of their RAM. But because disk subsystems are so slow, they're usually much closer to their performance limits than other parts of the server. A lot of people look at a 4-socket server with 6 disks in RAID 5 and think, "If this were running VMWare (or Virtual Server) "I could put 5-7 virtual machines on this one physical box". Except that they don't have the disk I/O to handle all of those machines reading and writing at the same time. So if you're going to go virtual I highly recommend using large RAID 10 arrays for your server storage. Disk is cheap these days, you don't want to kill your virtualization project by not putting in adequately performing storage.