ESX is limited on its hardware support, VM Workstation works with most hardware. Not ideal, but it works and I don't perceive much degradation in performance. It also allows me to run two ESX hosts on the same hardware, which is helpful when testing vSphere clustered enviroments.
Ideas for new server setup
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ESX is limited on its hardware support, VM Workstation works with most hardware. Not ideal, but it works and I don't perceive much degradation in performance. It also allows me to run two ESX hosts on the same hardware, which is helpful when testing vSphere clustered enviroments.
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I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 license so there are no issues to get a license to use
What are the roles and how do they affect VMs?
I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 license so there are no issues to get a license to use
What are the roles and how do they affect VMs?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-GB/library/hh831669.aspx
They would all *work* - but hyper-v and any other plus more than one instance of 2012 R2 as a VM without additional licence would be a breach.
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I have access to other licenses if necesary as well so I should be able to use it without a breach.... I think anyway
Very surprised that nobody has mentioned using KVM/QEMU instead of VMware/VirtualBox and the like. For Linux VMs it would be my choice bar none, for performance and the fact that it has such a reach (OpenStack etc). No idea what the VirtIO drivers are like for Windows though, if you require that.
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Agree. I've used ESXI and VMware in the past but have settled on KVM (Proxmox). Simple to setup and manage and I haven't had any driver issues, like I did with the others. It's also completely open source and free.
That's my experience anyway, though it does depend on your use-case somewhat. I would definitely recommend giving it a try though.
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The issue is I'm trying to keep as much as the resources devoted to the VMs as possible so I don't want an operating system installed with a virtualisation tool when I could just have a barebones O/S that deals with the VMs with no need for other software.
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That's what Proxmox is. It is a minimal Linux OS dedicated to running and managing KVM virtual machines. Even ESXI contains a Linux kernel.
The minimum requirements for running Proxmox are less than for ESXI.
Even if you run a "full" Linux distribution as opposed to a specialised virtualisation/containerisation distribution like Proxmox, host resource usage will be small.
As far as I'm aware (i.e. not very aware at all), Proxmox doesn't have a plugin architecture. So it boils down to flexibility against ease of use.
Another option would be containerisation on your current CentOS install which would result in even lower "guest" resource usage, but that of course depends on using containerised applications.
Depends on whether you want to learn about Linux and the open source world, or just use it.
Not sure what the release cycle is like for Proxmox, but the RHEL kernel/Debian OS combination just doesn't sit right with me, but not for any particular reason (I'm just like things to be simple). CentOS is a good base IMO. That said, I live in the command line and don't like these complete packages.
As far as I'm aware (i.e. not very aware at all), Proxmox doesn't have a plugin architecture. So it boils down to flexibility against ease of use.
Another option would be containerisation on your current CentOS install which would result in even lower "guest" resource usage, but that of course depends on using containerised applications.
Depends on whether you want to learn about Linux and the open source world, or just use it.
Not sure what the release cycle is like for Proxmox, but the RHEL kernel/Debian OS combination just doesn't sit right with me, but not for any particular reason (I'm just like things to be simple). CentOS is a good base IMO. That said, I live in the command line and don't like these complete packages.
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To be honest I'm looking to have a bit of a play with the server with the result being fit for purpose (Not just messing for the sake of it) so I don't mind learning a new interface/operating system on the way as long as the result is reasonably usefull
Just been playing with a recent release of NAS4FREE and only realized that it also includes a headless VirtualBox option under the Advances menu.
I haven't had much time to play with it, but access is by a Web page where you can create virtual machines etc. That's as far as I got, but its an interesting option.
You could build a NAS4FREE directly on the hardware, then run some VM's in VirtualBox, i.e. VPN Server, DNS server, OwnCloud. Which seems ideal for most home users? Especially since I know you can install Plex media server on NAS4FREE too.
I haven't had much time to play with it, but access is by a Web page where you can create virtual machines etc. That's as far as I got, but its an interesting option.
You could build a NAS4FREE directly on the hardware, then run some VM's in VirtualBox, i.e. VPN Server, DNS server, OwnCloud. Which seems ideal for most home users? Especially since I know you can install Plex media server on NAS4FREE too.
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That sounds like a good idea, I'll need to do some research to se if the VM's have any limitations but it might be easier to manage than some of the "business" grade options although I do like the looks of Hyper-V and ESXi by VMWare
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Okay so a little bit of an update to this
I had a go at installing Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 R2 (Together and seperately) last night and got slightly confused. I tried to install RSAT tools on my Laptop to get it to connect to the Hyper-V core server and it didn't work as I forgot I only have Windows 10 Home on my laptop. Also I realised that their is quite a large overhead for the GUI on Windows Server 2012 R2 which is unnecesary. Also I can't get Windows Server 2012 R2 configured to turn on/off via WOL for some reason which is a big must for this server.
So after this I'm slightly confused and wondering where to go from here, does Proxmox/ESXi support SSH and WOL turn off/on as this is my biggest issue with Server 2012 at the moment and how would I go about setting up a VPN on Server 2012 or on a Proxmox VM?
I had a go at installing Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 R2 (Together and seperately) last night and got slightly confused. I tried to install RSAT tools on my Laptop to get it to connect to the Hyper-V core server and it didn't work as I forgot I only have Windows 10 Home on my laptop. Also I realised that their is quite a large overhead for the GUI on Windows Server 2012 R2 which is unnecesary. Also I can't get Windows Server 2012 R2 configured to turn on/off via WOL for some reason which is a big must for this server.
So after this I'm slightly confused and wondering where to go from here, does Proxmox/ESXi support SSH and WOL turn off/on as this is my biggest issue with Server 2012 at the moment and how would I go about setting up a VPN on Server 2012 or on a Proxmox VM?
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I use Proxmox and manage it and all the VMs mostly via ssh. Occasionally I use the web gui but not out of necessity.
I don't use WOL but a quick Google search suggests that others do so successfully.
One of my VMs runs Debian with Openvpn server. I can connect to a VPN provider or setup my own vpn for remote connection. Plenty of guides out there if you look for them.
I don't use WOL but a quick Google search suggests that others do so successfully.
One of my VMs runs Debian with Openvpn server. I can connect to a VPN provider or setup my own vpn for remote connection. Plenty of guides out there if you look for them.
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I'll definitely have a look as the more research I do the more I find Proxmox is better suited. I was just wondering how it would interact with HDD's though as I like to install Proxmox/VMs on the SSD in the server for a fastboot but keep files on the HDDs and in the future possible RAID setup. Is there anyway I could do this in Proxmox?
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That's exactly what I do. I have Proxmox and VM images all on the SSD and a bunch of HDD pooled together using btrfs. The pooled storage is mounted on the Proxmox host and shared using Samba. I backup all the VMs to the storage (and elsewhere) and I can share the storage with all of the VMs and other devices on the network.
If you check it out and get stuck on anything, let me know and I will try to help.
If you check it out and get stuck on anything, let me know and I will try to help.
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Thanks, I'll have a go at this next week when I have some free time as I never thought of using Samba to share the storage between the VMs
Use Centos and KVM for virtualisation. It's predominantly command line based but you could use libvirtd and virt-manager (a GUI) which makes managing VMs/storage and networking easier to pick up.
Never used VMWare products but they look almost as complicated as Linux with a big cost on top so not sure I ever will
Never used VMWare products but they look almost as complicated as Linux with a big cost on top so not sure I ever will
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To be honest I was straying away from VMWare as soon as I found that I had a Server 2012 license. I'm going to install Proxmox next week as it seems to be a well built O/S for virtualisation.
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Okay so I'm a bit stuck on the setup at the moment.
Last night I installed Proxmox but I'm confused on how to setup the storage for the VMs as I don't know how to get Proxmox to mount the HDD and despite searching on Google topics related only seem to cover on how to get the VMs to recognise the storage and not Proxmox. Also I'm not sure if the install formatted the SSD as creating storge IDs (If that's what they are called) uses up the full capacity of the SSD.
Last night I installed Proxmox but I'm confused on how to setup the storage for the VMs as I don't know how to get Proxmox to mount the HDD and despite searching on Google topics related only seem to cover on how to get the VMs to recognise the storage and not Proxmox. Also I'm not sure if the install formatted the SSD as creating storge IDs (If that's what they are called) uses up the full capacity of the SSD.