Virtual environment query

citizenx13 · 23 Jul 2015 at 11:42

Hello fellow OCUK members

I trust all are well and getting on with the day.

I am looking fro some advice, I would like to use one of my spare PC's and bust it full of RAM and HDD's at home to run some virtual servers like a domain controller, DHCP server and a fire wall of some sort.

I can either get evaluation copies of the servers or get some older ones cheaply but I need a virtual environment to put them on that is free.

Can anyone advise on where I can start looking or any software I can install.

Thank you in advance
CitizenX

Armageus · 23 Jul 2015 at 11:48

If you are new to Virtual environments then I would recommend either VirtualBox https://www.virtualbox.org/ or VMWare Player, as these in effect just run as an App on top of your normal operating system.

The more advanced option is to run vSphere hypervisor (known as VMWare ESXi), or Microsoft's Hyper-V, which replace the host Operating System and are essentially bare-metal Virtualisation.

citizenx13 · 23 Jul 2015 at 12:05

Hi

Thank you for the prompt response, I am trying out Virtualbox.

Best regards
CitizenX

Xez · 23 Jul 2015 at 13:25

VMWare ESXi free edition will do what you want whilst using minimal resources. You can install it onto a USB flash drive allowing all of your hard drives to be used as dedicated data stores for virtual machines.

citizenx13 · 23 Jul 2015 at 13:51

Nice one thank you will look at VMWare ESXi

Trifid · 23 Jul 2015 at 21:05

citizenx13 said:
Nice one thank you will look at VMWare ESXi

If you are doing it to learn for business then I'd recommend going for this and not wasting your time with Virtualbox.

Cuchulain · 23 Jul 2015 at 21:16

Forget about Virtualbox and go with https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2012-r2