Virtualisation - get me started please

Phil Gr

Phil Gr

Phil Gr

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I am very new to the idea of virtualisation, I have a basic knowledge of networking, with a reasonable home network, which is exclusively Apple Products and a synology NAS

I have plenty of legacy PC parts kicking about, full size Antec Case & PSU, MB, & Processor, plenty of ram and old hard drives etc..

I would like to maybe make use if possible of some of this equipment to create myself and virtualisation lab to play and learn at home, and if time permits do some certification, while not essential to my work as a commissioning engineer, it is an area where some knowledge of virtualisation could offer some real benefits to some up and coming projects.

Recently at work we had had issues with legacy IT equipment with bespoke software installs failing, a solution we implemented was to use virtual machines, which worked well to a point, but I felt that better knowledge would have helped greatly

I don't have a budget in mind, but obviously I would like to keep the cost to a min, I accept that I prob will have to get a new mb and processor and maybe some network cards etc..

Can you guys help me get started on a build for my first venture into virtualisation ?

Thanks in advance

Phil G
 
A lot of people just buy one or two of the HP servers with the cash back such as the HP Microserver N40L. Obviously it depends on how advanced you are going to make it and what VM software you are going to use.

I would download the trial version of VMware vSphere 5.1 and install that.


I used 2 HP micro servers and then used a Dell 2950 with OpenFiler installed on it as my central storage.
 
First off you have a choice of virtualisation sofware:

VMware vSphere ESXi
Microsoft Hyper-v
Citrix Xen server
Oracle Virtual Box

MW
 
I was a virtualisation newbie not all that long ago - then I decided to have a go like yourself, at minimum cost. I bought an HP ML110 when they were on cashback as others have mentioned - brilliant small tower that is perfect for this sort of thing. I then decided to use VMWare ESXi, which is free and will be fine for home use.

I installed ESXi on to a memory stick (the HP will boot from a memory stick) and configured the minimal settings required (IP address etc.). I used the drive the HP came with for the VM datastore. Once the install's done you browse to the EXSi host's IP address on another PC and it will offer you a link to download the vSphere client. Install this on your PC and login to ESXi with the user/password you configured during the ESXi install. After that, setting up guest VMs is pretty easy to be honest. Plenty of blogs and instructions via Google.

I looked at MS Hyper V too, but the free version is command line only and I baulked at that. If you have access to a full blown Windows Server edition you can install that on the host, enable just the Hyper V role and you have a GUI for it which makes things a lot easier.
 
I have looked at the HP Microserver and will go that route if i have to, just thought if i had a load of spare kit, i could make use of that especially as the case i have is full size with plenty of room for drives etc.

I was thinking of going down the VMware route it appears the most popular, although the solution we used at work was with Virtual Box

might do some more digging and try to do a price comparison between the HP and a custom build

Thanks for the responses so far - keep it coming :)

Phil G
 
Studying the train signal vmware 5 along with hands on work. Is this enough for the 5.5 VCP exam ? Do you still need an authorized course ? as it is mighty expensive
 
You still need the course - the idea being that VMware will not certify anyone who does not have the knowledge gained by the course. I did the course a few years back and it was excellent. I think it was around £1500 (employer paid) and I got a lot out of it.

You can get ESXi 5.5 free if you don't want to use vCenter (though you'll be missing out a lot as vCenter is really the reason why I'd pick VMware over anything else).



M.
 
I have a fully licence version of VMWare ESXi 5.1 (going to try and upgrade to 5.5 soon) running on a Dell Optiplex 755 Small Form Factor with Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale

I have upped to 10GB ram, I could get to 16GB however finding 4GB sticks of DDR2 is hard, and expensive.

I only have 3 VM's at the moment, my main Windows Server 2008 R2 VM which I use as file server, VPN Gateway, Plex Media Server and my GNS3 Cisco/Networking Lab Server

Ubuntu Server VM and an F5 Load Balancer Virtual Edition Virtual Machine for F5 load balancer studying I am doing in work.

I dont generally have them all running at once but there is plenty of RAM/CPU left to use before I look at jumping to a bigger machine, the GNS labs are fine with routing and switching, hardly touches the CPU/Memory when running Cisco and router switch IOS', however Cisco ASA firewall images on the otherhand eat the CPU.

I have 2 VM Networks on the ESX server, which utilises the onboard NIC, and I have a dual gigabit NIC, all of which are VLAN'd up and connected to a Cisco 877 router which I am primaraly using as a switch and then a default route on there points to my ISP router, then out to the internet.

As the server is not local to me, its at my parents house in the garage. I can essentially wake up the ESXi host over the internet (this is what the onboard NIC is for, and only this) The VMs I have are assigned to the dual NIC card, one for windows VM, the other for the Ubuntu VM.

I prefer VMWare ESXi to Hyper-V
 
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