Virtual Box VS VMware for Server 2012 labs

NetworkingStudent

I’m using Virtual Box to study for my Windows Server 2012 R2 70-410 exam.
So far I have a lot of success with a Windows 2012 R2 image with all updates.
I was able to run sysprep on this image.
I use PFsense to simulate a domain.
Some CBT courses recommend using VMware rather than Virtual Box.
I haven’t found a way to run hyper v on Virtual box. I'm running Virtual box and everything seems ok. It seems like there might be problems installing the the hyper v role.

Questions:
1) How do you run hyper v on Virtual box?
2) Is VMware better than virtual box for labs?

For labs I use
ITpro tv V lab
Measure up practice lab
and my own lab

cruwl

Virtual box is generally used when you do not have dedicated hardware just for labs. If you are running labs on your only PC then virtual box is just as good as any of the others.

In order to successfully do the Hyper-V portion you are going to want to install server 2012 on a physical system, not as a virtual machine. Again if you only have 1 computer you should be able to dual boot your current OS and server 2012 for the Hyper-V labs.

If you have a dedicated system to run all your VMs in you might want to look at converting this system to server 2012 Hyper-v that way you get that much more practice with hyper v as you do all the other labs.

nster

Trying to run a Virtual environment inside another virtual environment is called "nesting" a vm with another, google it to see how it can create issues. As said above, ideally you want to install Hyper-V on a physical machine for a hassle-free install. Otherwise, nesting Hyper-V with VMWare Workstation is doable, you can try googling instructions and common problems.

jmasterj206

I used Hyper V for most of my labbing, but by the time I got to 70-412 exam I had to go with VMware Workstation for nesting. At least when I finished up my exams around 6 months ago there was no way to do nested VM's in VirtualBox or HyperV. That could have changed, but I haven't heard anything different.

srabiee

Another recommendation for nesting Hyper-V servers within VMware Workstation. It works and it saves you from having to invest in additional hardware for labbing. Just make sure you have plenty of RAM to work with.

Louie1277

I came across this issue a while back. I wanted to start my lab in hyper-v since i had to learn it. But i quicky found out that you couldn't run hyper-v in vm.

I decided to install it on my hp micro server and run it from there. Most of my time i spend working on my mac using virutual box. The only time I really work on the HP server is when i need to study the hyper-v course.

but that means that I have to setup all them machine from start.


Hopefully some day they will be able to fix this nesting because that would help a lot of people that don't have the money to spend on more hardware.

You have the same setup I have... pfsense, and virutalbox it's easy and straight forward.

pjd007

I just run my lab off Win8.1 hyper v no probs.

bohack

Virtual Box does not support nested VMs last I checked, I put a request into Virtual Box and they said it wasn't a priority. That was about a year ago, things might have changed. If you want the ultimate lab machine add an SSD as a secondary drive just for VMware. Then follow this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG3vXlo2q7M you will need VMware Workstation 10 or higher to be able to nest Hyper-V inside of VMware. I use this setup to teach Hyper-V and it works really well...

Also, check out the other labs on the channel, I have a full tutorial on building a Windows Failover Cluster with Hyper-V inside of VMware. I've just recently tried a Generation 2 VM inside of Hyper-V virtualized on VMware and it is as fast as the parent VM. So fast I'm gonna do a video to show the comparison of Gen 1 hardware vs Gen 2. Good Luck!

pandiculator

You can sort of get Hyper-V to run on virtual machines but you won't be able to run any guests within Hyper-V. It's generally good enough for playing with settings and practising clustering though. The instructions below, which are for installing Hyper-V on VMs hosted on Hyper-V work fine on VMware too. There's no reason why they won't work on Virtual Box:

How to Install Hyper-V on a Virtual Machine in Hyper-V - Gilson Banin - Microsoft Premier Field Engineer - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

bohack

Seeing is believing... I'v managed to with the link above build a working Hyper-V and Windows Fail Over Cluster inside of VMware. The Guest VM has equal access to the hardware as the Parent partition. https://youtu.be/6WeN-dVTXHk?t=12m20s It runs super fast on an SSD and I've managed to run up to three VMs inside of Hyper-V virtualized on Vmware Workstation. Like I said seeing is believing. It's attributed to a lot of Sunday afternoons of winter.

NetworkingStudent

Thank for the reply guys
I picked up VMware workstation
It sure seems a lot nicer than Virtual Box.
I installed hyper V via server 2012 R2 role and I'm going through the exam ref book for 70410 that discussed Hyper v