VMWare

Tell me, is there a limit to the number of vm images I can run on a server with say 8-16gb of ram? I have 26 machines that I want to move into virtual environments.

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astorrs

Are you using VMware Server or ESX?

How much RAM does each physical server have right now? How much of it is used on average?

Sanza

Vmware server.

We don’t have the srv in place as yet, I just want to do some research on it to motivate a move to VMs. We had a srv like that at my previous company and it ran 4-5 VMs, just wanted to know what spec srv I would need to run say 13 images at the same time.

dynamik

You need to provide a lot more information. There's no way to answer that without some estimate of the resources each machine will be using.

astorrs

Like dynamik said, give us an idea of the workload of each machine and maybe start by answering the other two questions in my first reply.

Would you consider doing this in ESX instead of VMware Server? The consolidation ratio will be hire due to the type of hypervisor combined with ESX's memory page sharing and balloon driver architecture.

Tontonsam

HI everybody,
I am preparing 70-290. I have installed VMware server one time but didn't configure anything as I have installed it on a laptop and they take the laptop. I don't have any big computer to install it. My laptop has 20GB Hard disk and it is less than 1GB free space now. So, to tell you i have never used it.
I'd like to know if virtual machine and virtual network can interact with the real network? That means, can I use a computer to join a domain in a virtual machine? I know that the answer I have to expect is it is a virtual machine but just asking that in case it can be....

astorrs

Tontonsam wrote:

HI everybody,
I am preparing 70-290. I have installed VMware server one time but didn't configure anything as I have installed it on a laptop and they take the laptop. I don't have any big computer to install it. My laptop has 20GB Hard disk and it is less than 1GB free space now. So, to tell you i have never used it.
I'd like to know if virtual machine and virtual network can interact with the real network? That means, can I use a computer to join a domain in a virtual machine? I know that the answer I have to expect is it is a virtual machine but just asking that in case it can be....

Yes, a virtual machine can do almost everything a physical machine can.

Tontonsam

I know but I am asking if virtual machine can interact with real network. For example, can i install vmware in a machine and install win2003 and configure real computers to join domain existing in the virtual machine?

dynamik

Yes. Bridged networking will put your VM on the network just like any other machine.

astorrs

Tontonsam wrote:

I know but I am asking if virtual machine can interact with real network. For example, can i install vmware in a machine and install win2003 and configure real computers to join domain existing in the virtual machine?

Yes that's what I was saying (thanks dynamik for clarifying), if you are going to run DC's within a virtual machine there are some specific things to be aware of in production environments:

Considerations when hosting Active Directory domain controller in virtual hosting environments
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/888794

Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines
http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vmware_timekeeping.pdf

Tontonsam

AH.... Great!!! I understand now why companies use Virtual machine in their corporate network. But I regret to don't have opportunity to setup VM but i'd like to know if I have three virtual servers, do the VM software will retain three IPs to let the pcs communicate with the servers or computers will communicate with one ip address, or do I have three nics on the server?

dynamik

Why can't you set one up? VMWare Server is a free download, and you'll be able to get a few VMs going on any machine that has moderate specs. You should definitely play around with it before you make any decisions. You can also download a demo of ESX (more strict HW requirements though).

I'm not sure if you've ever bridged network connections in Windows before, but if you have, it works like that. They all can have their own IPs and communicate through a single NIC. You can add more NICs for better performance/redundancy if you want.

Tontonsam

I can't setup it now cause i don't have sufficient hardware. I have only one laptop with 20GB HDD (less than 1GB free space). But I will setup it next days cause I want to experience whatever I find new.

mrgetdown88

Thanks fot the info guys, just got my VM server up and running last night... now I'm ready to study for the exam