What VMs are you running and why?

Jay_2

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 20, 2006
Messages
3,583
Just interested in what everyone actually uses their home VMWare stuff for?

Me

I have

VCenter OVA
Windows Server 2012 - DC
Windows Server 2012 - Exchange
Windows XP - Remote management (Team Viewer)
Win Home Server - Backups / Plex
Win 7 - MediaBrowser Server
FreePBX - Home phone / Voicemail
CentOS - Shared Webserver
CentOS - Dedicated Webserver (Wife's business)
CentOS - Reverse Proxy
CentOS - DNS for guest wifi VLAN
CentOS - Cacti / Nagios Server
 
Ahem, virtualization = VMWare?

Strange, I thought Amazon is using Xen?

Anyway, I do. And here is my shortlist:

Hypervisor: Xen 4.3
Host OS / dom0: Linux Mint 16
VM: Windows 7 Pro 64bit with VGA passthrough

The short answer to "why?": Convenience, stability, security.

The long answer: I would happily dump Windows altogether if it wasn't for Adobe (Lightroom, Photoshop etc.). Before Xen I used to dual-boot which was a real pain in the neck. Now I just start my Windows VM when needed and work as if Windows was running on bare metal, which is what I need. Since I pass through a dedicated graphics card to Windows, Windows has direct access to it (important for gaming or - in my case - fancy screen calibration hardware and software). I also pass through a bunch of USB devices for extra speed and convenience.

My Windows VM can easily be backed up and restored when needed, or moved to different hardware. I always keep a few backups, including a "golden copy", of the VM.

My media server - an old Pentium D - is a dedicated Linux box with XBMC, which also runs a small web server for streaming to iPad, phones, etc. I plan to replace it so when that happens I will use Xen and VMs to run separate media server, file server, and web server VMs.

By the way, you got quite a plethora of guests running.
 
I run a large number of VMs so I can get familiar with various technologies. Right now it's System Center.

VMware cluster:

2x Windows 2012 R2 domain controllers
Windows 2012 R2 RRAS
vCenter Appliance
Windows 2012 server with SQL 2012
Windows 2012 server running VMware Update Manager
Windows 2008 R2 server running WDS and MDT
Windows 2008 R2 server running Veeam
Windows 2012 R2 WSUS
Windows 2012 R2 running SCVMM 2012 R2
Windows 7 running Folding@Home
Windows 8.1 running media streaming services

Hyper-V cluster:

Windows 2012 R2 domain controller
Windows 2012 R2 WSUS
Windows 2012 R2 running SQL 2012
Windows 2012 running vCenter, VUM
Windows 2008 R2 soon to be running VMwre View composer
Windows 2012 R2 running App Controller
5x Windows 2012 R2 that will have SCSM, SCOM, SCORCH, APPV Server, IPAM running
Windows 8.1 for horsing around with
 
On my ESXi box:
vSphere Appliance
Server 2008 R2 Servers x 6
Windows 7 Professional

All for MS exam prep. What's nice is if I need to prep another Server 2008 R2 guest as part of a lab, I can just deploy from a template with vSphere and get a vanilla install that's fully updated. Just have to remember to sysprep the damn thing. :rolleyes:
 
on esxi:
centos -for nagios/cacti for monitoring client systems
centos -mailscanner backup mx for client email
centos -asterisk pbx
centos -general purpose file server, NFS target for numerous ISO's for loading in esxi
server 2008r2 -vcenter, host for vm backups (nakivo), and run a java app controller for philips hue lights
server 2008r2 core - backup domain controller for office -via vpn
bsd -pfsense firewall/ vlan router

those are running 24x7. bunch of others that are used from time to time -OSX snow leopard, other pbx systems when I'm configuring for clients, more linux boxes for random experiments etc.
 
pfsense gateway
centos (pbxinaflash)
ubuntu (mail, web, icinga, etc...)
win7 telecommuter for me
win7 telecommuter for my wife
spamtitan mail appliance
omnios zfs storage appliance for replication of main SAN
 
Yeah, that'd take too long to list. Lets just say "I win" and leave it at that :p
 
WinServer 2k12 - Domain Controller - Part of my lab to Study for MS certs
WinServer 2k12 - FileServer - Shares/DC++/Utorrent/Plex MediaServer/FTP Server/WebServer
PfSense - Router/Firewall/UTM
Debian Linux 7 - GameServer for lanparties - Counterstrike/Quake etc. Also use it to learn Linux.
Windows 8 - Main PC VM - uses passthrough so I can play games, watch movies, surf web etc.
Windows 7 - Litecoin/Quarkcoin wallet - VM who sole purpose is to run my cryptocoin wallets.
WinServer 2003 - Security cam server - monitors and records my security cameras

Coming soon - XenDesktop - just so I can learn it.
 
Last edited:
win 2k8 R2 - domain/dhcp/dns
centOS - web server
centOS - minecraft
win 2k8 R2 - NOC/RDP/console
2k8 - uTorrent
2k8 - media streaming services
others to test and play around with. going to convert most to linux based since i don't have technet any longer.
 
I have 2 physical servers and 1 workstation. All using Hyper-V. Servers are clustered.
3 Domain Controllers (Server 2012 R2)
1 Certificate Server (Clustered) (Server 2012 R2)
2 Squid Proxy Servers configured as WCCP caching peers (Ubuntu Server)
1 Windows XP (Clustered)
1 Windows 7 (Clustered)
1 Guacamole HTML5 Server (Ubuntu Server) (On workstation)
2 SQL 2012 Servers (Server 2012 R2)
1 SCVMM Server (Clustered) (Server 2012 R2)

I have a physical File Server to host the clustered storage. That's Server 2012 R2 also.
 
Thanks for the input

It's a joke (hang around this side of the world a bit and you'll see why) ;)

My lab includes almost 100TB of storage across 15 arrays, 80 servers, and full licenses for everything in the world :p

3 VCs, vCAC with physical/virtual/vCHS/Openstack deployment, vCD internal devops, appd (beta), Dot Hill 5000 series, VDI, SRM between 3 sites, Tintri 540, Nimble C400, two domains across 7 DCs, 3 VPN tunnels, Brocade director class core switching with Mellanox 40GbE edge, Qlogic FC switching (for the X-IO ISE2), FCoE breakout on Brocade 6730s, 17 nodes of vSAN...
 
Running on VMware ESXi 5.5:
1 Server 2012 R2 - DC, DHCP, DNS, WSUS, Print, WDS, and MDT
1 Server 2012 - DC, DNS
1 FreePBX - Home Phones off Google Voice
1 OpenIndiana - NAS/SAN, 8 disks passthrough, backing up to CrashPlan
1 Ubuntu - Plex Media Server
1 Ubuntu - Hamachi gateway, media gathering software
1 VMA - UPS management
1 pfSense - Router, VPN and traffic monitor

All above running 24x7, bunch of other VM's (Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Windows 7-2012R2) for testing and other odd jobs, about 30 in all.
 
Last edited:
Currently I have a core2quad whitebox server with 8GB of ram (max it can take :() Running FC9 and virtualbox. The host itself serves lot of purposes such as local web, DNS, mail, NTP etc.... and for the longest time, file storage. I recently (as in, yesterday) moved all the drives over to my new file server which is a 24 bay Supermicro. That's a step towards upgrading/replacing the old server and centralizing all storage.

Currently I only have the following VMs but want to add more:

p2p (Debian) : torrent box
ravager (Win2k3) : used to be the test environment for my UO game server, it is now the controller for my Unifi AP (will add more in the future) as well as runs a Minecraft server. Anything else that requires Windows I tend to just shove on there.
vpnsrv: VPN server

Between various lab environments for learning, and possibly starting a Hyperboria meshnet node with some web services, I will want to have more VMs, but VirtualBox makes VM management a pain so I don't want to start anything new till I build the new server and use a more server centric solution.

Depending on my tax return I want to build a new VM server with way more ram and cpu. Having a blank box to play with will also allow me to experiment with various solutions without touching prod.

I was looking at AMD based white box route and I can probably build something for only slightly over 1k, so I might build two.
 
Just interested in what everyone actually uses their home VMWare stuff for?
...

That escalated quickly (from home lab to the playground for real men ;))

It's a joke (hang around this side of the world a bit and you'll see why) ;)

My lab includes almost 100TB of storage across 15 arrays, 80 servers, and full licenses for everything in the world :p

3 VCs, vCAC with physical/virtual/vCHS/Openstack deployment, vCD internal devops, appd (beta), Dot Hill 5000 series, VDI, SRM between 3 sites, Tintri 540, Nimble C400, two domains across 7 DCs, 3 VPN tunnels, Brocade director class core switching with Mellanox 40GbE edge, Qlogic FC switching (for the X-IO ISE2), FCoE breakout on Brocade 6730s, 17 nodes of vSAN...

Nevertheless it would be interesting what kind of toys the [H]ard vmware folks play with at home. I guess licensing all the nice things for a home lab is a smaller hurdle for you than for the rest of us mortals. With no VMware equivalent for MSDNA/TechNet whatever available :(


But not to derail the thread, I got 2 small ESXi hosts (occasionally supported by my laptop with VMware Workstation) running:
- various Windows Servers (2008 - 2012 R2) with all sorts of roles (DC,file,...)
- exchange,SCCM
- a couple of Windows clients (XP - 8.1)
- some linux (mostly toying with monitoring stuff like nagios/icinga)

not running everything at once, due to limited hardware resources
Main purpose is just trying to keep myself educated about technologies I need for the job and/or I'm interested out of curiosity.
 
Last edited:
Nevertheless it would be interesting what kind of toys the [H]ard vmware folks play with at home. I guess licensing all the nice things for a home lab is a smaller hurdle for you then for the rest of us mortals. With no VMware equivalent for MSDNA/TechNet whatever available :(

I have a feeling a lot of people are also wearing an eye patch and possibly even a wood leg. :p
 
Many of us work for partners and get NFR licenses. Lopo works for the man so he gets to do whatever he wants. :D
 
Last edited:
I just reinstall every 60 days, wouldn't do it for prod or even a lab at work but for at home its not the end of the world.
 
It's a joke (hang around this side of the world a bit and you'll see why) ;)

My lab includes almost 100TB of storage across 15 arrays, 80 servers, and full licenses for everything in the world :p

3 VCs, vCAC with physical/virtual/vCHS/Openstack deployment, vCD internal devops, appd (beta), Dot Hill 5000 series, VDI, SRM between 3 sites, Tintri 540, Nimble C400, two domains across 7 DCs, 3 VPN tunnels, Brocade director class core switching with Mellanox 40GbE edge, Qlogic FC switching (for the X-IO ISE2), FCoE breakout on Brocade 6730s, 17 nodes of vSAN...

I think they meant at home Lop not what lab access u got at work :p

In all Seriousness his lab is bad ass!! he gets all the fun toys to play with!
 
Last edited:
My VMWare Lab (At Home) - Very End User Computing Centric!

3 Hosts (Ones in my Sig) [Using vSan Beta Refresh Code]

Storage
Lefthand VSA's - Primary Storage (1GB Ethernet)
vSAN - Secondary Storage (10GB IPoIB)
OmniOS - Backups and Media Storage (1GB Ethernet)

Networking
4x 1Gb NICs (2 in Standard [MGMT] and Switch 2 in DVS [VM Traffic/Storage])
2x 10Gb Infiniband Mellanox (Connect-X) With IB Switch using IPoIB Technology [vSAN + vMotion]

VMWare View (Using Unreleased Code)
2 Win 2k8 Servers (Connection Server/Security Server)
2x Win XP VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Win 7 x64 VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Win 8.1 x64 VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Terminal Servers Server 2k8
1x Server 2k8 (Terminal Server as a Desktop)

Horizon Workspace (Beta Code)
5 Linux VMs

vCenter Operations for View
2 Linux VMs

Mirage 4.x Beta Environment
2 Server 2k8 Boxes
2 VMs (Win7 and Win8.1) Testing grounds

Centos - Plex Media Server
Centos - Classified ;)
Centos - WebServer
Centos - WebServer/SSH
FreeBSD - WebServer/SSH - Buddy's Box
Ubuntu - Classified ;)

Windows Server 2k8 - AD Server
Windows Server 2k8 - Root CA
Windows Server 2k8 - Intermediary CA/VUM Server
Windows Server 2k8 - Developer Box - For Buddy
Windows Server 2k8 - SQL 2012 Box

vCenter Appliance 5.5 (vSan Beta Refresh Code)
VMA vSphere 5.5
OmniOS VM - PCI Passthrough w/8x2TB Drives for Media Storage (CIFS/NFS) and Backups (NFS)
VDP 5.5 - Backup VMs to NFS

I own a MS Action Pack and i have a MSDN license paid by work to cover it all. The Why with the EUC stuff is b/c my job requires it of me to keep up with the latest code so i can deliver to customers. The other stuff web servers are used to donate webspace to non-profit organizations.
 
Last edited:
I think they meant at home Lop not what lab access u got at work :p

In all Seriousness his lab is bad ass!! he gets all the fun toys to play with!

3 VPN tunnels - what is "home" when you are the cloud? ;) :D
 
Ahem, virtualization = VMWare?

Strange, I thought Amazon is using Xen?

Anyway, I do. And here is my shortlist:

Hypervisor: Xen 4.3
Host OS / dom0: Linux Mint 16
VM: Windows 7 Pro 64bit with VGA passthrough

The short answer to "why?": Convenience, stability, security.

The long answer: I would happily dump Windows altogether if it wasn't for Adobe (Lightroom, Photoshop etc.). Before Xen I used to dual-boot which was a real pain in the neck. Now I just start my Windows VM when needed and work as if Windows was running on bare metal, which is what I need. Since I pass through a dedicated graphics card to Windows, Windows has direct access to it (important for gaming or - in my case - fancy screen calibration hardware and software). I also pass through a bunch of USB devices for extra speed and convenience.

My Windows VM can easily be backed up and restored when needed, or moved to different hardware. I always keep a few backups, including a "golden copy", of the VM.

My media server - an old Pentium D - is a dedicated Linux box with XBMC, which also runs a small web server for streaming to iPad, phones, etc. I plan to replace it so when that happens I will use Xen and VMs to run separate media server, file server, and web server VMs.

By the way, you got quite a plethora of guests running.

I got a question on video passthrough.
how do u connect to the vm to use the video card that is passed through to it? I connect to my vm via RDP from mavericks but how would I connect and get full video card usage? using vi client console? or is there another way?

thanks
 
2 Hosts that are in sig.

I will be running both on esxi 5.5, currently only 1 does.

Windows XP, win 8, Linux mint 16, 2012 server. Hope to add more soon.
 
2x Hyper-V Hosts running Server 2012 R2

All running Server 2012 R2 unless otherwise stated -
2x Domain Controllers, DHCP, DNS (1 running Essentials Experience w/RD Gateway)
1x WDS
1x VPN
1x RDS
1x WSUS
1x Plex Server (Win 8.1)
2x Windows 7 VM's for various little things
1x Veeam B&R/Veeam One (Win 8.1)
1x RSat VM (Win 8.1)

A box, also running Server 2012 R2, as the file server and holds VM backups.

I set this up to continue to learn about virtualization (switched from ESxi) and digging deeper with different server roles/domain setup.
 
Last edited:
3 x HP DL380G6 Hosts w/ 96GB in VMware 5.1 Cluster (They are available in my FS Thread BTW, It's time to trim down the lab)
2 x PFSense as gateway (CARP)
2 x Win2k12R2 DC's
2 x 2008 R2 Random test boxes
1 x Win2k12 WDS Server
1 x 2008 R2 WSUS Server
1 x PBX-In-a-Flash 2.0.6.2
1 x FreeNAS
1 x NAS4Free
1 x AlienVault
1 x Win 8.1 for PLEX and Murmur Server

2 x HP DL360G5s Windows 2012 Hyper-V cluster
2 x Win2k12R2 DC's
2 x Win2008 R2 - Exchange 2010 (soon to be updated)
1 x Win2k12 SCCM
1 x Win7 running 3CX v.12

iSCSI Backend to Win2K12R2 Server. Working on 10GbE upgrade across the board
 
ESXi 5.5 host with iSCSI to FreeNAS
1x Win 8.1 for management/downloads/testing
2x Win 7 for testing
5x Win XP for testing (deleting these on April 8th!)
3x Win Server 2012
First for Direct Access/AD/DNS
Second one runs Media Server/AD/DNS/DHCP/FTP/Subsonic
Third one is a term server for AutoCAD

Need to get two more hosts and some SSDs to try out some vSAN :p
 
None at home. I keep that crap at work.

My work workstation has ton of VMs, from a few Ubuntu server instances to all kinds of projects I am working on.

I run a base of windows 8.1 on a Dell precision T5600, Dual 8 core Xeon, 128GB ram 4x 10K 600GB SAS6 and 256GB SSD boot. My VM environment sits primarily in VM Ware Workstation 9. I have 3 ESXI hosts, 1 4.1 and 2 5.5 in which various shit runs for various tasks and projects. in all about 45 VM's reside in this machine, with usually about 10 running at one time.
 
My VMWare Lab (At Home) - Very End User Computing Centric!

3 Hosts (Ones in my Sig) [Using vSan Beta Refresh Code]

Storage
Lefthand VSA's - Primary Storage (1GB Ethernet)
vSAN - Secondary Storage (10GB IPoIB)
OmniOS - Backups and Media Storage (1GB Ethernet)

Networking
4x 1Gb NICs (2 in Standard [MGMT] and Switch 2 in DVS [VM Traffic/Storage])
2x 10Gb Infiniband Mellanox (Connect-X) With IB Switch using IPoIB Technology [vSAN + vMotion]

VMWare View (Using Unreleased Code)
2 Win 2k8 Servers (Connection Server/Security Server)
2x Win XP VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Win 7 x64 VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Win 8.1 x64 VMs (Linked Clones)
2x Terminal Servers Server 2k8
1x Server 2k8 (Terminal Server as a Desktop)

Horizon Workspace (Beta Code)
5 Linux VMs

vCenter Operations for View
2 Linux VMs

Mirage 4.x Beta Environment
2 Server 2k8 Boxes
2 VMs (Win7 and Win8.1) Testing grounds

Centos - Plex Media Server
Centos - Classified ;)
Centos - WebServer
Centos - WebServer/SSH
FreeBSD - WebServer/SSH - Buddy's Box
Ubuntu - Classified ;)

Windows Server 2k8 - AD Server
Windows Server 2k8 - Root CA
Windows Server 2k8 - Intermediary CA/VUM Server
Windows Server 2k8 - Developer Box - For Buddy
Windows Server 2k8 - SQL 2012 Box

vCenter Appliance 5.5 (vSan Beta Refresh Code)
VMA vSphere 5.5
OmniOS VM - PCI Passthrough w/8x2TB Drives for Media Storage (CIFS/NFS) and Backups (NFS)
VDP 5.5 - Backup VMs to NFS

I own a MS Action Pack and i have a MSDN license paid by work to cover it all. The Why with the EUC stuff is b/c my job requires it of me to keep up with the latest code so i can deliver to customers. The other stuff web servers are used to donate webspace to non-profit organizations.

This is what I a talking about.

My full work environment is like this using HP Lefthands as HA storage and Equallogics as data buckets.
 
It's a joke (hang around this side of the world a bit and you'll see why) ;)

My lab includes almost 100TB of storage across 15 arrays, 80 servers, and full licenses for everything in the world :p

3 VCs, vCAC with physical/virtual/vCHS/Openstack deployment, vCD internal devops, appd (beta), Dot Hill 5000 series, VDI, SRM between 3 sites, Tintri 540, Nimble C400, two domains across 7 DCs, 3 VPN tunnels, Brocade director class core switching with Mellanox 40GbE edge, Qlogic FC switching (for the X-IO ISE2), FCoE breakout on Brocade 6730s, 17 nodes of vSAN...

Who pays that power bill? LMAO. In SOcal I cannot even breakeven mining the power is so damn expensive.
 
2x Hyper-V Hosts running Server 2012 R2

All running Server 2012 R2 unless otherwise stated -
2x Domain Controllers, DHCP, DNS (1 running Essentials Experience w/RD Gateway)
1x WDS
1x VPN
1x RDS
1x WSUS
1x Plex Server (Win 8.1)
2x Windows 7 VM's for various little things
1x Veeam B&R/Veeam One (Win 8.1)
1x RSat VM (Win 8.1)

A box, also running Server 2012 R2, as the file server and holds VM backups.

I set this up to continue to learn about virtualization (switched from ESxi) and digging deeper with different server roles/domain setup.

How was the migration from ESXi? I'm thinking about doing the same. I'd like to use Server 2002 R2 Essentails overtop Hyper-V and go from there.
 
I run two hosts, I also have replication setup between hosts:
Dell PowerEdge 2950 II Host OS Windows 2012 R2
-Win2012 R2 Guest running SQL Server and TeamSpeak3 Host
-Win2012 R2 Guest running Plex
Homebuilt Server Host OS Windows 2012 R2
-Windows 8.1 Pro
-Fedora 20 Guest with VMWare Player
 
Last edited:
Back
Top