How stable is vmware server 2.0 now?

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Red Squirrel

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When it first came out, I remember it being very unstable. The UI constantly crashed and it required to reboot the whole server. It was overall very flaky.

Anyone here use it, and is it better now? I'm currently using virtualbox but I find it a hassle to manage vms as it's not really meant for continuous operation as a server hypervisor so I'm looking at something else free. Just creating a new vm is a hassle because it wants to put everything all over the place so I need to use command line to override so the disk and config can be in the right place.

I'm also considering ESXi but from what I understand it needs to be on enterprise class hardware, which I will never be able to afford. My next server will probably be a supermicro but I doubt that's "enterprise" enough.

I'm also thinking about Xenserver. Is that one good? Whatever solution I decide on, it needs to be something free. I don't need advanced features like live migration and such, just need to have unlimited ability to create/manage vms on a SAN (which I will eventually add to the equation).

I tried KVM but a simple windows 2008 install blue screens, so to me that indicates it's not a very stable hypervisor yet.
 
Not true. ESXi works fine on low-end hardware. If anything it is lower footprint than other products. You do need to make sure your cards and HW and such are supported tho...
 
I thought it did not let you install unless you had very specific hardware that it supports? Or is that different now?

I forgot I had an old box so I'm playing with xen now. Only issue is this cpu does not have VT so I may be very limited in what I can do. If I go with a true hypervisor I will probably need to build a san first as my current setup is that the host linux OS also handles raid/data. Idealy I should have a dedicated box for that.
 
I have used it in the past off and on. Its much slower than other virtulization (like kvm, xen, virtualbox, or even vmware player) and it is very buggy at least the builtin web server / authentication system is unstable at best. And last but not least VMWare has recently listed all vmware server products to be end of life.
 
Hmm good to know. Wonder if they will replace the server line with something else, or just stick with ESXi.

I will play around with Xen as I have yet to touch it, and I'll see how that goes. I'm still debating on giving KVM another chance, maybe there's something I have to do to get it to work properly. I like the idea that it's fully open source and according to it's site supports live migrations and all that fancy stuff. Pretty good for something fully free. The scary thing with things like Xen is licensing can change any time.
 
Hmm that's good to know. So I could just have a diskless box and run it off a USB stick? No raid card at all needs to be present? What about supermicro systems, should it work ok with that? I think that's what I'm getting from now on for servers.

Xen is looking nice too, playing with it now. The free version actually seems to support live migrations, at least according to the GUI. Don't have two machines to test with. Going to have to play with both and see which I like better. We have ESXi at work but it's a full blown vsphere environment, never actually managed it on it's own.

ESXi is also more proven so that may be a good reason to go with that, too.
 
Yes you can run a head less esxi server. I just setup a NAS box with a NFS link to store my vmdk files for the VMs. I wou.d not recommend this for a prod environment unless you have a beefy NAS. For home use or testing where speed is a major requirement, it works well. I used my old Phenom II x4 in my new ESXi box.
 
IMHO ESXi is the way to go. Just stay on the HCL. It is the going forward VMware top dog now after all.
 
kvm has the same issue for him as virtualbox - e.g, not a standalone environment.
 
danswartz said:
kvm has the same issue for him as virtualbox - e.g, not a standalone environment.
Click to expand...

KVM is a standalone hypervisor that happens to run on the Linux kernel. Its not desktop oriented like Virtualbox, VMware player, Virtual PC, etc. It can act like those if you want, but its not required.
 
I run VMWare Server 2.0 on a production system hosting 14 concurrent images.
It has not crashed on me a single time in 2 years.
It has never required a restart.
 
lizardking009 said:
KVM is a standalone hypervisor that happens to run on the Linux kernel. Its not desktop oriented like Virtualbox, VMware player, Virtual PC, etc. It can act like those if you want, but its not required.
Click to expand...

what it means is a hypervisor which doesn't require any OS installed. Such as xen or esxi.
 
I liked KVM as it does indeed run "in the background" like I want. I can connect to it with the client to manage it then disconnect. That's what I want.

I may give it another shot. It could also be that I tried running it on the same server that has VB currently running, maybe there was some kind of conflict.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I liked KVM as it does indeed run "in the background" like I want. I can connect to it with the client to manage it then disconnect. That's what I want.

I may give it another shot. It could also be that I tried running it on the same server that has VB currently running, maybe there was some kind of conflict.
Click to expand...

If hardware based virtualization was enabled in VB then it would definitely cause a crash. Back in the day, I used to run MS Virtual Server 2005 R2 and VMware server 1.05 on the same box. If I enabled hardware based virtualization in both virtual server and vmware, the host would blue screen as soon as I started a VM in the 2nd hypervisor.
 
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danswartz said:
what it means is a hypervisor which doesn't require any OS installed. Such as xen or esxi.
Click to expand...

All hypervisors have an OS underneath.

ESXi is its own minimal OS in its own right. Xen is based on Linux. Hyper-V runs on Windows Server. KVM runs on Linux, like Xen, but has kernel support in later kernel revisions.
 
Red Squirrel said:
That would be it then. If I turn off virtualbox should I be ok, or is the fact that its installed a problem on it's own?
Click to expand...

You should be. Make sure any VB related modules are unloaded as well. Also, make sure your KVM is up to date. Its getting better all of the time.
 
lizardking009 said:
All hypervisors have an OS underneath.

ESXi is its own minimal OS in its own right. Xen is based on Linux. Hyper-V runs on Windows Server. KVM runs on Linux, like Xen, but has kernel support in later kernel revisions.
Click to expand...

Insn't ESXi some version of linux as well?
 
It's kinda fun to see that most of em are Linux based. There are so many people that are against Linux in the enterprise and don't realize it's right under their nose. :D

I think I will give KVM another chance, I'll shut down VirtualBox and see. VirtualBox is not a bad product mind you, and has been stable for the past few years that I've been using it. I was reading somewhere that it actually is based off KVM.
 
lizardking009 said:
All hypervisors have an OS underneath.

ESXi is its own minimal OS in its own right. Xen is based on Linux. Hyper-V runs on Windows Server. KVM runs on Linux, like Xen, but has kernel support in later kernel revisions.
Click to expand...

but going by the definitions of type 1 vs type 2 hypervisors, the type 1 have less overhead...
 
danswartz said:
but going by the definitions of type 1 vs type 2 hypervisors, the type 1 have less overhead...
Click to expand...

For many of these hypervisors, Type 1 vs. Type 2 is a matter of semantics. If KVM meets the user's needs then its the right product for the job.
 
Never said otherwise, but when dealing with folks who don't know a lot about the subject, you aren't doing them favors by muddying the waters... KVM needs to be run on a host that has an OS installed on it. That makes it a type-2 hypervisor (just like vmware server, vmware workstation, whereas xen or esxi are type-1). I don't see how this is ambiguous...
 
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Just don't let VMware Server get out of control.

I just finished up a migration, 200+ vm's running across 20 windows 2k3 servers with VMware Server running on top.

It was scary.
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
Just don't let VMware Server get out of control.

I just finished up a migration, 200+ vm's running across 20 windows 2k3 servers with VMware Server running on top.

It was scary.
Click to expand...

:eek:

I implemented 12 with Server 2.0 running on nix 2 years ago. Just finished replacing them all with ESXi on the same hardware (bumped up the ram and hd though). Glad to get rid of Server 2.0! Total WSOD half the time you try to use it. Poor Tomcat.
 
Yep, we used the same hardware. Most were already running with 32gb of ram, some were bumped to 64gb. All hard drives were removed and esxi runs on a usb drive internally.
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
All hard drives were removed and esxi runs on a usb drive internally.
Click to expand...

May I ask why? USB as in a flash drive connected to a usb header internally? Just curious, never done a ESX/ESXi/Server 2.0 install on anything other than a hard drive.
 
ESXi is a stripped-down install and everything runs from RAM. Even config file changes are only saved to files in persistent storage every 10 minutes (AFAIR).
 
Yeah, works real nice if your datastore is on a SAN, frex (like iscsi). You can install to and boot from a dinky USB key :)
 
danswartz said:
Yeah, works real nice if your datastore is on a SAN, frex (like iscsi). You can install to and boot from a dinky USB key :)
Click to expand...

Any brand/model of choice [flash drive]? I've had a few die on me here and there..
 
Nothing specific. Keep in mind very little I/O to/from the usb, so if it dies, just install esxi on a new one, add the SAN back and you're up again.
 
Yeah we keep a spare on site in our data center colocation. We have an iSCSI backend network for all VM storage and we are saving .5 AMPs of each of our 2950 servers. In our colo this adds up quick.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I thought it did not let you install unless you had very specific hardware that it supports? Or is that different now?

I forgot I had an old box so I'm playing with xen now. Only issue is this cpu does not have VT so I may be very limited in what I can do. If I go with a true hypervisor I will probably need to build a san first as my current setup is that the host linux OS also handles raid/data. Idealy I should have a dedicated box for that.
Click to expand...

A dell T110, 16gb of ram and a perc5/6 from ebay can make a pretty good esxi test box or basic production box for a small company - for $700 or so.
 
O2Flow said:
Any brand/model of choice [flash drive]? I've had a few die on me here and there..
Click to expand...

If the server will run as a prod system, use an SLC based thumb drive (as compared to the cheaper MLC). If it isn't prod, who cares. :>
 
If you want a 10 minute install and standalone box with gui management+kvm, download the proxmox ve iso. Those guys have done a great job...
 
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