Which flavor of virtualization is best for my home lab?

J

Jr. Woodchuck

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 8, 2004
Messages
237
Hello all,

I currently am studying for my MCITP and find virtualization really interesting. It is my hope to create a virtual home lab to play around in. However after spending a few days lurking on this forum, r/vmware and r/sysadmin I have some questions about what would be best for my home lab and where to start.

I would like to virtualize Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 7 client and perhaps some random servers here and there (like Exchange a web server and perhaps linux). I would like the virtual network to be able to interact with all the physical PC's on my network like my wife's windows 7 laptop and my windows vista HTPC.

I was planning on building a new computer for this and I know that both ESXi and Workstation could fit the above requirements. I have gathered over the past few days of lurking that if I use workstation any mobo will work, however if I use ESXi I may run into some nic problems with whatever mobo I use but that this can be easily solved by purchasing a 3rd party nic. I know ESXi is free with some features disabled, should I even consider ESXi over workstation? Are there any other things I should be concerned about when trying to pick between the two?

As a followup question is it silly of me to think that I could also use this PC as a gaming computer as well as housing a virtual lab? Is it plausible to run a game in a virtual window?
 
If you're into virtualization and have a second box to load it on, then definitely go with ESXi. The only time I'd consider going with Workstation is if I only had one machine.

ESXi has made great strides in terms of hardware compatibility, I have built a handful of Sandy Bridge test machines with Gigabyte/Asus motherboards and it has run fine on every single one (on-board Realtek NIC's included).

To answer your last question, no, ESXi isn't really designed for that so I can't imagine that anything too GPU-intensive will work very well. :)
 
If you are working on your MCITP i would suggest going with Hyper-V since its fairly integral to any 2008 r2 infrastructure.
 
I am doing the 2008 classes through university using ms curriculum.

They use hyper-v of course to run virtual servers.
The hosts use 500-700 meg of ram, so you can get 2 servers and client working in under 4gb.

Esxi isnt a problem. I have it installed on a machine at home.
You just need windows to run the management tool on your desktop.
Didnt try using under linux.

If your nic isnt supported, then pick up an intel card off ebay.

For MS certs, you wont need to worry about hardware pass through etc.

Mind you, hyper-v the clients are windows on your desktop.
Also, using snapshots & revert for when you goof up.

With esxi, you have to remote desktop to server/client to use.
Means it has to be setup pior.
 
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