The great virtualization experiment

re: The great virtualization experiment

DRWAM — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:55:08 GMT

A couple things. The major hardware imaging players have been moving away from Linux, and using XP. Also, Psystar is illegally selling OS X computers, and the hardware is much less robust, so there cannot be any equal comparison. Sub the OS war is over, MS won. Even with the greatest sales volumes, the Mac isn't making a dent in the user base of Windows, so complaining about Mac comments, displaying antiiApple stuff at websites is childish and giving a crap about what any insane Mac fan writes is foolish as it just isn't very relevent.

It's pretty obvious that Apple mainly targets the Consumer, rather than business, although plenty of business use it, but certainly not to the extent of Windows. Vista would be more successful if the economy were better, if if there was an overwhelming reason to upgrade, but there is not. The ROI is little to nothing, so the expenses is not justified to many business. Also, compatibility with existing business software is not a problem if you don't upgrade. Many business certainly have a plan, as the XP license becomes unavailable, but Vista just is not needed by us. We can perpetually use XP.

One other thing, LIVE LONG AND PROSPER, BABY!!!

re: The great virtualization experiment

Delmont — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:43:00 GMT

O/T:

When did this site begin having pop ups or pop under ads? I get these with FireFox and IE7.

Paul, get rid of these pop ups/unders.

re: The great virtualization experiment

Lindy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:21:36 GMT

@subzero, you are the most clueless Microsoft fangirl on this board.

Virtualization is owned by VMware. I recently read an article, an NON MS sponsored article, that said VMware was used by 100% of the top 500 companies and 98% of the top 1000.

If anything Windows is marginalized by virtualization/vmware. Windows is a GUEST not a host. Windows is a template that you drop onto a ESX server.

Hyper-V while WAY better than virtual server is WAY behind ESX. If you have ever run ESX, seriously run it you would know that Hyper-V is a joke in comparison. Build a 8 way Hyper-V cluster that can live migrate VM and storage while users bang away at your VM guests....you cant. That is just one of the many things you can do with VMware.

Legally you can only virtualize OS X server and only on VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop. You can hack OS X Leopard to install in a VM but with out the VMware tools to support it its going be a horrible experience.

On the flip side I can with VMware Fusion run any Windows OS as a guest with out a performance hit. I can run full screen, windowed and in unity. Any Windows App can run on my OS X desktop and interact, copy/paste/print/local drive access. So you are right I dont need boot camp, Windows does not need direct access to my hardware. In fact I am running Windows 2008 server in Fusion, while I study for my 70-646 exam. I have even run a complete domain under Fusion, domain controller, Exchange 2007, Terminal server, SQL 2005, I have even clustered SQL in Fusion using iSCSI to a Pentium 4 PC I have that is running FreeNAS as a iSCSI target.

VMware workstation 6.5 just released now has the same Unity feature that Fusion has had. So on a Ubuntu PC, I can do the same thing with Windows apps.

If anything these options give you LESS reason to run Windows as your host OS, not more.

re: The great virtualization experiment

gorath — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:44:03 GMT

Subzero, I've neer come across someone who wrangles star-trek references so tastelessly, and mornonically into unrelated posts as well as you do.

You must be truly obsessed.

re: The great virtualization experiment

dgrisman — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 09:04:50 GMT

I'm unclear about Paul's comments on lack of documentation for connecting to HV. It's in the "Hyper-V Planning and Deployment Guide" page 22. It seems that one would have reviewed this document prior to installation. How does Terminal Services work in HV? Waethorn mentions lack of "software KVM" to manage multiple servers. Can't you have several TS sessions open simultaneously?

re: The great virtualization experiment

scoobyclub — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 06:20:30 GMT

Virtualization. Again, Joe doesn't care and if the descriptions by Paul et al of what's involved is anything to go by they never will. My OS X system is still working like a dream thanks.

re: The great virtualization experiment

subzerohitman721 — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:13:30 GMT

Virtualization is definitely going to be the next big thing, that might come to haunt the competitors of Microsoft. The Virtualization Servers pretty much can nullify the advantages that an alternative to Windows might present. Hardware is so deep and diverse, that for every cheap version a Linux variant comes up, eventually in time you can make a cheaper version. You can get free Linux variants and run them. You can run any version of Mac OS-X and still be in Windows. Who needs boot camp when you can build a better system for less?Apple still gets its OS-X sale, but loses the hardware sale. It's Microsoft's version of the Kobyashi Maru for Apple, and there isn't a James Kirk cheat option.

I believe this might be the game changer Microsoft has been looking for that keeps it on top. It avoids regulatory problems by stripping out bundled apps and makes them internet optional downloads. It still fosters some competition against everyone trying to be number two or three. Yet it can create a mountain of servers, business OSes, consumer OSes, internet applications, S+S, and other things to make it near impossible for Apple to challenge it. While Apple is busy trying to dig itself out of the year of the Epic Fail, Microsoft creates a virtual firewall of products and services that keeps it on top.

It seems like for every new option that a Linux variant comes up with, eventually Microsoft finds away to nullify it. Its like the cloaking device in Star Trek. Great tool, but like all tools it can be overcome. Yet for every Dominion that seeks to challenge Starfleet, eventually Starfleet finds a way. We're entering the 16th year of Microsoft domination of an industry. Yet we're seeing new ways of improving services, greater server virtualization, greater interoperability with Linux and Mac OS, and yet the ending of littigation against Microsoft.

Paul's little experiement in virtualization and the headlines of this year is the ultimate proof. You don't need a over $2,000 Mac Server to build a stronger equivalent system for less. PsyStar proved that the markups by Apple were excessive. And even with the latest updates to OS-X 10.5.5, Mac users are still complaining about the latest issues of problems and bugs that wouldn't be tolerated in Windows.

Even our resident Mac guys are silent lately. No phoney outrage or long winded speeches. The best they can do is a few snarky comments about Vista R2.

re: The great virtualization experiment

DRWAM — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:33:03 GMT

Never mind about the above HD's. I read the review and there were too many failures. Do drives over 620 GB's have a high failure rate? Wae, where are you? The Seagate 750GB's also have bad failure rates. One review suggested that the country of origin/production may have been the problem, since others were not as faulty.

re: The great virtualization experiment

Lindy — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:30:08 GMT

ESXi is the free version of ESX, comes with the standard web based management tool. So you can use it (from another pc) or use the GUI tool from another PC to manage it.

I have setup SBS2003, and secondary servers say a TS server, all on a ESX server as VM's for small clients, that need more than one server, but not more than one box stuffed in a small wiring closet.

Only the largest SQL and Exchange servers really need "real hardware".

re: The great virtualization experiment

DRWAM — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:20:20 GMT

Here's more HD space from dealnews.com

Newegg.com again offers the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 1TB Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive, model no. HDS721010KLA330, for $139.99. This $30 mail-in rebate cuts it to $109.99. With free shipping, that's $100 under our Apirl mention and the lowest total price we could find by $35. This 7200 rpm hard drive features a 32MB cache. Rebate ends October 31.

dealnews.com/.../254471.html

re: The great virtualization experiment

Waethorn — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:42:15 GMT

BTW Paul:

Running SBS with the Hyper-V role (SBS as the parent partition) isn't officially supported, but doing so would be much easier from a management standpoint. The role is there in the Server Management Console (not the SBS console) though.

I kind of wonder why, but I can imagine it has something to do with performance and/or stability issues running so many server roles on the same box. SBS "requires" 4GB RAM, but runs MUCH better with double that - I would say it's equivalent to running Vista on 1GB vs. 2GB.

The only reason I want to run Hyper-V on the same hardware as SBS is for deployment testing. It would be used for creating new deployment images of Windows Vista.

re: The great virtualization experiment

Delmont — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:55:59 GMT

Paul,

Yes, the 755's are very nice. What size case did you get? Tower I woulld suspect.

re: The great virtualization experiment

Waethorn — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:53:03 GMT

"Microsoft’s downloadable Hyper-V Management tools for Vista don’t work out of the box either. You get a “can’t connect” message, and nothing in the documentation explains what you have to do to make it work."

??? Huh??

Mine worked immediately!

"But after doing that for a while, I decided to go with the full Windows Server 2008 system instead, adding Hyper-V to that. It’s just easier to sit down in front of the thing and get work done."

One of the support virtualization configurations for SBS 2008 is to run Hyper-V server as the parent partition and run the Standard server (the SBS DC), and optionally the Premium server (Server 2008 w/ or w/o SQL) as child partitions.

The one problem I see with that is that since you have to manage the system remotely, it means you have to install Hyper-V and THEN set up SBS within it. What's the problem with that, you ask? Well, you can't manage it from a system that's connected to the SBS domain because the SBS domain WON'T BE CONFIGURED YET.

Another puzzle is whether or not the Hyper-V Server should be joined to the SBS domain....I mean, you have this machine that controls a domain controller, but if the domain controller goes down from within it, you can't authenticate with the domain to log on and troubleshoot....

I think the biggest thing missing from Hyper-V Server is some kind of "software KVM" to switch back and forth between VM's running on that hardware. Server 2008 w/ Hyper-V has the whole GUI management thing with "Windows in a window", and that's just peachy, but Hyper-V Server should at least allow you to view the VM's in a native full-screen mode locally without requiring additional software. That would resolve all of these issues.

This is where the X-Window system on Unix/Linux has the advantage. I don't think the Windows desktop manager has that capability right now. I would imagine that in order to do it correctly in Windows, the hypervisor would have to be written to allow the window managers in the child partitions to have access to the real video and input hardware (or at least virtualized hardware, vs. the emulated hardware that is offered in the current technology).