-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Troy Murray
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:49 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

It's been my experience with Virtuozzo, Virtual PC/Server and VMware
that VMware is the more mature, flexible and robust product offering
in the server space.

VMware just opened up a public beta of their VMware Fusion software
that would allow me to take a VM running whatever OS on a Windows Host
and run it on my MacBook for whatever.  You could also easily setup a
VM under the Windows software and then move it into a Linux production
environment under VMware.

-t




-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Vivek Joshi
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:44 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

Virtualization has benefits for software development too. Since the virtual
machine can be copied/moved, I can move my development server which runs on
the virtual machine to any other computer, take it home etc, rather than map
my drives for remote development. It also allows me to branch the virtual
machine, so I can split a virtual machine and run ie6 on one, and ie7 on the
other. I can also simulate a whole network on my pc. I can roll back
changes, take snapshots of the system and so on. Microsoft seems to be
pushing this quite a bit too. They have made a disk image of pre-activated
winxp2 + ie6 for app testing available here
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64-
B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en
The downside is that you need about 2gb of ram, and Virtualpc does make my
pc crash once in a while. Vmware seems to be more mature in this regard.
Vivek





-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Troy Murray
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:39 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

Something else I forgot to mention, as you know the VMware Server is
free however you can optionally purchase a "support contract" for
technical support.  The cost when I purchased two of them was approx
$400 each for 1 year.  I've only had to use VMware technical support
once for an urgent issue, I called, logged a case, 8 minutes later a
support engineer called me back with the answer.

Otherwise I've used the forums for problem resolution, even posting
somewhat of a sticky programming problem I was having interacting with
the VM's through Visual Basic Script and they were able to provide the
answer.

-t




-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chris P
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 11:33 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

I would recommend VMware because this will let you install Linux, 
Windows, and even DOS.  :)  I have been running it on my desktop for a 
few months now and I have been testing the performance on servers and it 
seems to run pretty good.

Chris Pfeffer
Information Technology & Webmaster
Alumni Association | Michigan State University
242 Spartan Way, East Lansing, MI 48824

<a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a> | 517.432.1782
http://www.msualum.com



-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Troy Murray
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 10:54 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

It is funny to see trends like this.  For example how the Mac OS is
built on decades old UNIX or the "thin client" and terminal server
application like the old "green screen" consoles to the mainframe.

-t




-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Richard Wiggins
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 10:42 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

Seems like virtualization would be an excellent topic for a future
face-to-face NAG meeting.

Funny to see the Virtual Machine idea, which IBM mainframes exploited
over 20 years ago, coming back into vogue, on servers, on Intel Macs,
etc.

/rich



-----Original Message-----
From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Troy Murray
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:30 AM
To: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

Before starting MSU this month I worked for an insurance company here  
in the Lansing area.  I was able to move a number of our production  
servers to virtualized servers, a total of 8 including Exchange  
server, domain controllers, printer server, WSUS server and a few web  
servers.  I have used both VMware Server, VMware GSX Server and  
Virtuozzo for Windows in the past but prefer the VMware Server.  A  
lab I've done work for in CHM runs their production server (web, sql,  
file, print, dc) as a virtual server on top of a Windows host.   
Backup is really simplified and so is recovery in the event that the  
host server goes down, we just plug the external hard drive into a  
workstation, load the VMware Server or Workstation product and "open"  
the last backup of the system.

-t




-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Hernandez [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2006 8:04 AM
To: Charlot, Firmin
Cc: <a href="/cgi-bin/wa?LOGON=A3%3Dind0701%26L%3DMSUNAG%26E%3Dbase64%26P%3D272223%26B%3D------_%253D_NextPart_001_01C743D1.02CC99D1%26T%3Dtext%252Fplain%3B%2520name%3D%2522ToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%2522%26N%3DToVirtualizeOrNot.txt%26attachment%3Dq%26XSS%3D3" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>
Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] To Virtualize or not

On Dec 27, 2006, at 5:31 PM, Charlot, Firmin wrote:
> Is there anyone who has taken the leap and virtualized some or all  
> their production boxes and if so any advice/pitfalls/benefits that  
> you could provide would be greatly appreciated?  What are you using  
> for your Host server(s) (Open-Source, VMware or Microsoft Virtual  
> Server).
It depends on how much you want to virtualize. I am in charge of a  
small system in Residence Life and will be deploying a VMWare server 
(running on Suse Linux) to virtualize about a half dozen or so hosts.  
I was originally planning on using XEN but it became too much of a  
headache, and I found that VMWare(even just the free version of  
VMWare server) offered nice management features that XEN didn't have.

I know for a fact that the University of Notre Dame relies heavily on  
VMWare to manage/support quite a few production services. Which is  
one reason I am less skittish about using it for my own production  
stuff.
--Ray