Internal Virtualization

[mark_smith]

I am new to virtualization and I am working on putting an Internal Virtualization plan in place. I will greatly appreciate if you could help me understand, Under what circumstances is VMWare Virtualization and/or RHEV and/or Xen and/or Microsoft Hyper V is better over the rest. Also, is it reasonable to assume, all that needed to be virtualized on VMware has already occured. Thanks for your help

[Rubberman]

These days, cost + management tools == choice.

1. VirtualBox (Oracle/Sun). It works very well, and for my use is free. Good standards support, hardware support, and host OS support (Linux, Apple, Windows, Solaris).
2. VMware - fully commercial - what you pay for is what you get. Good management tools, however.
3. Xen - out of date. Requires kernel mods that are incompatible with a lot of hardware, such as nVidia video boards.
4. KVM/Qemu - Open source, getting to be widely supported by Red Hat and others. Management tools still a work-in-progress.
5. Hyper-V - fergeddaboudit! It is limited, doesn't work on non-Windows hosts, and weds you to Microsoft, which in my opinion is not a desirable thing, being the abusive spouse they are...

All that aside, I am looking into KVM for new systems. Unfortunately, their kernel drivers are incompatible with VirtualBox, so I can't run them both on the same system. I have used VirtualBox, Xen, and VMware. Because it doesn't require kernel modifications, I prefer VBox over Xen, and because it is free (so far), I prefer it to VMware for my uses. However, I only run Windows, Solaris x86, and QNX virtual machines on my workstation. These are not for external use, so I still qualify to use the commercial version of VirtualBox for free, which is superior in many ways to the open source version of the same.

[sverker_n]

Hi,
I'm also new to Virtualization on Linux but have used it for quite some time on different Windows hosts. Now I'm about to purchase a AMD Phenom II (six core) and would like a recomendation for an efficient host system (thast does not too much resources. Mainly I run VitualBox but I'm open to suggestions... I was thinking of ESX (VMware) but I understand it only run well on Opteron (or Xenon). Whart would you recomend, it will only host Virtual images, I will not run it native...

[Rubberman]

Hi,
I'm also new to Virtualization on Linux but have used it for quite some time on different Windows hosts. Now I'm about to purchase a AMD Phenom II (six core) and would like a recomendation for an efficient host system (thast does not too much resources. Mainly I run VitualBox but I'm open to suggestions... I was thinking of ESX (VMware) but I understand it only run well on Opteron (or Xenon). Whart would you recomend, it will only host Virtual images, I will not run it native...

It depends a lot upon what you want to do with your VM's. Are these to be servers, or workstation user systems? How many are you planning on running on a host? How many CPU's (cores) will you allocate to each? What kind of I/O (disc & network) will you have?

[Mudgen]

All that aside, I am looking into KVM for new systems. Unfortunately, their kernel drivers are incompatible with VirtualBox, so I can't run them both on the same system.

As usual, Rub, you give good advice. I'd like to know a little more about your experience with KVM/VirtualBox driver incompatibilities. I can open a new thread in the lounge, or here, if you like.

[Rubberman]

Not much to say GHW. If you install the kvm kernel modules, VirtualBox refuses to run, saying that it has a conflict with the KVM modules. So, I think you either run one or the other, but not both. Since I already have a number of VBox VM's I decided to leave it until later. At least VBox allows you to export your VM to a standard format that KVM should be able to import. That's what I'm going to try sometime soon. I'll let you know what I find out when I do.

[ianr richmond]

These days, cost + management tools == choice.

1. VirtualBox (Oracle/Sun). It works very well, and for my use is free. Good standards support, hardware support, and host OS support (Linux, Apple, Windows, Solaris).
2. VMware - fully commercial - what you pay for is what you get. Good management tools, however.
3. Xen - out of date. Requires kernel mods that are incompatible with a lot of hardware, such as nVidia video boards.
4. KVM/Qemu - Open source, getting to be widely supported by Red Hat and others. Management tools still a work-in-progress.
5. Hyper-V - fergeddaboudit! It is limited, doesn't work on non-Windows hosts, and weds you to Microsoft, which in my opinion is not a desirable thing, being the abusive spouse they are...

All that aside, I am looking into KVM for new systems. Unfortunately, their kernel drivers are incompatible with VirtualBox, so I can't run them both on the same system. I have used VirtualBox, Xen, and VMware. Because it doesn't require kernel modifications, I prefer VBox over Xen, and because it is free (so far), I prefer it to VMware for my uses. However, I only run Windows, Solaris x86, and QNX virtual machines on my workstation. These are not for external use, so I still qualify to use the commercial version of VirtualBox for free, which is superior in many ways to the open source version of the same.

I would add Citrix XenServer (free) to the mix- Current version's templates are still skewed to RedHat/Centos and windows, but you can now find directions to make Ubuntu templates, and Debian Squeeze is there in the latest version. Memory management is simple: you get it all allocated to your vm, no over-commit possible as with VirtualBox. VERY nice windows gui application to manage your vms.