VMware "Miles Ahead" of Microsoft Virtual Server

sunshineluv7 writes, "IT managers gathered in New York City earlier this week to get advice from experts on when, why, and how to virtualize their server environments. The takeaway from the conference: if you want to run an enterprise-class virtualization platform in production today, stick with VMware." Other wise words from this conference: "Virtualization is a journey, not a project."

Comments

VMware

[dlichterman]

Its also awesome that VMWare Server is available free to download. I installed it on my laptop running Ubuntu and can run Windows XP.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

Re:VMware

[Acer500]

Microsoft's Virtual Server is also available for free:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtu alserver/software/default.mspx

Won't run on Ubuntu obviously :P

Re:virtual bsod?

[joeytmann]

Just for that VM. Now if the Host OS BSODs....thats bad for all VMs.

Re:VMWare is no good

[LaughingCoder]

Actually I was able to use the free VMWare player on XP and install Ubuntu 6.06 (http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/5 59), which is one of the Virtual Appliances available on the VMWare site. It was pretty cool.

Re:virtual bsod?

[Em Ellel]

> Just for that VM. Now if the Host OS BSODs....thats bad for all VMs.

Thats why you run a stripped down linux on Host and no apps (at least in server environment) :-)
I am surprised there is no "vmware-host" Linux distro - something perfectly barebones and lightweight to run vmware server on :-)Of course maybe there is one and I just have not found it yet ;-)

-Em

Portability

[Spez]

I have tested Virtual PC, Virtual Server and VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation for our testing environment, and it seems MS is more flexible in a way: you can easily copy a Virtual Machine from one computer to an other even if they have different hardware. With VMWare workstation, i had strange problems.

I didn't have any of those problems using VMWare Server, but the web interface of MS VServer was really more usefull for our build machines, test environments and portability too.

BUT, MS doesn't support x64 Guest Environment... so even though we have mostly a MS environment (using VirtualServer), we had to use a couple of VMWare Server machines to use WinXP x64...

Re:Real Virtual

[value_added]

Where's the study/chart contrasting VMWare with Xen virtualization?

Probably in the section that's prominently labelled "RELATED CONTENT" that directly follows the article? A virtual representation of the relevant link:

How does Xen stack up against Virtual Server, VMware?

Shame they require registration.

At any rate, I'm sure everyone would agree that the vwmare Wikipedia Article is probably the most comprehensive source for information. Comparisons with other technologies are included.

Re:Anecdotal evidence of VMWare being better

[InsaneGeek]

VMware workstation has some "experimental" hooks that can be turned on to allow direct access to the video card.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_vidsound _d3d.html

Re:virtual bsod?

[Tmack]

Its VMWare's non-free ESX server. You boot directly into a VMWare style OS, where you directly run VMs. It also has the benefit to pause/resume VMs, and even export them to other VM Servers on other hardware. Its like a Game Genie for servers!

tm

VI3 is wonderful. Just don't get the .0 revision

[csoto]

Honestly, we're quite happy with VI3, but we need 3.0.1, due in October. There are a few honestly quite stupid bugs in 3.0 that need to be attended to. The most aggravating part is the license server (based on flexlm, which is usually not so bad). Licensing is the one thing where VMware is going backwards on (although the COST of licensing is quite good now).

IBM VM

[dayyan]

IBM's Virtual Machine (VM) is decades ahead of VMWare. It was first available in 1966. It's reliability, scalability, features, and more; have been enhanced since its beginnings, it is trusted by the most data and reliability sensitive companies and corporations in the world. It isn't just a hypervisor like VMWare or Microsoft's Virtual Suite--it's a full fledged operating system.

It bothers me to watch those whom praise this or that without knowing more about it. Yes, VMWare is good, especially for the PC. However, don't lose sight of superior advancements we've already made in the name of hype and evangelism.

Re:VMWare is no good

[dmihalko]

I have been a VMWare user for a few years now, as well as MS virtual PC, and tinkered with MS Virtual Server for some time... So far, the utilities i have found for VMWare have been very useful and havent found any for MS products, though i really havent looked. I found this product called MakeVM last week or so. It runs on a live windows box and clones straight to a VMware Virtual Hard drive, over network.

so far i have used this on 4 legacy machines, and moved them straight to my VMWare host running on linux with samba, and had them all cloned and running in 2 days with no downtime. could have been less since i waste alot of time readin these articles..

then i came across this utility diskmount to map drives to virtual disks in the event that i need to do so, which has been rather handy...

I use the free version on windows in my office for testing, on my windows and linux servers, at home on Ubunutu, and never had a problem with it with any guest OS. In addition, the fact that i can boot a guest OS directly from my windows hard drive through my Ubuntu session gives it extra points since i never have to reboot my computer

VMWare is definitely the product i am sticking with...

Re:Oh yeah?

[div_2n]

Who needs luck when you have documentation?