Anyone ever built a VMWare server at home using affordable kit? I'm very keen on doing it, but only if it can be done at a reasonable price.

Who hasn't!

Depends which OSs you want to run on it. If it's Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, you'll need considerably more memory than if you just plan to run Windows 2000 and Server 2003 (for instance).

I'd be content with a few Server 2003 machines.

What's your goal? I managed to run an instance of Server 2003 on an old (32bit, AMD 3200 with 2Gb of RAM) XP machine and it was fine. Bootups did take forever, though :D

 

Just depends on whether you're doing it for the sake of messing or whether you're trying to do something on a production scale.

That's a very good point that I didn't make clear.
I just wanna tinker with the likes of VMWare, exhange, sql server, active directory, IIS, etc.
I look after about a dozen different environments in work and we don't have a single environment we can tinker with.

In which case RAM is your critical purchase - everything else just needs to be decent. Remember that, in terms of RAM, you ideally want each machine to have it's own. So if you want to have 2 instances of Server 2003 with 1Gb of RAM, you need 3Gb of RAM + however much for your host OS.

 

What's your budget?

 

Personally, if you have the kit, I'd just bung something together and see how you get on and upgrade accordingly.

 

Also, remember, the selling point of VMWare is that any of the Virtual Machines are completely portable and can be chucked on any hardware in the future.

 

Oh, and if you're playing with Server 2003 - I always had the best experience by giving everything a network connection and using RDP from a totally different machine.

 

However, remember that if you want to play with the Enterprise side of VMWare (ESX etc) then I believe you need SCSI and things like that.

But you can't throw VMWare on to any old PC, can you?
I need specific hardware, and it's usually very very expensive. That's why I was asking if anyone managed some sort of afordable home built piece of kit that I can throw it on to.

 

Budget would be around £400 I think.

Sure you can. I run the player software on a net book. I run the server version on an old desktop. It doesn't take much.

Right, right, lets all try singing from the same song book. Or whatever the expression is.

 

VMWare is just the company. What I am actually talking about is VMWare ESX which is virtualisation software that put the hosted OS directly onto 'bare metal' (as they seem to say).

 

As such, i am pretty certain that I need specfic hardware, as it's all run via a tiny wee Linux OS which only has drivers for certain kit. I think.

 

I should know this shit after being on the course.

Well, what's the hardware?

Ay, then it very well could use certain hardware. Ill have to xo some checking. Because I can see a big movement to virtual starting already.

http://vinf.net/2008/01/14/vmware-esx-v35-on-cheap-pc-hardware/

 

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/06/building-a-home.html

 

http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2009/01/updated-homebrew-esx-hardware-list.html

I can use google too, but those articles are pretty old. I was kinda looking for advice from someone who had actually done this or knew about it.

Unless you REEALLLY want to learn about ESX then WMWare Workstation will do everything you need and will run on anything.

I really really do. In fact, I want to get qualified in it.

Now you never said that, did you :)

 

As I've never done it then I'm afraid Google is all you'll get out of me!

http://www.techhead.co.uk/running-vmware-vsphere-on-an-hp-microserver

 

Posted 2 days ago

I tried vmware and I sorta liked it, but then I tried virtualbox and I liked that a whole lot better. VB seems to work fine for linuxy development servers (lamp, rails), can't say whether vmware might be better for production, or for windoze server. (I do run win 2k /xp /7 desktops on vb fine, though).

Sinkywinky, that is EXACTLY the shit I'm looking for. Cheers. Hats off to ye!