Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Windows Hosting : VMware Server on a Win 2003 dedicated machine?

[MoreThan1]

Our company website runs on a Win 2003 server with ASP.

Now we also want to run some new PHP applications (e.g. MediaWiki). I think of running them in a (Linux) virtual machine on the Win 2003 server, to keep everything separated.

Does anybody else use VMware to split his dedicated server in several parts? It sounds like a good idea to me, but can not find much information about it. Or are there better alternatives?

Thanks
Mike

[camers]

I didn't have great success using Windows Server 2003 and running a few virtual Linux servers at the same time. I wasn't even doing anything intensive and had plenty ram (4Gb~). But you may get away with it with a better spec machine (SCSI drives, raid array?).

[turbovps]

Yes, you can use VMware to split the server but just make sure you have enough RAM and CPU power.
We have done it for few clients in the past without any problem.

[jonwatson]

I have a 3GB dual core machine here running Linux as the Host OS (no reason it couldn't be Windows, though) and we run 3 VMs 24/7. One is our backup machine, another is one of our shared hosting machines, and the last is a mointoring VM.

Probably the hardest part to grok is VMWare networking. Once you have a handle on how networks are bridged to physical NICs, life gets easier.

And no this machine I'm talking about isn't part of the Hosting Puppy infrastructure

Lastly, pay attention to the VMWare Server licensing. The different flavours of server have different licensing provisions. The free one, for example, prohibits selling VMWare space or services hosted in VMWare. Just an example...may not apply to you.

[HostingFuze]

We used to use windows 2003 and have vmware running on it, it was very unstable and vmware crashed numerous times (some times even making the vm's corrupt). I would not recommend using it - but that was just personal experience.

[sirius]

Originally Posted by camers

I didn't have great success using Windows Server 2003 and running a few virtual Linux servers at the same time. I wasn't even doing anything intensive and had plenty ram (4Gb~). But you may get away with it with a better spec machine (SCSI drives, raid array?).

Yeah, on a 2k3 machine, that's not a lot of RAM (believe it or not). We normally use the host OS for VM, but the Win2k3 machines we have running all have north of 16g of RAM and I dont recall any issues with them.

VMWare should always be run on a minimum of:

Dual Proc (or Dual Core)
8g RAM
10k SCSI or SAS drives

Just my .02

Sirius

[jonwatson]

Originally Posted by sirius

VMWare should always be run on a minimum of:

Dual Proc (or Dual Core)
8g RAM
10k SCSI or SAS drives

Sirius

Jeeeeeeesus. That would be why we run it on Linux. Man...may as well buy another metal box for that cost

[sirius]

Originally Posted by hostingpuppy

Jeeeeeeesus. That would be why we run it on Linux. Man...may as well buy another metal box for that cost

It has nothing to do with what OS you run it on. Our VMWare ESX boxes that are running on the host OS (Linux) are all dual and quad core boxes with 16g of ram. I can comfortably get enough VM's on there to easily absorb the cost of the host hardware, versus going with individual servers.

Sirius

[jonwatson]

Originally Posted by sirius

It has nothing to do with what OS you run it on. Our VMWare ESX boxes that are running on the host OS (Linux) are all dual and quad core boxes with 16g of ram. I can comfortably get enough VM's on there to easily absorb the cost of the host hardware, versus going with individual servers.

Sirius

Context...context.

The OP intends to run a single Linux LAMP with MediaWiki. Having to have a dual core machine with 8GB of RAM to do that seems like a bit of overkill. Our dual core 3GB of RAM machine runs two extremely busy servers and one not so busy VM 24/7.

You actually have a need that will enable you to stuff enough VMs into your box to make it worthwhile. I don't believe the OP does.

But I haven't used Windows in two years so I understand very well that I've lost touch with what it needs just to get by.

[MoreThan1]

Thanks for the information. I planned to run 1-2 VM machines on a Win 2003 machine with only 1 GB of RAM and IDE drives. But it seems that this is not sufficient? That would explain why VMware is not used that often

[sirius]

Originally Posted by hostingpuppy

Context...context.

It was in context... I wasnt responding to the OP, but to a message I quoted above.

Sirius