OK,
So since I'm a bit of a computer geek I thought I'd start a discussion for anyone interested in this side of computing.
First of all I'm going to say what virtualisation is, the reason (although it is entirely obvious to me) is that I have encountered quite a few people who just don't get it or appreciate why it's useful.
Virtualisation is the process of running a computer entirely within software (within an OS), IOW the guest operating system (or an application running on it) becomes the entire environment within which the computer runs so the video card, the memory, the hard disks, the CPU, the network card are all non-physical and communicate with the real computer and the outside world through a kind of abstraction layer. There are a number of virtualisation products, here are a few:
VMWare: VMWare are generally regarded as the leaders in virtualisation and offer VM Player, VMWare Server, ESXi and ESX (now called VSphere). VM Players and VMWare Server are available on Windows and Linux (i.e. they require a host operating system upon which to run), ESXi and ESX/VSphere are operating systems that do nothing else but virtualise.
Microsoft: Microsft offer Virtual PC & Server, they are (in my opinion) nowhere near as good as VMWare but offer (for Windows users) the advantage of better integration with the host OS.
There are others such as Xen and I am fairly sure there will be a number of open source and Linux specific ones.
So why virtualise? Simple ... PC's (especially servers) today are incredibly powerful and we tend to use them for simple stuff. Outside of the occasional game I use my home PC for little more than surfing, email and forum stuff yet it's a core-2-duo, with nearly 1TB diskspace and 4Gb memory and I have few doubts that the most power hungry thing on it is Windows itself. If I have the need I can run a second PC entirely within my OS and use it for specialist purposes such as application development or sandpit uses (in IT a sandpit is where you keep that PC entirely separate because what it is doing is basically dangerous ... maybe you want to visit sites that you know are dodgy, a sandpit PC might allow you to do that and then you could shut the system down and delete it, job done, no infections ). In a data centre a server might be used for a webs server or a low impact bespoke application ... configure it with some kind of virtualisation technology and it could potentially run 5 websites and a number of application each in their own unique environment, each (to the remotely accessing users, apparently running on its own dedicated server).
At home I have a Windows 2003 domain but I have need of the ability to run other environments including Linux, Windows, NAS, media streaming and so on and so I am in the process of virtualising the server on to a dual Xeon 5130 system with 16Gb ram and a 2TB RAID 5 array (why? Because I can) and last night built myself a 1 TB virtual NAS based on [url="http://www.freenas.org"]FreeNAS[/url]). My plan, originally to migrate my server to a virtual environment, is now to build a new virtual domain and migrate the physical clients to using it ... bye bye Sunnydale!
TBH, I'm not quite sure what advantages a virtual NAS offers outside of an academic exercise but it was fun building it and I will use it to rebuild my own PC so I can migrate from the current 2 x 320Gb single hard disks to a 3 x 320Gb array running on an XFS Revo array card.
So anyone else here interested in virtualisation?
Kyu
So since I'm a bit of a computer geek I thought I'd start a discussion for anyone interested in this side of computing.
First of all I'm going to say what virtualisation is, the reason (although it is entirely obvious to me) is that I have encountered quite a few people who just don't get it or appreciate why it's useful.
Virtualisation is the process of running a computer entirely within software (within an OS), IOW the guest operating system (or an application running on it) becomes the entire environment within which the computer runs so the video card, the memory, the hard disks, the CPU, the network card are all non-physical and communicate with the real computer and the outside world through a kind of abstraction layer. There are a number of virtualisation products, here are a few:
VMWare: VMWare are generally regarded as the leaders in virtualisation and offer VM Player, VMWare Server, ESXi and ESX (now called VSphere). VM Players and VMWare Server are available on Windows and Linux (i.e. they require a host operating system upon which to run), ESXi and ESX/VSphere are operating systems that do nothing else but virtualise.
Microsoft: Microsft offer Virtual PC & Server, they are (in my opinion) nowhere near as good as VMWare but offer (for Windows users) the advantage of better integration with the host OS.
There are others such as Xen and I am fairly sure there will be a number of open source and Linux specific ones.
So why virtualise? Simple ... PC's (especially servers) today are incredibly powerful and we tend to use them for simple stuff. Outside of the occasional game I use my home PC for little more than surfing, email and forum stuff yet it's a core-2-duo, with nearly 1TB diskspace and 4Gb memory and I have few doubts that the most power hungry thing on it is Windows itself. If I have the need I can run a second PC entirely within my OS and use it for specialist purposes such as application development or sandpit uses (in IT a sandpit is where you keep that PC entirely separate because what it is doing is basically dangerous ... maybe you want to visit sites that you know are dodgy, a sandpit PC might allow you to do that and then you could shut the system down and delete it, job done, no infections ). In a data centre a server might be used for a webs server or a low impact bespoke application ... configure it with some kind of virtualisation technology and it could potentially run 5 websites and a number of application each in their own unique environment, each (to the remotely accessing users, apparently running on its own dedicated server).
At home I have a Windows 2003 domain but I have need of the ability to run other environments including Linux, Windows, NAS, media streaming and so on and so I am in the process of virtualising the server on to a dual Xeon 5130 system with 16Gb ram and a 2TB RAID 5 array (why? Because I can) and last night built myself a 1 TB virtual NAS based on [url="http://www.freenas.org"]FreeNAS[/url]). My plan, originally to migrate my server to a virtual environment, is now to build a new virtual domain and migrate the physical clients to using it ... bye bye Sunnydale!
TBH, I'm not quite sure what advantages a virtual NAS offers outside of an academic exercise but it was fun building it and I will use it to rebuild my own PC so I can migrate from the current 2 x 320Gb single hard disks to a 3 x 320Gb array running on an XFS Revo array card.
So anyone else here interested in virtualisation?
Kyu
Angry Atheism
Where those who are hacked off with the stupidity of irrational belief can vent their feelings!
Come over to the dark side, we have cookies!
Kyuuketsuki, AngryAtheism Owner & Administrator
Where those who are hacked off with the stupidity of irrational belief can vent their feelings!
Come over to the dark side, we have cookies!
Kyuuketsuki, AngryAtheism Owner & Administrator
