On Feb 5, 2010, at 9:03 AM, Drew drew.kay@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks for the info. Looks like VM would be the way to go. I have been looking at Vmware and virtualbox. Would you recommend Vmware over virtualbox?
Whats your thoughts on Vmware server over esxi? Really do not want to have to budget for Virtualization if I do not have to.
I know some will disagree with me but for production I recommend sticking with VMware's ESXi product, which is free, unless you have need of some of the more advanced features which are available through paid options.
The downside of offerings like Virtualbox or VMware Server, where the guest OS is hosted inside the app running on a full blown OS, is the host itself. In my experience, the smaller footprint of VMware ESX(i) reduces the amount of maintenance required as well as has minimal performance impact of the guest OS's.
That said, apps like Virtualbox / WMware server do have their place. At work I routinely create virtual machines under WMware Server to experiment with new software before releasing it into the wild at work. The cost overhead of running Server on my own workstation is acceptable for testing but I wouldn't consider it for production.
Citrix XenServer Pro is also free and it comes with live migration, you don't get VMotion with ESXi unless you dish out big $$ for Enterprise.
-Ross