IT challenge: VMware for Complete Idiots?

[raueda1]

There are smart folks here, which is why postings on non-ski tech stuff pop up, so why not VMware? I need somebody to just point me in the right direction.

A climbing buddy, who's also the IT guy for my business, gave me something wonderful - an HP DL380 G5 server, with 2 duo-core Xenon processors, 16Gb RAM, a 5Tb HD array and VMware already installed (VShphere?). Holly fuck! His client was a NY media company that went belly up and it was headed for the dumpster. A few years ago this thing would have cost $15k. So now I have it. Score! It's a perfect upgrade for my existing media server and a new source of endless hours of enjoyable IT geeking.

Here's the issue. I want to virtualize my old server and some old laptops that still have stuff that's useful to me. Then I'll turn the existing server into a massive NAS box. But I really don't know much about VMware. I've looked for stuff online but it seems like it's all geared towards real IT pros, which I'm not, or enterprise users so it's way way overcomplicated. There doesn't seem to be much of a hobbyist community out there fucking with 10Tb home systems or doing this kind of thing. And I don't want to keep bugging my pal all the time, I just don't like to do that shit.

So...... can anybody point me to a link or other resource that covers VMware and Virtualization for Complete Idiots? That'd be awesome!

[stuckathuntermtn]

I know a little bit. Not much. You need View client on your computer to access the virtual machine. It's a free download.
Not really familiar with setting up virtual machines on the server side. You might try doing a backup .vhd image of you current server and seeing if you can virtualize it on vmware. The other option, since you're not running an enterprise grade server pool of virtual machines, is to just use the Windows Server virtual machine tech that's built in. It's called Hyper V.
If you have a legit license, can't you just call tech support?

[Skidog]

You can the vsphere client directly from the host. Just browse via web browser to the IP address of the host. If host is internet connected it will take you to the vspehere DL. Once loaded you can use vsphere to manage your virtual environment. Launch vsphere. Put in IP of host the user root and the password which I assume you have.
Once in vsphere you'll see all the virtual machines on the host and be able to console to them turn them on and off, etc. Depending on licence level you may be able to create physical to virtual machines. Both the physical and VM to be created have to be on the same network, but its a click next type deal. Provide name of target physical and create a VM from it.
Once all machines you want are created you can just access them all from one machine using remote desktop from windows.
I don't think I said it but the vsphere software should be loaded onto a standalone laptop or such.
Hell you might even have vcenter server licenses and that would surely have p to v.

Pm me if you have specific questions. I work with these environments daily and have built out more than a few clustered VMware environments.

Good luck virtualization is the future.

[raueda1]

You can the vsphere client directly from the host. Just browse via web browser to the IP address of the host. If host is internet connected it will take you to the vspehere DL. Once loaded you can use vsphere to manage your virtual environment. Launch vsphere. Put in IP of host the user root and the password which I assume you have.
Once in vsphere you'll see all the virtual machines on the host and be able to console to them turn them on and off, etc. Depending on licence level you may be able to create physical to virtual machines. Both the physical and VM to be created have to be on the same network, but its a click next type deal. Provide name of target physical and create a VM from it.
Once all machines you want are created you can just access them all from one machine using remote desktop from windows.
I don't think I said it but the vsphere software should be loaded onto a standalone laptop or such.
Hell you might even have vcenter server licenses and that would surely have p to v.

Pm me if you have specific questions. I work with these environments daily and have built out more than a few clustered VMware environments.

Good luck virtualization is the future.

Thanks much. What you've described is more or less where I'm at now. My IT guy and I are doing something similar at work with an identical machine. In that case we're getting our old server VM'd (it runs Server 2008, Exchange server and a file server for Quickbooks etc with about 15 workstations). I've got VShere on my laptop and can play with it. The challenge there is testing the backup/restore and time to do the migration without shutting down the business. It's a climbing gym, so we're open 14 hours a day, 7 days. Not enough downtime!

Anyway, my struggle is I'm learning by osmosis and not entirely sure what the specific questions even are. Another part of the problem is that I don't know what's possible and I don't have any particular goal in mind. I'm just kind of screwing around cause it's fun. Something I do want to do is get a system back in place for high end audio A->D conversion and A/V editing (stereo died and is storage anyway prior to moving). It's still puzzling how VM's handle hardware, like UBS sticks, graphics cards, sound cards, etc. So I guess there's also that - when does it make more sense to just have a stand-alone box for a specific purpose, e.g., 1080p A/V editing?

I'll PM you as I get deeper, thanks again.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Well, SkiDog knows it way better than me.
And you can capture usb devices with a VM. Not sure about gfx cards. Some business machines have some kind of virtualization optimization you can turn on in the BIOS. Otherwise, I think it's just mostly virtual hardware. Also, if your VM is running on a server, not sure what you've really got for gfx power.

[raueda1]

Well, SkiDog knows it way better than me.
And you can capture usb devices with a VM. Not sure about gfx cards. Some business machines have some kind of virtualization optimization you can turn on in the BIOS. Otherwise, I think it's just mostly virtual hardware. Also, if your VM is running on a server, not sure what you've really got for gfx power.

Exactly. It is. The server's native graphics are quite pathetic. But I can pop something better in.

[Tye 1on]

Skipup and stuckatbrokebackmtn bringing the techstoke! I fkn love this place...

[stuckathuntermtn]

Exactly. It is. The server's native graphics are quite pathetic. But I can pop something better in.

Again, I think it uses virtual hardware.

Skipup and stuckatbrokebackmtn bringing the techstoke! I fkn love this place...

Yeah you do!

[GardenGr0ve650]

Again, I think it uses virtual hardware.



Yeah you do!

Actually you can use dedicated hardware such as GPU cards to improve desktop experience and give you the chance to do some video/audio editing. If you only use onboard the server will seem slow sluggish and no matter how much resource you add to your vm the actual hardware of the physical machine won't be able to provide what you need.
To use usb devices most of the time you can connect it directly to the server and through vsphere you can then decide to which vm you can connect it too.
To migrate from p to v without any downtime you will need proper licensing, the only way I've ever done it is by using vMotion where you can do a live migration without shutting down anything.

[bsavery]

I don't mean to be the naysayer in a very positive thread... Does that server actually have the space for a full size graphics card? With some quick googling it looks like a 2U size, which may or may not allow a new graphics card, let alone the power requirements.

Also while the disk space and 16gb of memory are decent (16gb is what I would say is the lower end for video editing these days) your CPUs in there are not that overwhelming. They probably work fine for less multithreaded applications but video and photo editing you would probably be better served with a 500$ haswell based desktop with a graphics card and an SSD.

That said this would be a great server replacement.

[stuckathuntermtn]

A virtual machine for video editing seems like a shitty idea.

[GardenGr0ve650]

A virtual machine for video editing seems like a shitty idea.

Actually I've setup some servers running virtual machines that would put to shame alot of gaming systems, it all depends on the type of hardware it's configured with. In this case with the server type like it was suggested earlier, you would be limited because of the room inside the case....

[raueda1]

This is all actually super helpful. Per above, somebody gave me the server, which now takes it's place among various other machines -

• ML310 G3 now being used as file server (mostly large video files) and DLNA server. NAS in future?
• Thinkpad x200s for road tripping (SSD, 8Gb RAM)
• Thinkpad W520 for video editing (also SSD, 16Gb RAM, it seems to do fine with 1080p/Sony Vegas)
• Missing (for now) is a box for "lossless" audio and direct connection to stereo (

Other longer term projects might include hosting a website, an MS-Exchange server and who knows what else. So..... the underling question is what's the best way cobble all this stuff together? ["Best" meaning the most fun, which is probably also the most complicated.] And how to make the best use of v-stuff in all that? Keep the ideas coming!

[[ FWIW, I'm kind of retired and everybody needs a hobby. ]]

[RShea]

Verify which version of VMWare is included. If it is VShphere, then HyperVisor is discussed here: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere-hypervisor

You mention in the future Website, Exchange, etc. Stop and take a few minutes to think about if you want everything running all the time (which you would need for say Exchange Server as you would not want to do part time email server) or if there are some machines and boxes that you would only want to turn up when needed and not be running 7/24 (Such as the why you use a desktop or laptop PC- or even a streaming audio box, etc. could be turned up only when you are home and wanting to surf the net or listen to music, etc. I also agree that any of the high end graphics stuff would stress the very basic on board video and you would want to consider if a low profile video card in the system would even be enough of a boost for video editing (Most G5 servers like yours do not have PCIexpress x16 slots *the high end used for graphics) at best maybe a PCIe x4 or x8 only, otherwise stay with using the new box for central shared storage/backup and a "Lab" server box that you can play with and learn how to virtualize various OS's (for the web stuff you could do a Linux as an example)... Plenty of material out there for download (install guides, tutorials, etc.) directly from VMWare and you can spend hours on You Tube watching others do this stuff to get familiar with what is possible and basic how to.... or sites like this one: http://www.vminstall.com/vmware-for-beginners/ for a starting point. Then take up Skidog on his offer to bounce specific questions off of if you get stuck.

[raueda1]

All good, thanks to all. I just installed VSphere Client 5.5 on my baby laptop and I can logon to the ESXi host. Much to see and learn.....

This leads me to the same path I usually end up following for stuff like this: Just start browsing, looking at the videos and absorbing. 90% of it won't make any sense at all. Repeat. Now only 50% won't make sense, and the right questions become clearer. Repeat again, ask better questions, etc.

I'll be back......

[stuckathuntermtn]

I believe best practice is to not install Exchange on a box used for anything else. It's annoying, because SBS, which they finally retired, requires Exchange be installed on the DC, which I don't think it will even let you do on all other versions, because it's fucking retarded to do that. Exchange runs the disks pretty hard, so having it even on a different virtual machine, but on the same physical server sucks. Unfortunately, budget requirements make this common, afaik. If you have any kind of monitoring software, you'll keep getting alerted for disk faults and stuff on the physical box the Exchange server is running on. Error correction of course makes these a non-issue. I used to look into a lot of false alarms for i/o errors and raid statuses because of an Exchange server just cranking away.
tl;dr version: put Exchange on it's own physical box if you can.

[raueda1]

I believe best practice is to not install Exchange on a box used for anything else. It's annoying, because SBS, which they finally retired, requires Exchange be installed on the DC, which I don't think it will even let you do on all other versions, because it's fucking retarded to do that. Exchange runs the disks pretty hard, so having it even on a different virtual machine, but on the same physical server sucks. Unfortunately, budget requirements make this common, afaik. If you have any kind of monitoring software, you'll keep getting alerted for disk faults and stuff on the physical box the Exchange server is running on. Error correction of course makes these a non-issue. I used to look into a lot of false alarms for i/o errors and raid statuses because of an Exchange server just cranking away.
tl;dr version: put Exchange on it's own physical box if you can.

Hmmmm. Interesting. We've been running it for years on the same machine that's
hosting other stuff and I don't think it has caused performance issues. OTOH, who knows how much better it could run? Still, point well taken. At the end of the day it's not clear that I'd actually bother to set up Exchange at home anyway. It's certainly my lowest priority and it's not really clear to me what the point would be except for the pure fun of it.

[RShea]

Microsoft best practices for Exchange pretty much expect Hyper V (which Microsoft of course is the developer- no surprise there) and there are many virtualized copies of Exchange out there. Of course it also depends on how many users and the size of the Exchange databases you are dealing with. Veeam has some great packages for anyone doing serious work on Virtual Machines.

http://www.veeam.com/wp-best-practic...ge-server.html

and the MS Tech stuff (depends on which version of Exchange of course- Exchange 2013 is the newest):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...exchg.80).aspx

And here is another discussion on VMWare and Exchange that will steer you to best practices:
https://www.vmware.com/business-critical-apps/exchange

Disk speeds and Raid types enter into the equation, as well as how much memory is in the server..... and of course how the resources are set up for the VM.

[-Devin-]

I believe best practice is to not install Exchange on a box used for anything else. It's annoying, because SBS, which they finally retired, requires Exchange be installed on the DC, which I don't think it will even let you do on all other versions, because it's fucking retarded to do that. Exchange runs the disks pretty hard, so having it even on a different virtual machine, but on the same physical server sucks. Unfortunately, budget requirements make this common, afaik. If you have any kind of monitoring software, you'll keep getting alerted for disk faults and stuff on the physical box the Exchange server is running on. Error correction of course makes these a non-issue. I used to look into a lot of false alarms for i/o errors and raid statuses because of an Exchange server just cranking away.
tl;dr version: put Exchange on it's own physical box if you can.

You can virtualize just about anything today. No problem at all virtualizing Exchange. Exch 2010 and newer has much reduced disk I/O and can run on pretty slow disks compared to the past.

I work in a small IT shop and we are 95% virtual on VMware. Unless it has some strange hardware need, it is virtual. Love it. Makes my life easy.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Yeah, I think it had more to do with shitty monitoring service/software, etc. Also a lot of Exchange 2008 and such.

[RShea]

That is your problem right there- There was no Exchange 2008, Exchange 2003, 3007, 2010, 2013 is the most recent version orders.

[Tuckerman]

I run Exchange 2013 as a VM. I only have 130ish mail boxes though. The thing is I have spent overnight at the exchange server trying to nurse a corrupted database back to life. My hope is if something like that happens again I can just spin up a backed up copy of the vm more quickly then mess around with a database.

To the original poster you can do a lot cool stuff with VMware but its limited to which licence you have. One of the things I like to mess around with is creating .ovfs of Ubuntu, pfsense ect.. I just did a wireshark .ovf with a mirrored port on the vswitch.

[Skidog]

Exchange, sql, and most enterprise applications work just fine with VMware.

as mentioned what you'll be able to do depends highly on the licensed options. EVERYTHING VMware is "a la carte", part of the issue with their pricing model. you pay to get the cool new shit.

Hyper V is a strong alternative. Obviously not as "full blown" feature wise as VMware but VMwares been a player in this game for a LONG time, they'd better be more robust, especially with the pricing model. MS makes licensing a bit easier IMHO. Hyper V also has a direct migration path (like they wouldnt) to move your current VMware VM's into a Hyper V environment. For most small to mid sized businesses I think Hyper V is worth a look. For anything "enterprise" scale i'd stick with VMware.

I have been working with VMware since version 3.x ad seen it grow and mature. Its a strong platform that allows you to leverage computing horsepower that would otherwise sit idle.

Again feel free to pm me with questions, as time permits I will do my best to respond.

Enjoy tinkering.

[stuckathuntermtn]

That is your problem right there- There was no Exchange 2008, Exchange 2003, 3007, 2010, 2013 is the most recent version orders.

Lol, yes, that.

[teledad]

I used to work for VMware, though it's been a few years. I may not be up on all the latest and greatest.

The basic free ESXi license (vSphere Hypervisor) will work just fine for virtualizing a bunch of VMs on a single server. If you're running multiple servers with shared storage and want to live migrate between them, do auto restart of VMs when a host dies, etc., then you'll need to pay. Also if you want to link the VM to backup software without having to run agents inside the VMs, manage multiple servers with one UI, etc.. For what you're doing the free version should be just fine.

Graphics are kind of a weak point for any of the hypervisors, particularly in the data center offerings like vSphere/ESXi. If you want to use the system for video editing (and the hardware will support a reasonable graphics card) then I'd install the system with whatever OS you need for the video editing software, do the video editing natively in that OS, and and run a hosted hypervisor like VMware Workstation for anything else.

TGR is great and all but you may get more information from the VMware forums: https://communities.vmware.com/commu...eloper/forums/