VMWare Rolls Out Their Largest Product Release 154
opieum writes "VMware has launched Virtual Infrastructure 3.0 today which includes ESX 3.0 and a number of management utilities." Relatedly Jane Walker writes "SearchOpenSource has two authors that try to show why VMware ESX Server is miles ahead of Xen and Virtual Server. Discover what to watch out for when running ESX Server and how to avoid sprawl in your virtual data center."
Slashdot Rolls Out... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Slashdot Rolls Out... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Slashdot Rolls Out... (Score:1)
Slashdot's new advertising section... (Score:2)
Re: So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: So? (Score:2)
That was an ad, here are your relative merits (Score:2)
Re:That was an ad, here are your relative merits (Score:2)
Re: So? (Score:2)
Now, the problem here is not that VMWare is a commercial story, but that this story looks too much like an advertisement. If you think it's ok for Slashdot to make money directly on the content it chooses to post, oh well... I guess you're used to watching Fox News?
I don't think I would be against it if the title of the story said "Advertisement: VMWare Rolls Out Their Largest Product Release". At least it would be out in the open, and I could forgive /. for trying to keep their heads above water.
A
Re: So? (Score:2)
Closed source: Source is not available.
Free software: Software license doesn't restrict your freedom to use, change, distribute the software and your changes.
Proprietary software: The softwares license does restrict your freedom in some way.
Commercial: A money-making endeavor
MSWindows: an OS by Microsoft
GNU/Linux: an OS by the FSF + Linux Torvalds, at the least.
For example:
MySQL is a commercial database, which happens to be fre
Re: So? (Score:2)
Re: So? (Score:2)
You heathen, hast thou not heard of gvim [macvim.org]?
Re: So? (Score:2)
So, how do they announce technology news without it sounding like an advertisement? There's one line that says it's out (and points to another news site discussing the release) and another section that points to an open source news site that
Re: Slashdot Rolls Out... (Score:2)
VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5.x? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:3, Interesting)
WORD
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:1)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:1)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
it seems vmware is trying to set up a free taster product and a better premium product in both client and server categories. In the desktop space player is the taster product and workstation is the premium product. In the server space server is the taster product and ESX is the premimum product.
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:5, Informative)
(Also, this blog entry [chipx86.com] might help with a few common misconceptions)
VMware Server, while similar in appearance and sharing much of the same functionality as Workstation, is a completely different product with a different use case and target audience. It is the successor to GSX, and is for people who want to set up, well, servers! The key feature that Server has that Workstation does not is remoting, where you run a server on a computer and connect to it from a separate computer via a remote console or web interface. The VMs can start up with the computer, shut down with it, and can be accessed by multiple users. The VMs also don't require an X installation to run the VMs, nor does it require any sort of UI to be running for the VM to run.
Workstation has a number of features that Server does not have. Among other differences, it supports multiple snapshots, teams of VMs (where multiple VMs can start up/shutdown together, can be in their own special network with custom NIC speeds and packet loss), and 3D acceleration in the guest (currently experimental, and requires DirectX in the guest for now). We have a lot in the works for the product, and the gap will widen.
The one difference that people seem to for some reason get upset over is the price. Workstation costs $189, while Server is free. People have asked me why they should get Workstation if Server is free. The answer is that you should get Workstation if it has the features you want. If Server is better suited to your requirements or budget, go ahead and get that. We're not trying to force you into buying Workstation, and we're in no way crippling the VMs. A VM made in Server should work in Workstation and Player just fine. Likewise, a VM made in Workstation should work in Server or Player.
Workstation is not somehow "better" than Server just because it costs more. It's a different product. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Yes, Server is free while Workstation is not, and part of this is because that's where mid-level server virtualization products were heading. Microsoft was considerably lowering the price on Virtual Server in an effort to hurt GSX sales. Xen, while not a huge contender in the enterprise yet, is free and good work is being done on it. Workstation, however, is unique enough in its dev/test features and still has value that we and our customers still feel is worth something. And you'll see that value continue to grow over time, just as you will with our other products.
I hope that helped you understand why we're still charging for Workstation while Server is free. Choose whichever product you like: Player, Server, Workstation, ACE, ESX.. They're all fine choices, and they all offer solutions to different problems. It's not just about virtualization itself anymore. It's about what you can build on top of it.
(Opinions expressed here are my own and are not necessarily representative of VMware, yada yada.)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
Do you mean a linux host with nvidia/ATI drivers running a 3D accelerated windows guest?
Considerably more expensive than Cedega, but man that would be cool.
Keep up the great work, ChipX86 !
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
I'll second this, but I'm not paying any $189. I'd pay $99 for a version of vmware workstation that supported only Direct3D passed through to linux OpenGL. Maybe he meant requires DirectX in the host OS, though. That would be sad, and fairly useless for the majority of us, unless it will pass OpenGL from Linux to Windows - that's still useless to most people; Cygwin provides a free X Windows server with OpenGL acceleration. Your linux applications can be run in a hidden virtual machine, displaying back to
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
Support. That is the key word in software today. More and more vendors are focusing less on getting license fees and more on generating revenue from support and related services.
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:1)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:1)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:1)
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
You can create VMWare images using QEMU. It's a nice, free way to do so.
Re:VMWare Server 1.0 same as VMWare Workstation 5. (Score:2)
Excellent support of late (Score:5, Interesting)
Roll on more vmware products to make my life a happier one!
I want to crap my pants! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I want to crap my pants! (Score:2)
but ask a ninja is pwnage too. "his name is ROGER and he hates your guts, buddy!"
Re:I want to crap my pants! (Score:2)
XVM (Score:2)
Replaced 2 old servers with notebook and VMWare (Score:5, Informative)
Now I know what you all are saying, but the X31 works great, and is plenty beefy for the 2 servers it is replacing (a Pentium III 500mhz and an AMD 1ghz). The great thing about it is, it is absolutely quiet, it has its own 12" screen, keyboard and mouse (track-pad), and it has a built in UPS system. I have it hooked up the the same UPS that was running the other 2 servers, so if the power goes out, this thing will probably run a week without power.
The SATA external drive is fast, so that isn't an issue, and since it is external I place the drive away from the computer and sight for safety.
VMWare Server is great, and I really appreciate the price (free). I'm currently using Virtual PC for my workstation virtualization (testing, different environments during development, etc), but since I'm so happy with VMWare Server, I'll be switching over to VMWare workstation on my next upgrade. If a client ever needs serious virtualization I'll recommend they give ESX server a try. I think VMWare giving away their basic server is a smart move for them.
The really nice thing about converting my physical servers to virtual ones is how portable they are now. I literally can suspend my 2 servers, disconnect my external SATA drive, move it to a beefy machine, connect it, and resume the 2 servers on the faster machine; that's slick.
Re:Replaced 2 old servers with notebook and VMWare (Score:2)
That's one of those interesting ideas that we could do with hyper-visors. Sure the technologies Intel and AMD are putting in their chips lets you run 2 OSes on a machine, but what if you just ran one OS but ran it under a hyper-visor letting you do something like you described. Time to upgrade your hardware? Your hardware die? Move th
Re:Replaced 2 old servers with notebook and VMWare (Score:2)
http://www.virtualiron.com/ [virtualiron.com]
They do the hypervisor thing on a cluster - you can take 16 single-cpu boxes and build one big 16-cpu single-system-image server, or two 8-cpu servers, or whatever and you can move the cpus between running virtual machines as well as move running virtual machines between cpus.
Kind of like the described situation of manually queisceing the laptop and then moving the disk to another box - except tons more flexible.
Never found it useful (OT) (Score:2)
I just replaced 2 old servers, 1 running Windows 2000 server, and one running Linux. I had an IBM X31 Pentium M 1.3x ghz notebook laying around...
I must say, you must be doing something very different with your servers than I am with mine. The whole idea of replacing two servers with an old dusty laptop certainly gives the impression that your servers aren't exactly "serving" a whole lot. In fact, the primary reason, it seems, that you would use virtualization in the datacenter is because you're somethin
Re:Never found it useful (OT) (Score:2)
now half a decade down the line you have various services running various stuff (fileservers, databases, e-mail, im, custom apps etc). Keeping all those old servers running when the tasks could be performed by a far smaller number is wastefull of both physical space (which may be at a premium especilly if your buisness is growing) and electricity (remember in a large building the real cost of electricity fed to your equipment is si
correction (Score:2)
Very useful! (Score:3, Insightful)
The only place I have seen that this is not true, is when you have a large compute farm, where each system is dedicated to running just that one j
Re:Never found it useful (OT) (Score:1)
I wasn't interested in more power, as I think my current setup provides similar performance as the old setup. My goal was to move my servers to a virtualization environment for ease of backup, ease of maintenance,
Re:Never found it useful (OT) (Score:2)
You obviously don't have any experience with large, inefficient, bureaucratic corporations. At my company, in my department alone, we have at least 25 2GHz
Re:Never found it useful (OT) (Score:2)
As for your cluster reverse-virtualization, it's close to possible with infiniband today, but really, there are instructional latency issues yet.
C//
Re:Replaced 2 old servers with notebook and VMWare (Score:2)
OT, but I was thinking today at work how nice it would be to have a bootable linux CD that could virtualize the windows XP system that's on the hard drive of a customer's machine. Might be a useful tool in fixing the more modern/nasty malware.
SB
Parallels and VTx (Score:2, Interesting)
VMware player for Skype only? (Score:1)
Right now I plan to create an entire Windows XP virtual machine just for this - is there a way to create a machine which can run only Skype and reduce memory requirements by this? My hunch says "no" but I always have a feeling I'm missing something when it comes to tracking the VMware product lines.
Re:VMware player for Skype only? (Score:2)
cutting out explorer (edit shell= in system.ini to just run your app of choice) may also help.
Re:VMware player for Skype only? (Score:2)
Re:VMware player for Skype only? (Score:2)
Disagree about Over-allocation of CPUs (Score:2)
For example, doing something like ru
Re:Disagree about Over-allocation of CPUs (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Disagree about Over-allocation of CPUs (Score:2)
Re:Disagree about Over-allocation of CPUs (Score:2)
Not to mention that one of the things they talk about in the article (yes, I RTFA, gasp) is that a lot of enterprises are creating a new vm for every task just because they can; the result is that you pay for more windows licenses (if you use windows) and use a lot more memory and other resources in overhe
Mac? (Score:2)
Re:Mac? (Score:2)
What I want to do is use VMWare to run a Windows VM so that I can run software like Visio without having to boot into Windows via Boot Camp. I am hoping that VMWare will make it possible to do so at some point.
Re:Mac? (Score:2)
Re:Mac? (Score:2)
Having played with it I was, shall we say, unimpressed, especially compared to VMWare. I seem VMWare's quality/performance on my Mac. Hopefully it won't take forever.
Re:Mac? (Score:2)
I wouldn't say miles Oglesby and Herold. (Score:3, Informative)
Management
Sure, the VMWare servers had nice pretty management tools that were probably a couple hundred yards ahead of Xen's CLI tools, but this company doesn't exactly tolerate idiots. The unix guys here are more than capbable of migrating to Xen, compiled from source with a customized kernel, with no problem. The command line configuration and live migration utilities are more than adequate considering we already have SSH access to the boxes in the back. There was no need to change the firewall configs to allow us VMWare console access or anything.
Performance
I ran series of benchmarks for the following applications: MySQL, Apache, Lighttpd, perl and php. All of the bechmarks were ran on the same hardware, I just re-imaged the two machines multiple times. Xen won in every race. As a matter of fact, on the dual core Opeteron SunFire the Xen vm was a whopping 600 seconds ahead of the VMWare vm at running MySQL's sql-bench suite.
Stability
Xen 3.0 is more stable, IMHO than VMWare. Though neither platform crashed or hosed, the ESX box had a lot of trouble keeping time via ntp and had some problems with disk I/O.
Distrust
I reported the time problem several times to the VMWare techs assigned to our case, and they assured me that it was a host os issue. Funny that this article mentions that ESX < 3 has a problem keeping time with a 2.6 kernel isn't it?
Future
Later this week I'll be recieving the first Intel VT enabled server we purchased. I'll soon see if any OS or any kernel (including GRSec [grsecurity.org] patched) kernels can be booted under Xen. If that is case, my company is likely is to purchase XenSource's commercial products.
Re:I wouldn't say miles Oglesby and Herold. (Score:2)
I ran series of benchmarks for the following applications
How about publishing your benchmark results?
Unless thats prohibited by the VMWare license...
Re:I wouldn't say miles Oglesby and Herold. (Score:2)
Time (Score:2)
About time.
I have only one ESX server, it has only been down tw
Re:Time (Score:2)
ESX 2.5 has some problems with 2.6 kernels. The latest patch release fixes some but I've downgraded all my Linux to 2.4 since I don't need to 2.6 really. One particularly nasty problem I had was high network i/o would cause the physical NIC in ESX to shutdown, effectively killing all vm's that used it. One vm could cause all your machines that used that
Re:Time (Score:2)
We have been thinking about using vmware for many of our servers, but then some more urgent projects came in the way. But I will be bringing it back at the end of the year. So I have time to play with V.3 until then.
Besides from the disk issue I had, the virtual machines have been r
Scott Herold's comment misleading (Score:2)
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ [cam.ac.uk]
A port of Windows XP was developed for an earlier version of Xen, but is not available for release due to licence restrictions.
If t
Re:Scott Herold's comment misleading (Score:2)
of course you can. Xen3 have had VT support for months.
Re:Xen (Score:1)
Re:Xen (Score:2)
Do you have anything to back this claim up?
I moved several virtual machines from VMWare GSX to Xen a few months ago, and noticed an immediate performance increase. I've had just as many reliability problems as I had with VMWare.. none.
Re:Xen (Score:2)
Xen's performance overhead is about 3-4% of the CPU. So sure things could be improved. But even if VMWare had no overhead (which it probably does) the performance difference is not something you'd really notice unless doing technical benchmarks.
In our hosting setup we have found that Xen is reliable, performs well, and the VPSs are about as functionaly identical as a 'real' dedicated server as you can get.
If your needs happen to be running Linux virtual machines and you're comfortable with the Xen too
Re:Xen (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:5, Funny)
I've been working in IT for just under ten years now and I hate every vendor out there. They all suck and none of their products work worth a crap. I'm sick of wasting my time chasing bugs and applying endless patches as new issues surface. However, VMWare is the one shining light in my shop. It does exactly what they say it does and it does it flawlessly. Every feature is as you would expect and (ESX) host servers stay up for months at a time. Never have we had to reboot a host to solve a stability issue. It just freakin' works. After you've fought so many other products for years, seeing VMWare software in action is enough to make you cry.
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
However, VMWare is the one shining light in my shop. It does exactly what they say it does and it does it flawlessly. Every feature is as you would expect and (ESX) host servers stay up for months at a time. Never have we had to reboot a host to solve a stability issue. It just freakin' works.
Then why does the article say that support is absolutely atrocious for 2.6 kernels? Quote from the article:
If you're using Linux and there is a dire need to use a 2.6 kernel in a VM [virtual machine], wait for E
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
It works flawlessly. Installed the first time without a hitch, and even without installing the VMware driver support it is working nicely with all my toys (xwindows at 1600x1200 on my lcd display, sound, networking, etc.) I don't know about ESX, but on workstation it works awesome (better than I expected.)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
Honestly I am beginning to wonder if the latest KDE, Gnome, and kernel have had vmware drivers added to the base install in SuSE 10.1
You're right, you don't. Stop thinking 1 box. (Score:5, Interesting)
vmware workstation - for $$ you get an amazing desktop virtualization environment perfect for people who write drivers and core operating system software. Snapshots and things, complete control over memory, "frozen in state" debugging from outside the vm.
vmware server - free. On the desktop, it lets you run more than one pc at a time. Also can run on a server -- even headless. It can start with the operating system and automatically load the vm's at boot time. A conside side app lets you manage your headless server platform remotely.
Then you get into their Data Center environment.
Don't think 1 machine. Thinking 10 machines. You deploy your vm's across them, using your EMC storage arrays. You don't even have to know which hardware is running your vm. They can be moved around at will. Add a machine to the pack and you increase overall power. A machine goes down? So what? Migrate the vm. The VM's all run with the same "drivers" which are virtual.
Have you ever kept a server longer than you wanted because you didn't want to deal with reinstalling an entire operating system and all the software just to take advantage of the new hardware?
Re:You're right, you don't. Stop thinking 1 box. (Score:2)
Guest OS licensing is up to the vmware user (Score:2)
Of course, you'd be doing this with linux anyway, right?
Re:You're right, you don't. Stop thinking 1 box. (Score:2)
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
If you weren't virtualizing, how could you afford those five servers if you can't afford two (albeit beefier) servers for a primary and backup of the virtualized server?
And if you run those servers on one machine as services instead of VMs, then you're in the same boat; if the MB fries all five services go down.
Re:I just don't see it. - step back and look again (Score:5, Informative)
1) Upgrading / retiring a server? Set up the new box, install VMWare, shut down VM on old server, copy files, bring VM up on new server - it never will know the difference (and this is without a SAN!) Got a SAN - VMotion the VM to a new server -0- (zero) downtime.
2) Custom app you only want to setup one and forget it! Great Plains, vendor platforms, your monitoring and cacti box. Set it up in a VM and let it live. You're never going to reinstall the box, so why put it on a box you may have to reinstall
3) Backups of a physical server suck. Think, with the box running, you can snap a fully functional complete disk image and move it offsite via nfs, cifs, ftp. If there is ever an issue, you roll back to that snap shot and it's just as if the server had a bad shutdown. No bare metal recovery that takes hours and hours. We're talking minutes (in a SAN enviroment).
4) Need a server to test something - create it! Setup anything you want in a VM - it doesn't care. Don't like it? Delete it! Need more power? Move it! Take it home with you for the weekend? Install player on your laptop and take the files with you!
5) Big hardware is better hardware. Running an enterprise on comsumer gear with a special sticker on the front is just bad. Enterprise grade servers are beaten into submission and have the best possible components. Dell has been known to hault production of a platform if a vendor's component fails during testing (the PE 4400's had this issue ~4 years ago). Using VMWare you can buy 2-3 big servers, rather than the 5-10 pc servers. Get 8-16gb of RAM per system. Get larger hard drives, and not waste so much space.
6) Isolate those apps. Sometimes its just better to let each application server have it's own OS instance. That way if you ever need to, you can replace them without having to worry that some interdependancy on the box will cause failures.
7) Its good to be green - think of the power savings when your entire enterprise is running on 1/10th the hardware. Using a performance SAN and a bunch of DL585's I can't think of a company under 10,000 people who can't run off of 1 racks worth of servers. Think about it - thousands of users, 100 server, in one rack. I have clients that are in the 50-100 user range running on 2 DL385's or PE2850's.
Re:I just don't see it. - step back and look again (Score:2)
yah, but some people need to run J2EE apps
Re:I just don't see it. - step back and look again (Score:2)
Hmm, Google has under 10,000 people. But I don't think 1 rack would cut it.
Re:I just don't see it. (Score:2)
It only makes sense if you have - or expect to have - requirements for a large and/or dynamic number of machines.
For example, if you have 10 different production machines, for 10 distinct tasks, but want to provide redundancy for t
Re:VMWare ahead of Xen eh? (Score:2)
Benchmarks you've seen (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that recently we changed the EULA back to allow benchmarking again. Let's see if the Xen folks redo their benchmarks or keep making hay by comparing with the old VMware Workstation 3.1 benchmarks...
[Standard disclaimer: I work for VMware, but I'm not speaking officially.]
Benchmarks are too easily rigged. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, you can probably plug the numbers into a suitably complicated equation, but it won't be linear and it won't be "obvious". The maxima won't be at the same place for different hypervisors, either. That's the point. If you use a single number benchmark, you can (almost) always find something product X does better than product Y. If you have the full behaviour of the system written out, vendors can't obscure things like that. It's good for the customer, as they can then see what product does the best with the specific characteristics they have in mind. It's also good for the vendor, because there's no pretense and no FUD (so the customers like you) and there's no denial (so the developers respect you).
Now, are ANY vendors going to do this? And I'm including Xen and VServers in this. Probably not. There are risks involved in being that transparent, plus costs. And even if the vendors all agreed it was a good idea, you think ANY of them would volunteer to go first?
This is not to diss VMWare. I respect them (as much as I respect any corporate entity) and this is just as true of the Open Source solutions. It's merely the practical reality that promoting a product through total education of the consumer is something neither party really wants. Customers want plausible denial if things don't work out, and vendors are not going to tell you to go to their competitors.
Re:Benchmarks are too easily rigged. (Score:2)
Re:Benchmarks you've seen (Score:2)
Re:Benchmarks you've seen (Score:2)
Re:Benchmarks you've seen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Benchmarks you've been forbidden to see (Score:2)
Re:VMWare ahead of Xen eh? (Score:2)
Re:VMWare ahead of Xen eh? (Score:3, Insightful)
But in this case, who cares? No one uses VMs because they need to run something faster. VMs have become popular because we have an excess of hardwar
Re:for those that don't know (Score:2)
Funny how creating a fictional shill can undermine your entire marketing plan.