Should i go native or with ESXi server?
At this moment, my server is a plain 64-bit amd, running windows 2003. I wanted to run another virtualized OS on top of it using virtualbox.
Then I saw that vmware ESXi is free! I always ignored that because I thought it would be extremely expensive.
So, now in my mind I have this vision of the "as-fast-as-native" virtualization
Since I have to migrate to new hardware next week, do you think that reinstalling Windows 2003 on ESXi server would be a good idea?
What is better?
- Windows 2003 => vmware server => my other guest OS
- ESXi server => windows 2003 + other guest OS
Solution 1:
As long as your hardware is supported on ESXi, and isn't not missing any features you want, go for that. No only is it faster for the guests, but it's incredibly stable, whereas running vmware server can only be as stable as the Windows install it's on, which leads to either an unpatched, unmaintainted host, or frequent downtime as you reboot the host to patch it. Enabling SSH on your ESXi machine, and using some of the ghetto scripts can add back features you need.
Solution 2:
Just another option to throw out there, MS put out a free Hyper-V download to compete with ESXi. It's similarly excluded from the V-Motion-type features, but gives your VMs a more direct line to the hardware (i.e. faster). Command-line only (various youtube videos like this long-winded thing), but a better comparison to ESXi than VS2005, I think.
For my $.02, I'd virtualize. Once you've got a virt platform, things start to occur to you that you just can't do with physical servers, and I think it's just a good place to take one's technical development, overall.
Solution 3:
The answer is, of course, it depends.
If you have a fairly beefy server such that your Win2K3 Server will not be starved for resources, AND won't be running work loads that require lots of I/O, then running VMware Server on Win2K3 will probably be acceptable.
If you require more control over how the virtualization works (networking setups, cpu affinity and the like) AND have hardware that ESXi will deal with -- ESXi is probably the way to go.
Personally I've found the VMware Server configuration more flexible in terms of spinning up and moving VMs; however ESXi gives you a better chance of giving guaranteed levels of performance to your VMs. ie: if you are just playing around, VMware Server is the way to go. If you are going production, go ESXi.