VMware "Miles Ahead" of Microsoft Virtual Server

sunshineluv7 writes, "IT managers gathered in New York City earlier this week to get advice from experts on when, why, and how to virtualize their server environments. The takeaway from the conference: if you want to run an enterprise-class virtualization platform in production today, stick with VMware." Other wise words from this conference: "Virtualization is a journey, not a project."

Binary Translation

[DrDitto (962751)]

VMWare does on-the-demand binary translation (BT) to avoid traps. I could be wrong, but I don't think Microsoft Virtual Server does BT.

Re:Binary Translation

[angryargus (559948)]

Virtual Server does BT (it has to in order to work on non-VT processors), but Xen doesn't do BT (which is why Xen needs paravirtualiztion support in Linux, and VT processors for Windows).

It's TBD on whether "Windows Server Virtualization" will use BT, but I suspect they'll drop it. With Intel processors it's not possible to do BT when using VT on x64 processors in 64-bit mode (however it is possible on AMD processors).

Re:

[DrDitto (962751)]

Right, I was confused to because certain instructions are used for both user-mode and privilege mode and they do different things. Someone told me that the Microsoft Virtual Server "emulates" these instructions instead of "translating" them. Yes, useless speculation.

VMware

[dlichterman (868464)]

Its also awesome that VMWare Server is available free to download. I installed it on my laptop running Ubuntu and can run Windows XP.

http://www.vmware.com/download/server/ [vmware.com]

Re:VMware

[Acer500 (846698)]

Microsoft's Virtual Server is also available for free:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtu alserver/software/default.mspx [microsoft.com]

Won't run on Ubuntu obviously :P

Re:VMware

[Instine (963303)]

I'm not sure which builds exactly, but I know I tried three times, and failed three times to put Vista (Beta2 and RC1) on VPC and failed three times. Worked for each buold first time on VMWare. I mean come on M$! Its hard not to flamebait, when they're just failing so badly. What do they think all the developers of the world are going to do with their pre-public releases?

Re:

[StikyPad (445176)]

I know I tried three times, and failed three times to put Vista (Beta2 and RC1) on VPC and failed three times.

Well look on the bright side: You only tried three times, but you failed six times! That's a 100% net gain in results over effort. If we can find a way to harness your failure, we might be able to use you to power our cities.

Re:

[hacker (14635)]

And you probably got the poor performance too. Why not stick with VMware Workstation, its much, MUCH faster (especially on single-proc machines) and supports a lot more than Server does (currently).

virtual bsod?

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

Help me/us countryfolk understand: So if you get a BSOD in a virtual environemnt, are you dead or not? I imagine that with some of the Windows hardware hooks, you'd probably be dead anyhow, so it wouldn't matter if you were virtually dead or really dead.

Re:virtual bsod?

[joeytmann (664434)]

Just for that VM. Now if the Host OS BSODs....thats bad for all VMs.

Re:virtual bsod?

[Em Ellel (523581)]

> Just for that VM. Now if the Host OS BSODs....thats bad for all VMs.

Thats why you run a stripped down linux on Host and no apps (at least in server environment) :-)
I am surprised there is no "vmware-host" Linux distro - something perfectly barebones and lightweight to run vmware server on :-)Of course maybe there is one and I just have not found it yet ;-)

-Em

Re:virtual bsod?

[Tmack (593755)]

Its VMWare's non-free ESX server. You boot directly into a VMWare style OS, where you directly run VMs. It also has the benefit to pause/resume VMs, and even export them to other VM Servers on other hardware. Its like a Game Genie for servers!

tm

Re:virtual bsod?

[gkhan1 (886823)]

Its like a Game Genie for servers!

I love slashdot!

Re:

[Jagasian (129329)]

VMware's ESX Server packaging of their virtualization technology includes a stripped down kernel that is basically designed to only run virtualizers. So you get improved performance and reliability due to the simplified host OS. More at the Wikipedia page for VMware [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[Jehosephat2k (562701)]

BSODs only crash the virtual environment, not the host machine.

Re:

[mrbooze (49713)]

I've even seem a VMWare Vmotion demonstration where a guest machine BSOD'd and you could still seamlessly move that guest machine across different VMWare servers, essentially moving the BSOD around.

Not sure what the practical point is, but it was amusing.

Re:

[hockpatooie (312212)]

The body cannot live without the mind.

Re:

[mcrbids (148650)]

A VM is just that: a virtual machine. It has its own BIOS. It acts like a full computer. It boots off a (virtual or real) disk. It has "hardware" - video card, sound card, network adapter, etc. all virtual representations of the real machine.

Think of it as a full computer within a window.

If you boot a copy of Windows, in a VM, it nevers "sees" the host system, it sees this virtual machine in such a way as it is indistinguishable from a real one. The only apparent connection between the virtual machine and t

Anecdotal evidence of VMWare being better

[Acer500 (846698)]

It's mostly anecdotal, but I work at a Microsoft shop, and several developers still clamor for VMWare even though we have Virtual Server for free, as it seems to be a lot better performance-wise.

I'm still waiting for an update to Virtual PC, there the difference is abysmal.

Also, would it be possible to emulate some other hardware? The current video card emulated by Virtual PC won't support Aero.

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN (578166)]

Last time I checked, no virtualization solution supported hardware graphics acceleration. I was surprised; I didn't think it would be too hard to do using OpenGL.

Re:Anecdotal evidence of VMWare being better

[InsaneGeek (175763)]

VMware workstation has some "experimental" hooks that can be turned on to allow direct access to the video card.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_vidsound _d3d.html [vmware.com]

Re:

[dan828 (753380)]

Wait a minute. You thought that you were supposed to be taking things seriously here? On Slashdot?

WAN

[COMON$ (806135)]

Does anyone have any experience in virtualization technology in a WAN? Linux hosts vs MS hosts.

I have been researching the feasability of operating a WAN with multiple domains. Each domain to be hosted as a Virtual server in a central location where the client LAN's are connected via VPN. I have researched a bit of Xen, MS Virtual Server, and VMware. Currently vmware server is leading but as slashdotters we are all tinkerers. I am wondering who out there has tried this setup with vmware or Xen and thei

Re:

[walt-sjc (145127)]

One of us seems to be confused. WAN is networking - outside the computer. Virtualization is inside the computer. Your question is kinda like asking if you can drive a car in a state that has a river. Can you manage a virtualized machine over a WAN? Yes. Can you access a VM over a WAN? Yes. A VM "server" is no different than a traditional server other than it doesn't have dedicated, direct, and unrestricted access to hardware resources. Keep in mind that accessing an application via a WAN when you have trad

Linux-for-Windows screensaver ?

[quiberon2 (986274)]

The quick and dirty virtualisation is with the Linux-for-Windows Screensaver [thepiratebay.org]; screenshot here [linuxtracker.org]

Real Virtual

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

Where's the study/chart contrasting VMWare with Xen virtualization? Those are the two to watch - Microsoft will just copy whichever one (or features) serves MS better.

Re:Real Virtual

[value_added (719364)]

Where's the study/chart contrasting VMWare with Xen virtualization?

Probably in the section that's prominently labelled "RELATED CONTENT" that directly follows the article? A virtual representation of the relevant link:

How does Xen stack up against Virtual Server, VMware? [techtarget.com]

Shame they require registration.

At any rate, I'm sure everyone would agree that the vwmare Wikipedia Article [wikipedia.org] is probably the most comprehensive source for information. Comparisons with other technologies are included.

Re:

[amorsen (7485)]

But binary seems most appropriate, self-scaling according to the size of the base unit.

I find e more natural.

Evaluated both Virtual Server vs VMWare Server

[duplicate-nickname (87112)]

We have been looking at which technology to go with and I currently have two production systems up hosting virtual servers (one with VMWare Server, the other with Virtual Server 2003 R2). These are hosted on Windows 2003 Servers, and the guests are also Windows 2003. Although both products have been performing fairly well, we have had a few problems with the VMWare server (pausing/unpausing the server through the command line fails occasionally). Also, when SP1 comes out for VS 2003, it will officially s

I finally replaced Windows at work

[TheLetterZ (734720)]

I finally replaced XP at work with Kubuntu. The one thing holding me back was actually none other than iTunes - yeah sure I could use amarok, but I have purchased a lot of music on iTMS plus I like iTunes' radio channels and iTunes in general. And by the way, I also have a lot of historic Outlook mail.

I installed VMWare on my Dell laptop, created a 30GB partition (of which 20GB is MP3/M4P), installed the Dell XP Pro OEM version in VMWare, which automatically picked up the system's XP key, and I got iTunes running in VMWare, Office 2003 for historical mail and the odd Word/Powerpoint/Excel documents which OpenOffice 2 has difficulties handling.

I guess the ironic part here is that I had to install an antivirus program on a laptop running Linux, but now that Evolution gets along just fine with the company's Exchange 2003 server (even the calendar entries shows up - I am impressed at how good it actually is!), I am in general a much happier human being running Linux, and I have the best of both worlds (depending on your point of view) being able to run iTunes and Office 2003 on my Linux laptop!

ESX vs GSX

[aapold (753705)]

The free one is fine for messing around with, and probably better than the Microsoft version anyway on that platform (plus the other stuff it can do), but the ESX is where its at for more serious work...

Unlike the free version, you don't install it on a server that's already running something like windows server 2003 or ubuntu, you instead install it as the base OS on the box, and then run whatever virtual servers you want on top of that. Its one less layer to worry about, and the performance is superior.

I

Portability

[Spez (566714)]

I have tested Virtual PC, Virtual Server and VMWare Server and VMWare Workstation for our testing environment, and it seems MS is more flexible in a way: you can easily copy a Virtual Machine from one computer to an other even if they have different hardware. With VMWare workstation, i had strange problems.

I didn't have any of those problems using VMWare Server, but the web interface of MS VServer was really more usefull for our build machines, test environments and portability too.

BUT, MS doesn't support x64 Guest Environment... so even though we have mostly a MS environment (using VirtualServer), we had to use a couple of VMWare Server machines to use WinXP x64...

Oh yeah?

[duffer_01 (184844)]

Whoever came up with this has never tried to install DB2 in VMWare. Good luck with that.

Re:Oh yeah?

[div_2n (525075)]

Who needs luck when you have documentation? [ibm.com]

VI3 is wonderful. Just don't get the .0 revision

[csoto (220540)]

Honestly, we're quite happy with VI3, but we need 3.0.1, due in October [vmware.com]. There are a few honestly quite stupid bugs in 3.0 that need to be attended to. The most aggravating part is the license server (based on flexlm, which is usually not so bad). Licensing is the one thing where VMware is going backwards on (although the COST of licensing is quite good now).

IBM VM

[dayyan (1007043)]

IBM's Virtual Machine (VM) is decades ahead of VMWare. It was first available in 1966. It's reliability, scalability, features, and more; have been enhanced since its beginnings, it is trusted by the most data and reliability sensitive companies and corporations in the world. It isn't just a hypervisor like VMWare or Microsoft's Virtual Suite--it's a full fledged operating system.

It bothers me to watch those whom praise this or that without knowing more about it. Yes, VMWare is good, especially for the PC. However, don't lose sight of superior advancements we've already made in the name of hype and evangelism.

Re:

[nolife (233813)]

So how long do you wait? I've used VMWare ESX server in production for years and more recently the scaled down VMServer and MS virtual server. ESX is quantum leaps above the current MS offerings, they are not even playing on the same field. In fact, even the free VMServer product from VM is far better then the MS virtual server product IMHO.
I have no doubt MS will improve the product and add functionality as time goes on but they are currently WAY behind and not making great strides at this time.

You can

Re:

[Feyr (449684)]

vmware might very well be better, but ms allows you to run 4 virtual servers with 1 license of MS windows server 2003 R2. i doubt they allow it if you use vmware

feel free to correct me with a link if im wrong

Re:In all objectivity...

[TheLinuxSRC (683475)]

Although VMware appears to be better for now, will it have the same level of support and compatibility that Microsoft provides?

If you are referring to compatibility amongst MS products I suspect the answer would be yes, it will probably work great for running MS products on top of MS products. However, keeping in mind MS' contempt for their customers coupled with the fact that MS has a very very difficult time "playing fair" with any competitors, I would assume that anything other than a MS product that you try to run will fail. It will not fail miserably or refuse to install, it will just be "buggy" and MS will point the finger squarely at whatever "unsupported" OS it is that you are using. Now as far as compatibilty goes, could you elaborate what you mean there? MS is famous for not being compatible with anything (including older MS software itself). You will also want to keep in mind that VMWare has been doing this for a long time. This is Internet2 for MS -- they missed the boat big-time and are now trying to catch up.

Re:

[saridder (103936)]

I was at this forum, and MS said that it will operate other OS'. They're also going to include the Hypervisor free in all copies of Longhorn. This certainly is better than Novell's first crack at it - their Linux version could only run thier OS.

Re:

[Rob Riggs (6418)]

I'm no fan of Novell, but their "first crack at it" was a technology preview of Xen, which by its own admission only supported OSes that have been ported to the Xen hypervisor. It's not like the Xen folks could get the Windows XP source and release a version ported to Xen, now, could they? They were not claiming it would work with other OSes without VT.

Your comment about that seems like an attempt to deflect attention away from the GP's implied point, which was... the knowledge, borne out of years of exp

Re:VMWare is no good

[LaughingCoder (914424)]

Actually I was able to use the free VMWare player on XP and install Ubuntu 6.06 (http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/5 59 [vmware.com]), which is one of the Virtual Appliances available on the VMWare site. It was pretty cool.

Re:

[Anarke_Incarnate (733529)]

Ok, here is why. You can run multiple versions of the same operating system to test various deployments of software. You can run various versions of various operating systems and sandbox them, as well as taking "Snapshots in time" so if you want to test out some link some friend (moron) sent you, you can snapshot your install, click..become infected...and roll back without worry.

You can also buy a decent server and actually UTILIZE it. It is better if you buy 2 or 3. That way you can run whatever OS you

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Wow... I've had the exact oposite experience. I've been using Server, Workstation, and more recently infrastructure and haven't had any trouble virtualizing multiple distros of linux, win xp, and win 2003 server on several different hardware platforms. For me at least, it just works.

Re:VMWare is no good

[COMON$ (806135)]

Ive run VMWare on multiple platforms and have never had a single issue.. Ok one or two but they were my own fault. Support forums out there are nice and I havent ever had to explain to someone how to set it up beyond the initial "Go to this URL". If you have given up on understanding VMWare I would suggest staying away from other technologies such as OpenOffice, any version of Linux, and for that matter I would just box up your PC and ship it back. Make sure you dont use any sharp objects either....

Ya I know I went overboard :)

Re:

[burnt_cajun_toast (766392)]

I've used VMWare and found that you might need to change some of the install options for Redhat (or Suse for that matter) to get them to install in VMWare. A few were ACPI=off, IDE=nodma and sometimes it was just a video option and the installs worked just fine.

Re:

[lubricated (49106)]

haha, I think they are talking about servers here. So if some dumbass can't figure it out, they probably don't care.

Re:VMWare is no good

[dmihalko (966391)]

I have been a VMWare user for a few years now, as well as MS virtual PC, and tinkered with MS Virtual Server for some time... So far, the utilities i have found for VMWare have been very useful and havent found any for MS products, though i really havent looked. I found this product called MakeVM [freedownloadscenter.com] last week or so. It runs on a live windows box and clones straight to a VMware Virtual Hard drive, over network.

so far i have used this on 4 legacy machines, and moved them straight to my VMWare host running on linux with samba, and had them all cloned and running in 2 days with no downtime. could have been less since i waste alot of time readin these articles..

then i came across this utility diskmount [vmware.com] to map drives to virtual disks in the event that i need to do so, which has been rather handy...

I use the free version on windows in my office for testing, on my windows and linux servers, at home on Ubunutu, and never had a problem with it with any guest OS. In addition, the fact that i can boot a guest OS directly from my windows hard drive through my Ubuntu session gives it extra points since i never have to reboot my computer

VMWare is definitely the product i am sticking with...

Re:

[Em Ellel (523581)]

Also, I've noticed that VMWare is a 32-bit program, so how is its support for 64-bit virtual machines? I only have 2GB of RAM at the moment, but can I get a 64-bit Windows VM to recognize 6GB of RAM if I load up my host?

You have to remmember that VMWare is virtualization and NOT emulation - meaning that your CPU is doing the actual processing, not the VMWare software - so if your CPU supports 64 bit, it will be 64 bit capable. I am not sure about the memory question though....

-Em

Re:

[Wolfrider (856)]

Search the Vmware forums. Basically if your 64-bit processor supports hardware VT, you can run 64-bit guests.

http://www.vmware.com/community/index.jspa?categor yID=1 [vmware.com]

There is a RAM limit; I believe each Guest can access up to 3.6GB. However, having more RAM on the host means you can have more Guests (barring bottlenecks.)

See:
http://pubs.vmware.com/server1/wwhelp/wwhimpl/js/h tml/wwhelp.htm [vmware.com]

--Check the Index under R (Ram).

--Honestly, if a VM requires more than 3.6GB RAM you probably should be running its fun