General questions about virtualizing our servers with vmware

[4Ransom]

Hi,

We are a small business and considering switching to a virtual server environment using vmware, but have a bunch of general questions. Hopefully somebody can help.

1) All these different versions are kind of confusing. ESX vs. ESXi vs. vShpere vs. infrastructure vs. vCenter, etc. Can somebody tell me the difference between all these? As far as I can tell, ESX and ESXi are the actual hosts/hypervisors, and the other products are just for managing these two. Is that right? From what I have gathered, ESXi is free, but limited by itself, and if you want more management capabilities than what the free version offers, you need to purchase a vShpere package. Is this also correct? I currently have ESXi 3.5 installed on a test box and use VMware Infrastructure Client to manage it. What features am I missing with this that I would get by purchasing “vsphere essentials”? I won’t need to do anything too advanced, I just want to be able to manage resources for the guests, take snapshots, easily back up, restore, and move guests to a different host, etc. At most I’m only going to have 2 hosts, with 2-4 guests on each one. Do I need vSphere?

2) 3.5 or 4.0? Am I correct that 3.5 is for 32 bit hardware and 4.0 is for 64 bit hardware? Is this the only difference, or are there others? If I have 64 bit hardware, is there any reason to still use 3.5? Also, if I have 64 bit hardware and run 4.0, can I only have 64 bit guests, or can I have a mix of both 32 and 64 bit guests on a 64 bit host?

3) I see now that when purchasing a new server, you can get ESXi embedded directly on the server. I have an HP Proliant server that is a few years old, and did not get this embedded. Is it possible to get it embedded after the fact with some kind of firmware upgrade, so I don’t need to actually install it on the hard drive?

4) I noticed that you can buy a subscription or per-incident support. Although paying per incident ahead of time is kind of defeating the purpose, isn’t it? If I don’t buy any support, then need immediate help down the line, will they help and if so how much will it cost me?

I have a lot more, but I think that’s a good start for now. Thanks in advance!

Message was edited by: 4Ransom - whoops, sorry for the mess, word added in a bunch of formatting. fixed now.

[mikemcsw]

To me, the first question would be, what kind of hp server do you have that you want to install and run up to 4 servers concurrently on? How much memory?

You will want vsphere 4 (yes, you can run 32 or 64 bit vms based on your hardware) and by purchasing it you will get all the features you will want an need.Also i wouldn't worry about getting it embedded. the install is quite seamless with the correct hardware, the trick being getting the right hardware.

[HughBorg707]

1) The difference between ESX and ESXi is that ESX uses a linux based service console where as ESXi does not. ESXi can also run from a USB key or SD Flash device. ESX needs to be installed on a hard drive. ESX has greater flexibility in driver support, ESXi is much leaner and smaller surface target to attack. ESXi is the direction VMware is going.

For any new deployment I wouldn't get ESX 3.5 involved. It uses a cumbersome licensing server system instead of straight serial numbers, and if you're just adopting it now and have the hardware to support it, I don't believe there is anything to gain by going backwards. (my opinion) Plus ESX 4 supports many newer features out of the box than 3.5.

ESXi is free for a local server but if you want to be able to manage it and get any real use out of it you would need to license vCenter.

I believe you can upgrade your licensing on the fly later with VMware. You can start lower down the vSphere stack and get the functionality you need. To do what you describe you will at least need vMotion support to move the VMs from host to host. Have a look here: http://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdf

2) ESX/ESXi 3.5 can run on both 32 and 64 bit processors. ESX4/ESXi4 can only run on 64 bit processors. That said, CPU design will determine if you can run only 32 bit OS's or both 32 and 64bit. A dell 1850 server for instance is EM64T enabled so you can run ESX/ESXi 4.0 on it, BUT, you can only run 32bit OS's because it lacks Intel VT support. Newer servers won't have that problem.

3) the only way to embed it after the fact that I am aware of is USB key. I don't know if HP sells an SD add-on that would work, but it would need BIOS support as well. You may have an internal USB port just for this.

4) for support I don't have an answer for you. That would be best left up to the support pages on http://www.vmware.com/support/licensing/vsphere_faqs.html or here http://calfo.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/vmware-vsphere-licensing-deciphered/

There is MUCH more information out there but hopefully this will point you the right way.

Regards

Hugh

http://www.1zero1.net

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[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

We are a small business and considering switching to a virtual server environment using vmware, but have a bunch of general questions. Hopefully somebody can help.

1) All these different versions are kind of confusing. ESX vs. ESXi vs. vShpere vs. infrastructure vs. vCenter, etc. Can somebody tell me the difference between all these? As far as I can tell, ESX and ESXi are the actual hosts/hypervisors, and the other products are just for managing these two. Is that right? From what I have gathered, ESXi is free, but limited by itself, and if you want more management capabilities than what the free version offers, you need to purchase a vShpere package. Is this also correct? I currently have ESXi 3.5 installed on a test box and use VMware Infrastructure Client to manage it. What features am I missing with this that I would get by purchasing “vsphere essentials”? I won’t need to do anything too advanced, I just want to be able to manage resources for the guests, take snapshots, easily back up, restore, and move guests to a different host, etc. At most I’m only going to have 2 hosts, with 2-4 guests on each one. Do I need vSphere?

Let me see if I can help shed a little light vSphere is a marketing term and at it's inception consisted of 3 main componentes, ESX(i)4, vCenter and the vSphere4 client. I'll provide also couple things that may be useful

2) 3.5 or 4.0? Am I correct that 3.5 is for 32 bit hardware and 4.0 is for 64 bit hardware? Is this the only difference, or are there others? If I have 64 bit hardware, is there any reason to still use 3.5? Also, if I have 64 bit hardware and run 4.0, can I only have 64 bit guests, or can I have a mix of both 32 and 64 bit guests on a 64 bit host?

I would go vSphere4. 3.5 has a 32bit kernel and 4.x has a 64bit kernel. Running 64 bit guests is possible if you have VT-x/AMD-v

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9150

3) I see now that when purchasing a new server, you can get ESXi embedded directly on the server. I have an HP Proliant server that is a few years old, and did not get this embedded. Is it possible to get it embedded after the fact with some kind of firmware upgrade, so I don’t need to actually install it on the hard drive?

You need to ensure the hardware is on the VMware HCL

4) I noticed that you can buy a subscription or per-incident support. Although paying per incident ahead of time is kind of defeating the purpose, isn’t it? If I don’t buy any support, then need immediate help down the line, will they help and if so how much will it cost me?

You may have to talk to a VMware Sales rep about this one. I'm not too sure.

[4Ransom]

Thanks for all the answers so far guys.

Running 64 bit guests is possible if you have VT-x/AMD-v

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9150

Can you explain what this means? I assumed these days running 64 bit guests would be the norm, but seems otherwise...

You need to ensure the hardware is on the VMware HCL

</div>

I looked on this list, and my server (HP Proliant DL360 G5 with Xeon 50xx processor) shows that "ESXi 4.0 Embedded U1" and "ESXi 4.0 Embedded" are both supported releases. Does this mean I can somehow embed it with some kind of bios or firmware upgrade? And what does the U1 mean?

More questions:

As for features I need, I suppose I don't really need to be able to move guests from host to host, I just want to make sure that if hardware dies on a host, I can easily bring up the guests on a different host. Will vSphere 4 Essentials do all this for me?

I am still a little unclear about all the different management options. What is vCenter Server and agent? Does this mean I need a separate server to manage my ESXi hosts, or is it just some client software I can install on my desktop?

Thanks again!

[Troy_Clavell]

VT-x will allow you to run 64bit guests when enabled in the Host BIOS

As for features I need, I suppose I don't really need to be able to move guests from host to host, I just want to make sure that if hardware dies on a host, I can easily bring up the guests on a different host. Will vSphere 4 Essentials do all this for me?

You will need Essentials Plus, which will give you HA

I am still a little unclear about all the different management options. What is vCenter Server and agent? Does this mean I need a separate server to manage my ESXi hosts, or is it just some client software I can install on my desktop?

vCenter is your managment server and can be installed as a VM, which is hosted on your ESX(i) Host. The vSphere Client is what you use to connect to your ESX(i) Host and vCenter

This may be helpful

also, the whole documentation set can be found at

[4Ransom]

Thanks, that helps a lot. But I am still having trouble grasping the fact that I need to pay thousands of dollars just be able to do what virtual machines should be able to do by default. Arent VM's just a collection of files. So shouldnt I be able to make copies of those files, store them somewhere, then bring them up on any host I want, without paying for this really expensive package?

Also, any word on getting ESXi embedded on my current server since it supports it?

[HughBorg707]

There are many levels and incarnations of Virtualization.

You can use VMware vSphere, VMware Server 2, Xen, MS Hyper-V, Virtual Box, Parallels etc.

If ESX pricing becomes a barrier to implementation, check out the other ways of virtualizing to see what might be a better fit.

I have a customer that runs ESX, Xen and Hyper-V all in the same environment. They use the different methods for different tasks and it works for them.

I've worked with all of them though and always feel the most comfortable with VMware ESX.

Regards

Hugh

http://www.1zero1.net

[jhardman]

Thanks, that helps a lot. But I am still having trouble grasping the fact that I need to pay thousands of dollars just be able to do what virtual machines should be able to do by default. Arent VM's just a collection of files. So shouldnt I be able to make copies of those files, store them somewhere, then bring them up on any host I want, without paying for this really expensive package?

Also, any word on getting ESXi embedded on my current server since it supports it?

If you are just looking for hardware redundancy then no you don't need the extra licensing.

You will want to setup a separate storage system to hold all those VMs. There are lots and lots of options to choose from, but basically any SAN/NAS that will support either iSCSI or NFS can be used. You use the SAN/NAS as a datastore for your EXS(i) servers and if the one server dies, you can add the VMs to other's inventory and restart them in a state as if they had suffered a power failure. While this may not be the optimal configuration it is workable.

As for embedded, check with your server vendor for options.

[4Ransom]

If you are just looking for hardware redundancy then no you don't need the extra licensing.

You will want to setup a separate storage system to hold all those VMs. There are lots and lots of options to choose from, but basically any SAN/NAS that will support either iSCSI or NFS can be used. You use the SAN/NAS as a datastore for your EXS(i) servers and if the one server dies, you can add the VMs to other's inventory and restart them in a state as if they had suffered a power failure. While this may not be the optimal configuration it is workable.

</div>Thanks, this helps a lot! We do have an iSCSI SAN, so this type of configuration sounds like it can work for us. I don't really need high availability and all those other enterprise features, I just want to make sure if it dies I can get it back up on another machine in an hour or so.

Just as a hypothetical question, what if I want to use local storage though instead of the SAN, as my datastore. Can I just copy the VM files to the SAN every so often as a backup, then if the hardware dies, I can just use those backup files to re-add them to any host's inventory? What are the pros and cons of these 2 methods?

[jhardman]

<div class="jive-quote">

If you are just looking for hardware redundancy then no you don't need the extra licensing.

You will want to setup a separate storage system to hold all those VMs. There are lots and lots of options to choose from, but basically any SAN/NAS that will support either iSCSI or NFS can be used. You use the SAN/NAS as a datastore for your EXS(i) servers and if the one server dies, you can add the VMs to other's inventory and restart them in a state as if they had suffered a power failure. While this may not be the optimal configuration it is workable.

</div>Thanks, this helps a lot! We do have an iSCSI SAN, so this type of configuration sounds like it can work for us. I don't really need high availability and all those other enterprise features, I just want to make sure if it dies I can get it back up on another machine in an hour or so.

Just as a hypothetical question, what if I want to use local storage though instead of the SAN, as my datastore. Can I just copy the VM files to the SAN every so often as a backup, then if the hardware dies, I can just use those backup files to re-add them to any host's inventory? What are the pros and cons of these 2 methods?

You are just asking for trouble using local storage with production VMs.

[wobbe98]

@JHARDMAN. Tell me, why would using the local storage be asking for trouble?

Assuming you buy decent (redundant) hardware I don't see any problem using local storage.

In my book, less hardware means less chance of a hardware failure.

And yes can make backups (snapshots) to another server, even with the free version of esxi, any linux distro with nfs support will do.