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shall
Contributor
Contributor

VMWare Server on ESX 4.1

Perhaps a silly question.

I'm looking to put VMWare Server on an ESX server. The point here is that we've got several one off applications that I'm looking to get their own server in order to separate them out. The idea of putting them on VM Server inside an ESX is to avoid any base resource requirements that individual servers might use, since few of the applications will be intensive and will be well within constraints to share the resources of one VM server itself.

Will one virtual server of several low end VM guests make more efficient use of resources than those several low end guests sitting right on the ESX server itself? Is there a minimal amount of resources which must be allocated to a ESX guest?

If it makes more sense to attach them to a single Virtual server within the ESX environment, how does one go about it?

I can't help but wonder if that made any sense.

Thanks.

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FranckRookie
Leadership
Leadership

Hi Shall,

Really strange idea... VMware server stands on top of a running OS. If you put this OS on an ESX, it will consume resources. What a waste! Having the virtual machines with your applications running directly on ESX is much more efficient!

There is no minimal resource to be given an ESX guest. The less it will consume, the more you'll have for other VMs and you'll be able to have more applications on your ESX.

And above all, I'm not even sure you can run VMware server in a virtual machine. Go directly to ESX!

Hope it helps.

Regards

Franck

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LucasAlbers
Expert
Expert

You can only run 32bit nested hypervisors.

Check out this paper on nested hypervisor's and the performance impact.

I would never choose this approach.

Vmware Vsphere massively outscales vmware server, partially because of the hard resource scheduler, that guarantee's that each vm get's a guaranteed share of resource's.

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shall
Contributor
Contributor

OK.

Thanks for the replies.

It was a conceptual idea which required further input.

Ultimately it would be best for virtualized server applications, which as I understand it is coming, but that'll have to wait (unless I've missed that too)

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LucasAlbers
Expert
Expert

So is your question answered?

I didn't understand your final statement, are you referring to the java cloud company thingamabob that vmware just bought?

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