Quad cores VMware server vs ESX

[jonhutchings]

Does anyone have any actual experience with VMware server vs ESX on quad core boxes.

we currently use ESX but are looking to be able to provide very cheap (less resiliant) VMs, for short term projects in addition to our current setup .

Given the cost of Quad core boxes the initial hardware costs don't look too bad, however to avoid the licence costs of ESX we are investigating VMware server.

Does anyone know how well it scales on mutliple core boxes, in comparision to ESX, and has anyone any evidience that points to windows or linux being a better host platform on mutliple core mulitsocket boxes

Thanks

[thanifan]

I don't know about the scaling, but I'm just addressing the cost question, since cost is an issue you may want to consicer running MS DataCenter Server and run VM's off of that. Microsoft has a nice little licensing gimick giving you unlimited free MS Server VM's running on the same hardware as DataCenter

[canadait]

This licensing gimick absotely applies to ESX or VMWare Server! No just MS products. It is not restricted to MS products in any way shape or form!

[thanifan]

good point, no reason not to run VMWare server on top of DataCenter

[canadait]

Hi,

To add to my previous comments. If you are looking for cheap VMs to test short term projects why not try ESX starter?

Yes you are limited to 4 Physical CPU and 8 GB of RAM but at $1000 per box is it pretty cheap.

Sorry others might not agree but if you are expecting good performance there is currently no reason to go with a hosted product like Server when ESX starter is so cheap. Go with Server if you are just starting out. I personally don't like running VMs on a product that comes out with so many patches like Windows.

[juchestyle]

I would think that if you were going to run server, do so on a linux platform instead of microfat.

Respectfully,

Matthew

[canadait]

Agreed!

[williambishop]

Agreed, vmware server is a good product, and you can't argue with free. But it's not ESX. And by a bloody long way, neither is the ms product. Before I actually maintained an esx farm, I tried the server approach.

Then I got to use esx, and yes you can get by pretty cheap with starter. Trust me, it's a night and day difference.

[jonhutchings]

THanks for the responses - I guess what I'm wondering is what kind of numbers of vm's I could expect on say a dual quad core box running linux + vmware server vs ESX on the same hardware.

I should perhaps explain that for our production VM's we have a decent ESX infrastructure with HA DRS etc. but the costs of Licenses and maintenance etc means that the cost we need to recover by selling the VM's is quite high (I work for Oxford University and our customers are only University departments and colleges we can't sell commercially )

We are looking to provide cheep VM's for people who don't need the ultimate resilliance but want the convience of a Virtual server rather than buying a physical one

Has anyone actually got first hand experience of running VMware server vs ESX. I'm leaning more and more towards the ESX starter edition as I suspect that the number of VM's we can support will be sufficiently more than VMware Server to outway the cost

[gogogo5]

Which edition of Windows will you use for VMware Server just out of interest?

[jonhutchings]

Erm none - I'll be running it on linux as I stated

[gogogo5]

I thought you were considering either Windows or Linux.

[jonhutchings]

Well I was but given that no one has given a compelling reason to choose one or the other, nor can I find any good arguments (i.e based on fact rather than personal preference) , so I will probably go wil my own personal preference unless my collegues have an opposing view

[Ken_Cline]

I will probably go wil my own personal preference

Right answer. Go with what you know and can best support.

[DeeJay]

We're running a quad core box in the lab with ESX Server and it seems to scale pretty linearly for our application (many VM's running Matlab).

However, I can't say I've tested it on VMServer. From the marketing stuff you're given, ESX is supposed to have significantly less overhead than VMWare Server and is therefore able to run more concurrent VM's.

The actual difference, and whether that warrants the extra cost of ESX is tough to call without actual testing with your expected workloads.

My gut says that you support ESX already and the license will not make a major impact into your overall project costings so I'd stick with ESX.

[ErMaC1 · Accepted solution]

If you're an educational institution you can get EDU pricing, which means starter edition would only be about $1000 with[/b] support (EDU discount is 40% off list).

If you're purchasing new hardware, there's no reason not to spring the extra $1000 for starter edition (unless you need more than 8GB of RAM). The performance benefit of ESX over VMware Server is substantial, especially for CPU-bound applications.

Two quad-core CPUs and a starter edition license would make a very nice ESX box. Just beware the RAM limitation.

[jonhutchings]

tahnk to those who replied, I've decided to run my own little comparison using Server on linux vs ESX on the same hardware and see how I get on - THe ESX starter pack llooks to be the way to go though

[crash6767]

how is your test going? how much performance loss occurs on Server compared to ESX? they seem to be the same on paper except for HA and SAN features in ESX, other than the alleged performance increase.

[jonhutchings]

Hope to post something soon, server looks good , but to be honest the education pricing for esx is so competitive at the moment I think we'll be going with that. So far server has performed well but I 've not really had a chance to stress it yet.

[RLSI]

I'll give you a few great reasons to use Linux as the host OS. (But I wouldn't play with those hypervisors like Xen right now for production use), and as a side note, when you get into providing your clients apps, Citrix XenSource/XenApp ties you to Microsoft licenses very heavily, so althought they made Xen (A Linux based Hypervisor) work well, they intentionally tie you to Microsoft licenses (you need to run the management software on a Windows machine). A total setup to lock you in, or otherwise get you to pay Microsoft for somehow using their "innovative" technology, lmao... (although Surface looks cool... can't wait to run Linux on it!!)

Linux manages the memory better. Linux manages the multiprocessing abilities of the CPU's (you may have 1 cpu with 4 cores or 4 cpus with 2 cores, etc). It manages low level hardware "stuff" better. The OS running on the bare metal is important. We know VMWare works. We know Linux works (85%+ of the worlds supercomputers run it by choice). We know HOW it works (it's open source, lmao...) - We know certain Linux systems have been running for years (5+) without being rebooted... Can you say that about Windows? Also, take security into consideration.

Best Regards,

Bryan A. Russell, President

Russell Linux Solutions, Inc.

www.linuxsolutions.com

bryan (AT_SYMBOL) linuxsolutions.com