Nested Virtualization platform based on AMD FX Piledriver (AMD-V,RVI, IOMMU?)

[Modano]

Hello everyone,

I'm reaching this forum as I have some questions and doubts about my lab project.

As mentioned in the forum, I've seen several links on how to setup a home lab for nested virtualization, seen restrictions about x64 VM and so on.

My objective is, to virtualize ESXi 5.1, why not XenServer, and of course run lots of VM inside these hypervisors, test clustering etc..

The hypervisor would be VMware Workstation 9 on Linux.

My CPU choice would go on the AMD FX 8350 -Piledriver- processor.

It supports AMD-V and RVI.

That is when the questions begin.

- For my configuration, I need AMD-V, for sure.

- It seems that the RVI (nested table) will be mandatory to run 64 bits VM inside my WKS9, but also for the ESXi 5.1 to run, right ?

- The chipset (say 990X) will support IOMMU (intel VT-d eqv ?), but is this mandatory for the motherboard to implement IOMMU ? What would this help ? Do I need this to assign physical ethernet ports to my 1st and 2nd level VMs for instance ?

Thanks for your answers and ideas

[girishverma]

Hello Modano,

To give you an idea, I have a home lab setup to practice Virtualization as well.

AMD 8320 3.2ghz CPU with Gigabyte 990FX MB, 32GB RAM.

I have been able to run ESXi 5.1 with in VMware Workstation just fine. The only thing that has not worked is Fault Tolerance for 64bit machines, though it works fine for 32bit machines. Install 64bit guests within NESTED ESXi is also not an issue. For NIC's you can assign a couple of NIC's to a given ESXi Nested VM when setting it up with in VMware Workstation.

Hope this helps...

[Modano]

Hi girishverma,

this really helps 🙂

I already heard about the FT on 64 bits issue, which is a false issue as I would only test the feature itself.

So basically, on VMw WKS9 on such an architecture :

     - ESXi 5.1 fine

          - inside the ESXi 5.1 : 64 bits guests OK, and features OK (FT, vMotion, external DS mapping, iscsi etC...)

           - FT for 32 bits Guests

Are you using Win or Linux ?

Thanks

[girishverma]

Hello,

I am using a WIN machine... I have tested things such has HA, Clustering, F/T (32bit) 64bit VM's running fine. I also have an external laptop acting as iSCSI storage using openfiler as well as another VM running openfiler with external dedicated disk to test svmotion so all in all...Virtualization is awesome especially when you can virtualize ESXi.

Happy Virtualizing

Girish