creating testing environment - a completely virtual vSphere environment

[umarzuki]

Hi,

How do I achieve a completely virtual vSphere environment for testing purposes? This means that running at least 2 ESX guest VMs, 1 vCenter VM & 1 iSCSI appliance. This is achievable if I have a computer with a CPU that supports (and enabled) the virtualization extension.

Is there any other way?

[firestartah]

Hi

there are a couple of wayspeople build their lab/test environments but a beefy machine with at least 4GB of ram a x64 capbale cpu(if you are planning to use 4.1) and plenty of storage space should cover the number of vm's you are planning on creating.Yes you need a machine that supports the virtualisation extension.

Simon Gallagher's vTardis is a brilliant exaple ofhow much you cna fit into a small setup http://vinf.net/2010/02/25/8-node-esxi-cluster-running-60-virtual-machines-all-running-from-a-single...

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Gregg Robertson, VCP3,4 , MCSE, MCSA, MCTS, MCITP

[umarzuki]

..and I thought I could get away without virtalization extension & only a EMT 64 CPU

I tried installing ESX 4.0 on qemu using virt-manager with x86_64 CPU emulation but it got kernel panic, no dice.

[firestartah]

Yeah, sadly if you want to be able to test it fully you'll need to get yourself a good machine or two. There's a number of guys that have links detailing their home labs

Jason Boche has a demon home setup http://boche.net/blog/index.php/lab/

If you found this or other information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful".

Gregg Robertson, VCP3,4 , MCSE, MCSA, MCTS, MCITP