[ale] almost OT: Hardware for virtualization

[Chuck Payne]

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Jim Lynch
<ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com> wrote:
> On 08/17/2011 12:09 PM, Boris Borisov wrote:
>
> I never done any installation of virtual servers and I want to start
> experimenting with the technology. Whats is the minimum CPU+MB that I can
> buy in Microcenter ( I work nearby ) for my needs. Bear in mind is going to
> be only for tests learning purpose not for production :)
>
> Thank you for all suggestions !
>
>
> If you don't want to run MS products and only Linux try OpenVZ.  It's the
> easiest to get running and has scads of various OS templates and does not
> require any special hardware.  In my experience VirtualBox from Sun and now
> Oracle is the easiest to get running if you need Winders and have the x86
> hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). KVM is
> the native Linux solution but is much less mature and may be a bit more
> challenging to get running.  I suspect all the MBs available today support
> CPUs with the virtualization extensions but you need to match the board with
> the right CPU.  There are way too many chips out there to possibly list them
> here but select one you like and check the specs for the VT or AMD-V
> specification.  Most of the middle of the road to higher end CPUs with
> multiple cores have the virtualization extensions.  For instance the intel
> Atom and Celeron products probably won't have extensions.
>
> And LXC is another light weight solution that doesn't require any special
> hardware, like OpenVZ but I was unable to get it working right myself.  It's
> also under active development meaning it's less mature.
>
> Jim,
>
>
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>

Well the more memory and the more cores the better. You have serveral
opitions you can select from that are free...

Xen
KVM
VirtualBox
VMWare ESXi
OpenVZ

I haven't played with OpenVZ or Xen. But I have used KVM, VirtualPC
(Mac), Parallel, VMWare (ESX, ESXi, Fusion, Server, Workstation, and
Player).

If you are going to start, I would recommend KVM. For one, it already
build into a 2.6.29 Kernel and above and all you need is to install
Qemu and Virtual Manager which can be found in all major distro. You
can access your server from any desktop that has Virtual Manager
installed. You will need to set up your network devices as bridge
network devices. openSUSE does that for you by default. It so easy to
learn. Again no need to install software for the virtualzation, just
managing your guest.  Another distro that does KVM nicely is Fedora.
Other nice think about KVM it works with mose disk formats. I have a
AMD CPU (6 cores) with 12 Gigs. I use logical volumes and I run my
virts for them, man do I get great speeds. I am currently running 6
guest on this host.

http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/Main_Page

If you want to play with KVM but like to have a baremetal set up, take
a look  Proxmox. It's base on debain.

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page

If you are wanting learn virtulation for work. Then I would look at
VMWare ESXi, it the free version of ESX, more Enterprise Companies use
for virtulation.

VirtualBox is great that you can run it on Linux, Windows, and Macs.
It the poor mans VMWare Workstation.

The one key to remember before you start on any path, this will save
you hours of headaches. When you are ready to try virtulation, go into
your bios and turn on Virtualization.


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