Virtualization - General Help

[Gekko_uk]

Hi,

I have been playing around with VMWARE Server (free one) and I get the idea of it all.

My question is:

What is the difference between VMware Server - which is free and VMWare workstation?

I have 3 "service" boxes at the moment.

One is XP Based and moves data around between different network drives (via scripts), one is a Linux Test box and one is a windows 98 box for old software.

I was thinking of buying one powerful machine and using VMWARE to "emulate" these three boxes instead.

But I dont know if this is the best route to go down.

What are peoples thoughts?

Would welcome general discussion about experiences with Virtualization in general.

Many Thanks

Gekko

[fdv]

I don't have that much to add other than I run hacked up OS's in VMware workstation and on a dual core Pentium, I can run several OS's at the same time with no system slowdown. I use 2Gb RAM. I can't run simultaneous VM's on my Pentium 4 without the system slowing to a near-stop. So, if you have running several machines at the same time in mind, I'd say, go for it, given you're running at least a Core 2 Duo.

[nmX.Memnoch]

given you're running at least a Core 2 Duo.

And enough RAM to support the guest OSes. For the OSes you mentioned, 2-3GB should be plenty (512MB-1GB for the XP VM, 512MB-1GB for the Linux VM and 64-128MB for the Win9x VM).

[Gekko_uk]

Many Thanks.

Going to give it a go at the weekend!!!