[olug] vmware server on AMD opteron

[Phil Brutsche]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> We are currently looking at VMWare ESX where I work. From what I've seen,
> read, and experienced, it is a pretty solid product that is pretty cool.
> That said, we're not yet running it in house. If anybody has any feedback
> or experience with ESX, I'd be interested. Specifically, when it comes to
> stuff like vMotion, performance, etc.

The people I've seen run it like it, and consider it far superior to MS'
Virtual Server offering.

> I am currently also running a VMWare Server beta on a Linux test system. The
> system is a Xeon 2x3.40GHz with 4GB of RAM. Currently, I have it running
> two Windows Server 2003s, three Red Hat Enterprise Linuxes, and a Windows
> XP. It is pretty solid. My only complaint is that I/O can be a bit slow,
> though that could be my hardware.

IME I/O performance has ALWAYS been weak on VMware.  One rule of thumb
other admins use is that disk-intensive applications - like SQL Server
or a busy mail server - should *not* be virtualized.  It's too early to
tell if Intel's VT and AMD's Pacifica technologies change that.

-- 

Phil Brutsche
phil at brutsche.us