[NTLUG:Discuss] NTLUG workshops

[Chris Cox]

On 03/26/2011 02:13 PM, Burton Strauss III wrote:
> I may have slightly misspoke, the VMWare HCL now lists over 400 compatible
> network cards... way up from when I was playing with it.
> 
> http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php?action=search&devic
> eCategory=io&productId=1&advancedORbasic=advanced&maxDisplayRows=50&key=&rel
> ease%5B%5D=148&datePosted=-1&partnerId%5B%5D=-1&ioTypeId%5B%5D=6&manufacture
> r%5B%5D=-1&vid=&did=&svid=&ssid=&rorre=0
> 
> This includes a couple of the common Broadcom chips.  You can use a Linux
> live CD and check what driver is being loaded... See if something ON the
> list uses the same driver, that's _probably_ going to work.  Among the
> common drivers included are: be2net, bnx2x, e1000/e1000e, igb, tg3. Note
> that this doesn't include the Marvell chips, so the NetGear, D-Link and
> Linksys GigE NICs won't work.
> 
> I used the Intel Gigabit CT Desktop Adapter which is dirt cheap (under $30)
> from NewEgg.
> 
> You are also going to want to use decent hard drives, not that 3 year old
> clunker lying around.  Why?  Because they run 24x7x365, which isn't within
> spec for consumer-grade drives back then.  I have had a drive fail, luckily
> it was the smaller of the two, the one I used to hold my collection of ISO
> disks for building virtual machines.
> 
> RAID needs to be real, hardware RAID, not FakeRAID.  Or just ordinary disk.
> Again, check the HCL.
> 
> 
> 
> I've built two - one is a Intel Engineering Sample with dual 3.2GHz procs I
> bought for $20 at 1st Saturday. The other is an ordinary quad-core. Both
> have been really stable (except for the disk drive failure, which I can't
> blame on VMware).

Oddly enough, older hardware is more likely to work with ESXi.

> 
> 
> FYI- Xen and Kvm (and VirtualBox) run under a Linux OS.  Not bare-metal like
> VMWare, HyperX or XenServer.  If you can't/don't want to dedicate a box to
> being the headless home of VMs, ESXi is NOT for you. It's going to sit there
> day-after-day with an old 15" monitor, mocking you by doing "nothing
> useful".

>From experience, I'm standing behind my restricted platform support statement
with regards to VMware.  They really don't want you to run it on "desktop" style
hardware.  Shoot, I've got dual X5550's at home, and VMware ESXi won't work
because they are ES style CPUs.. IMHO, that's pretty picky (ESX 4.0 worked just
fine, but anything from Update 1 or greater doesn't work).

The Xen Dom0 kernel hypervisor is pretty much bare metal.  You can interact with
the Dom0 instance (which is often a Linux), but the Dom0 can be anything from
Linux, to BSD, to Solaris.  You use Dom0 much like a VMware ESX (not ESXi)
console Linux (the controlling VM that comes with VMware ESX).  You use it to
talk to the Xen kernel hypervisor.

VMware ESXi is still king.  However, there is more "fluff" surrounding VMware...
so be careful.  They KNOW how to sell you stuff you do not need.
And remember, if the current version of ESXi works on non-HCL equipment, even
the next update can break support...