[ale] Private Tomcat 6.0 Server and VMware Server 2.0

[Dustin Puryear]

I agree with Brian. Unless you have no choice, don't use VMware Server.
It really is old technology and I've seen weird things happen under high
loads. There are perfectly good (and easy to use) alternatives such as
ESXi 3.5 and Xen.

Have I mentioned ESXi 3.5 already? :)

I really like it.

---
Puryear IT, LLC - Baton Rouge, LA - http://www.puryear-it.com/
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-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Brian Pitts
Sent: Friday, February 19, 2010 10:09 AM
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
Subject: Re: [ale] Private Tomcat 6.0 Server and VMware Server 2.0

On 02/19/2010 09:41 AM, gene.poole at macys.com wrote:
> So I decided to install VMware Server 2.0.2 so
> I could utilize all of those free cycles.

Don't, it blows. Maybe their other products like ESX are fine, but I've
had problem after problem with the performance, stability, and
functionality of VMware Server 2 on 64-bit RHEL4 and 5.

* The web interface frequently refuses to load and has to be restarted
(this has improved dramatically in the latest point release).
* VMs crash under heavy i/o load (I think what fixed this for me was
going from RHEL5 to RHEL4).
* Their permissions system frequently gets confused about the next
internal id to assign and you have to fix it by fiddling with an xml
file.
* Network performance is abysmal behind their NAT interface
* The VIX scripting API is a mess and doesn't let you do much. The few
things it can do sometimes fail to work for no apparent reason.
* Even though it uses sparse disks, you can't overcommit space. If you
have a 100 GB hard drive and give a VM an 80GB disk, VMware Server will
only allow you to use 20GB of more space for VMs, even if the VM you
gave 80GB only uses 1GB of it.

Others have recommended checking out KVM. If your CPU has built--in
virtualization support, I'd agree.

http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/5.4/html/Virtu
alization_Guide/index.html

-- 
All the best,
Brian Pitts
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