Quote:
Originally Posted by stenlyto
I would like to start learning a bit about virtualization.
Probably I'am going to try VMware or XEN, but my concern is about the server that Im gona use for testing .
HP ProLiant DL380 G5 2U RACK 2x XEON DUAL-CORE 5130 2x 2.00 GHz / 8 GB DDR2 ECC/144 GB SAS/2xOPTICAL
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My goal is to create 3-4 virtual machines to I can install windows XP on all of them. My client have 3 old desktops running accounting software on XP. The Desktops are Pentium 4 3Ghz, 1Gb Ram, 120 HDD and the software installed on them is running fine for his needs. So I want to create those tree in one physical machine using virtualization.
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You need moderately powerful CPUs that support virtualisation and enough memory and disk space. Intel maintains a database of its CPUs; I don't have the URL right now but you may be successful
starting here. The Xeon E5 family is mentioned.
Since each of your desktops has a 120MB hard disk, a 1TB disk seems ample.
Same for main memory; each client has 1GB, and the server 8GB. Plenty.
Finally, your CPUs should be up to the task as well, compared to the original Pentiums in the XP boxes.
All this assuming your server does little else than run those XP machines.
If all you want to do is learning about virtualisation, a cheaper and less noisy solution would be a PC with a moderately recent CPU and a similar amount of memory and disk space. I have been toying around with KVM and VirtualBox on a PC with 8-core AMD CPU, 8GB memory and 500MB disk space. Running a handful of Linux VMs in parallel doesn't even make it sweat. Some VMs are used to simulate an Openstack installation, where I run virtual machines in a virtual machine.
Of course this solution would be far from the stability and manageability of a server.
