RECOMMENDATIONS What VM is everyone using as a HOST on bare metal?

[wa4zlw]

I had/have proxmox running on an IBM X3455 box with 20gb ram and dual four core processors. I tried to load up the free VMWare hypervisor but it said my AMD processors weren't enabled in the bIOS and the BIOS has no such settings. My issue with proxmox is it's not very friendly and also getting to load windoze on it I've not been successful.

Who's doing what lately?

Thanks leon

 

[atsak]

The X3455 did not have hardware assisted virtualization available IIRC. You'll need the next gen servers - the 3550 (and later m2, m3, m4) had this required feature for virtualization.

 

[GomezAddams]

If you really want bare metal, I think an older version of ESXi is your best bet. I don't remember at what point they started requiring hardware virtualization assist.

It isn't bare metal, but I love VirtualBox. There are various tutorials on how to get VirtualBox virtuals running as services for both windows (somewhat painful) and linux (I've not tried).

I'm using the ancient VMWare server product on Server 2003 for my "production" VMs.

 

[reconwireless]

You should take a look at Solus , it's a commercial product, but very affordable, and provides hooks for various other add-ons, and is a solid performer when utilized with KVM images and VoIP in general.

 

[wa4zlw]

thanks guys....This is my home lab environment which will be my home pbx once I migrate things. interestingly VMWare says the x3455 is supported on the latest. I'd like to be able to guest windoze as well so I can retire yet another old PC. THe box is a beast memory and processor wise so I might as well use it instead of my old P4 2ghz x series single proc boxes. Why isn't anyone using proxmox? I remember ward had that writeup so long ago and then went back to virtualbox. I know from my point of view prox is not the most user friendly and I once tried to get W2K3 installed follwoing some of the wiki things and got nowhere fast I'll check out SOlus. Gomez what version of ESX are you running I can try and see if it is still downloadable.

again many thanks leon

 

[GomezAddams]

I'm not running ESX, I'm running VMWare server, an ancient VMWare product that runs under Windows (I think there was a linux version too).

I'm not even sure it is still on VMWare's web site for download anymore.

 

[edisoninfo]

I have it running under ESXi 5.5 on a 3 server cluster with SIP trunks (12 call sessions) from the local cable company and 60 phones. Been flawless so far. I have the pbx on vlan 100 to separate it from the rest of the data traffic. Out of curiosity I vMotioned (moved) the pbx from one server to another while several calls where going. It didn't drop a call and the users never noticed a hiccup. This is at a medical clinic with 8 other Windows Servers running on the cluster also.

 

[MrBostn]

Hyper-V on Server 2012. Supports 60 endpoints, a PRI interfacing with a Sangoma Vega 100G.

 

[howardsl2]

I heard that Virtualizor works good. They have just published a new version.
http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/31427/virtualizor-2-4-8-with-ipv6-only-vps-support#latest

Demo: http://demo.virtualizor.com:4084/

 

[GomezAddams]

It rained all day Sunday, and I was bored, so I tried something for fun. I installed ESXi 4.1U3 on an old Pentium D system with an 80GB SATA drive and 4GB of RAM. It worked! I created a virtual XP workstation, and a virtual Server 2003 server on it, and they ran just about as well as they would have on natively on that machine.

Even though the Pentium D is a 64 bit chip, without the VT extensions, ESXi can't do 64 bit virtuals.

Next rainy day, I'll try ESXi 5.0 (but I'm about 90% sure 5.0 requires VT to even install).

 

[wa4zlw]

Hi guys...back again....there is something on the IBM support site about ESXi haven't looked yet but when I install virtualbox under W7-64 on this box all I can get is to install 32 bit VMs of which there are only 64bit new PIAF builds.

on this same box if I try and use a SATA SSD 120g I can init partition format on another box and then bring it over it seems to stay alive for one boot and then it hoses itself. Wonder if there is an incompatibility with the x3455 and SSDs as well?

I don't mind if I have to run a 32bit pbx but I'm just tired of reinstalling and installing when I can be doing more productive things.

ANy other pointers comments gladly accepted. I just don't want to keep reinstalling things waste of my time

thanks leon

 

[TwigsUSAN]

Is the processor 64 bit? If it is, do you have a 64 bit OS installed?

 

[wa4zlw]

yes dual AMD opterons...googleis you friend found this link

http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/150048-no-hvm-support-after-bios-upgrade/

talks about doing a flash bios default first and then power down. That worked. I see 64 bit in vbox now. SO I decided to try my free copy of ESXi and it crashsed with a #GP exception 13 back to ibm site to research

leon

 

[wa4zlw]

Got ESXi running didn't like my SSD as second drive (had this issue with other stuff). But SSD is running as second drive as a filesystem and I boot a VM off it. WIll play with it for awhile and then try Vbox. One thing with Vbox I did not see how to setup Vlans on the interfaces.

Leon