VMware Servers in Plain English

Recently, there has been much talk about VMware and their VMware Server product in the news. But what exactly does a VMware server do, and how can it help you and your business' IT infratstructure?

Before we go any further, one thing that has to be made clear is that there is a difference between a VMware server and the product "VMware Server". For the purposes of this article however, we'll discuss the applications of a generic VMware server as opposed to the product of that name.

Simply put, a VMware server allows virtualization, the ability to run one operating system on top of another, both for end users and enterprise use. You may have heard of VMware Fusion for Macintosh, which gives OS X users the ability to run Windows simultaneously with OS X. This is the basic idea behind aVMware server, run one (or more) full operating systems on top of another. A VMware server gives enterprise the same ability, except instead of running Windows in addition to OS X, they allow multiple server operating systems to run virtually on one physical server. Instead of running Windows or Linux operating systems on a server, aVMware server provides an operating system that is designed solely to allow virtual machines to run on top of it.

So now the question is, "Why would I want to use a VMware Server?"

Many businesses these days require a multitude of servers, for tasks as varied as running web and mail servers to collaboration software. For years, the standard has been to use a server machine for only one application; one machine for the web server, another for the mail server, and so on. This simplifies maintenance and troubleshooting of the servers. Unfortunately, this method often means many servers that spend the majority of their time idle. And while those servers are sitting there idle, they are still using electricity and creating heat that must be countered by climate controls system. Not to mention the fact that you need the physical space for all these machines!

A VMware server allows you to consolidate many of those servers onto one machine. One powerful machine, it's true, but one powerful machine that can replace twenty or more physical servers (Your mileage will of course vary depending on configurations and server loads). Instead of twenty machines running at say, 10% load, you can have one machine running at 75% load.

Windows XP running in VMware Server on Linux.

The difference between using a VMware server and just installing multiple server apps on one machine is that not only are all those server apps running separately from the each other, but they are running on separate installs of operating systems! This means that you can use the same machine to run your Notes server in a Windows 2003 environment, while simultaneously running a Linux email server. Because those virtual servers are all running their own OSs within theVMware server , if one server needs a reboot for maintenance reasons, the other servers do not have to be stopped either. Not only that, but VMware's tools allow you to seamlessly switch a live instance of a server from one machine to another, without any outages. This also applies to hot-failover, where the system automatically switches to the backup server when the primary has failed.

Another use for a VMware server is in Remote Office Deployments. For example, instead of having to send IT staff to a remote office location, along with the physical server equipment, you can simply transfer a pre-configuredVMware server image over the internet. This lowers operational costs at remote locations, and simplifies system maintenance.

As an example, let's use the PostPath Server VMware Edition. This comes as a single file, available for download, at a modest 1.5 Gigabytes. This files is extracted to a folder on the physical server's storage, at which point the PostPath Server is "installed." When "turned on", the virtual server boots its own copy of CentOS Linux, with the PostPath Server pre-installed and awaiting configuration for your network environment. While Microsoft Exchange does not perform well in a virtualized environment, the PostPath Server virtualizes well, being very efficient in file I/O operations, as well as using the base filesystem for the message store instead of a full-fledged database. All these factors make a compelling argument for the PostPath Server VMware Edition.

One machine for multiple virtual servers, requiring less power, cooling, and IT staff. One machine that simplifies server maintenance. And that is a winning proposition.

Read more about the PostPath Server VMware Edition.
Read more about VMware's Products.