Microsoft is stepping up the pressure on virtualization leader VMware on the management tools front, releasing its System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007 product to manufacturing. The software maker also plans to support some third-party virtualization software, including VMware and open-source Xen, in the next version of the product.
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Member since:2005-07-06
No it doesn't. It might partition the disk that way, but it doesn't come close to filling it up.
df -h from an 3.0.1 esx service console:
/dev/sda2 4.0G 1.3G 2.5G 35% /
/dev/sda1 99M 32M 63M 34% /boot
/dev/sda3 2.0G 241M 1.7G 13% /var
Member since:2005-07-06
As it stands, a default installation of ESX 3.0.1, VMware's shipping product, consumes about 8 GB of space on a system, across several file systems.
No it doesn't at all. I think it partitions it that way, but it consumes nowhere near that amount of disk space. I'm not entirely sure where they get this from.
Now compare this to upcoming windows server 2008 with built in hypervisor - the server core with no GUI tools would take approximately 2 GB space.
So you're comparing a bare metal system with just a kernel, a hypervisor and some tools running to a whole OS with the associated overhead running a hypervisor? Right...........
Oh, and by the way, Windows Server 2008 does have a GUI, because Windows and any installable software has an inherent dependency on it. All they've done is cut down the GUI so that it runs a couple of CMD windows.
Member since:2005-07-06
Oh, and by the way, Windows Server 2008 does have a GUI, because Windows and any installable software has an inherent dependency on it. All they've done is cut down the GUI so that it runs a couple of CMD windows.
Not true. Most Windows has no dependency on GUIs, except for... GUI tools. Windows is mostly componentized, meaning GUIs are just connectors to components which actually manage system. That's how you can achieve the same results by GUI or scripting. So saying that Windows depends on GUI is wrong. If you say that Windows preferred way to behave is thru GUIs, that could be correct (even if many actions cannot be performed by GUI tools while they are available to developers via system objects).
While 3rd-party software usually needs a GUI for normal operations, most server software are componentized as well and that's how they can be integrated inside control panels, for example. So they wouldn't technically require a GUI though no Windows software usually comes without one (would be insane).
If you think Windows Server 2008 Core is meant to emulate Unix behaviour you didn't understand what 2008 Core is. Core is not meant to replace standard Windows Server installations but it's meant to be used in highly-automated contexts where you *never* manage server yourself but where servers are usually managed by scripts and automation software. In such contexts GUI is pretty unuseful because admins never use that (as opposed to standard Windows installations where admins *use* GUIs to perform everyday tasks). In such contexts then, having a GUI or not is irrelevant because you never use that so they just took advantage of their system componentization and stripped (or reduced) the GUI. Core 2008 is also meant to take on a different market where Windows is not present: electronic appliances (eg. routers, modems and so on). Windows is simply not present in those markets and Core 2008 would make Windows a viable choice (how good it will be, it's a matter of time for us to see).
What Core 2008 is not meant for is replacing standard Windows server in markets like hosting and so on, though in highly-specialized cases (like big server farms) it could be a choice too.
Member since:
2005-07-10
ESX and Lean are not the two words I would use together.
Source: http://www.vmweekly.com/news/20070618/2/
Cutting ESX down to fit into firmware is not an insignificant task, a source said. As it stands, a default installation of ESX 3.0.1, VMware's shipping product, consumes about 8 GB of space on a system, across several file systems. But VMware's plans call for ESX Lite to consume orders of magnitude less space – as little as a of couple of megabytes, one source said.
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Now compare this to upcoming windows server 2008 with built in hypervisor - the server core with no GUI tools would take approximately 2 GB space.