Submitted by “I have tested, and continue to run in a production setting, two instances of Windows 2003 Server hosted by Parallels Desktop, running on OS X Server 10.4.8 on a 3 GHz Xserve. To skip to the punch line, it works, and it’s as fast as all get-out. Parallels does not stretch the truth when it claims near-native performance; Xserve is capable of knocking off any two-socket Netburst (Pentium 4) Xeon server going back at least two years. Compared to Xserve, those Intel boxes eat more electricity and give off more heat than they give back in capacity for work.”
Good to know this route works though I’m not sure how much more this article adds.
Doubtless the product in question is good and at some point when I put enough RAM into the iMac20; Parrallels will be installed.
However it isn’t the only game in town and I want to see some numbers in an article like this.
Frankly anything that feels slow on a machine with a couple of gigs RAM and a pair of fast Duo Core 2 processors …. has problems (or is attempting something pretty damn extreme).
…is not to use Windows servers at all, where possible.
Will save lots of power
With enough RAM, Parallels is pretty cool and fast, though I’m not sure if I would personally use it on a server, but for desktops it’s great, especially the coherence mode in the latest betas.
The real article should have been named, How to kill a physical server.
It’s like me at home with my Linux server. My printer will not function at all on Linux, so I am stuck with a VMware VM just for the sake of sharing my printer on my desktop; all the system does is act as a file server otherwise, and had it not been for the desire to set up a Software RAID 5 configuration, I may as well just have gone back to Windows.
In your case, you could have just as easily run one native speed server, and one VM using a Windows VM program. It’s good that it works out, but the only way you will get the Windows monkey off your back is to make that (or more than one) Mac OS X server do the job those VM’s are doing.
“It’s like me at home with my Linux server. My printer will not function at all on Linux, so I am stuck with a VMware VM just for the sake of sharing my printer on my desktop; […]. “
Had a similar situation in the office when I started my work. Easiest and fastest solution: Instead of fiddling around with the lame proprietary GDI printer I got a new printer that was capable of standard protocols / languages (PCL, PS etc.) and therefore was supported in its whole funcionality, so the problem was solved within a day.
Assuming one get an Xserve box and do just this. How easy is it to upgrade, can you have competing vendors quoting for hardware upgrades? Whatabout on the support side? Obviously there are a lot of big players supporting the platform in question?
Oh, it’s only Apple with their “cost-efficient” services.
Gee I wonder if the overall TCO really is competitive at all going with this solution.
Those are excellent questions (though dated, Apple has changed these things years ago). The hardware is not apple specific anymore, so as long as there is a (Unix) driver for a device you want, you can add it. RAM,CPU,PCI-X/PCI Express sockets/slots are all standard, so yes you can get the upgrades from whatever vendors you want.
From an Apple Support side, they are really good. I can only speak from experience with an Xserve Raid Support, but its been pretty good. No worse than any other major OEM(HP/IBM/etc). And just like any other OEM, you’d get the vendor support…not some third party support (why’d you want someone other than IBM supporting IBM hardware?).
Yeah, but most corporations likes to have everything officially “supported” by someone. Apple isn’t going to support 3rd party stuff in your machine and I’m willing to be there are a lot of 3rd part hardware vendors that, despite their hw working in a Mac, don’t officially support it.
I work in a real production environment that is blended with Unix, Linux, OSX and of course the McSoft trashware.
“How easy is it to upgrade?”
There are other vendors out there who purchase Apple hardware in bulk and resale them. They will `sharpen their pencils` if they want to make a sale. Our newest Xserver and its RAID were purchased this way.
“What about on the support side?”
Software? Apple does maintain support. I like to research off the net before I even like to talk on the telephone to some person in a prison or around the globe somewhere who is reading off of computer screen.
McSoft telephone support is generally $250 per call on our campus and I’ve seen those calls last from nine to ten hours. I’d love to see a TCO study on how that is considered cost effective.
The one really nice thing about OSX and Apple hardware is its quality. The server software is rock-solid stable and easy to work with once you understand its workflow. As far as the hardware, I can actually sit at a client and log into and work with the headless Xserver, monitor its systems, manipulate files, monitor other workstations, etc.
To me, having the capability of consolidating three McSoft machines into a single Apple server is a plus. It’s easier to monitor and manage and in my professional perspective more cost effective and raises my productivity through the roof.
I can see it being easier to manage hardwarewise, but at the end of the day, you still have 3 Windows Servers to manage, so in this case, I don’t see any real advantage
not necessarily. in the above post practically all the tasks the first virtual system could of been moved to the linux host. same with the freebsd system. then you would of just had 1 windows server running terminal services. but it all really depends on how comfortable you are with managing that stuff. because it can be a pain when things go wrong. i had an idea similar to the article, but the xserve is just too expensive. because all i really need is a windows server running terminal services to run 1 app. in the end i went with a lowend dell server running win2k3 because it was just cheaper for me.
I thought you had to be running Virtual Server on Server 2003 Data Center to get licensing like that.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
…for those who what to run 2k3 and OS X (or Linux and OS X) or any combinations of pretty much any OS (and OS X).
For those who don’t need OS X, then pretty much any new server + VM Ware or Parallels (runs on Linux and Win too, not just OS X) should do the trick.
I’m a fan of the Mac, have been since 84, but in this case OS X and an XServe isn’t the only game in town. I’m sure there are quite a few good Servers out there that are a match for the XServe.
Having said that, I do think that OS X can meet the needs of a lot of what 2k3 can do, and in a lot of cases, do it better, but not everything, so what this article supports is a good solution for some of us out there…
Does anyone know if OSX can be run like this on a windows or Linux machine?
“no, it can’t”
Better answer is: “not legally.”
Solutions are out there using VMware or PearPC, but with poor driver support, it’s practically useless to do so.
If the hardware is the same Intel stuff… what the hell does it matter if its a Mac server?
I bet you could run one Windows Server natively and one in vmware and get the same results, or run a linux server with to windows server instances in vmware.
Break Two Windows with One Apple.
Everything is supported, in one way or another. Apple will support the hardware and host OS, Parallels would most likely support any issues particular to them, MS support is what it is…kinda depends on a particular situation in all cases.
Licensing .. I don’t see an issue if you pay for them I don’t see why you can’t use them how you see fit .. I haven’t read the EULA lately, I’ll admit.
Feasability .. Consolidating a server room to a closet can be a daunting task but a scenario where 2 aged win 2k3 servers running on P3’s or early P4’s would run just fine in most virtualized environments and achieve additional cost savings.
A personal experience note .. What started out as a joke/challenge a client asked me if I could take his 2 old servers and replace them with a nice quiet unit that could sit in his office to replace the noisy ones sitting in the middle of the entire office (space is definitely at a premium, his personal office is but a cubicle with a door). He also added doing so with other than the hardware price keeping the software cost at a minimum. I responded with an I’ll take that bet and researched a plan of attack. I started off with buying some hardware to see how low I could go and do it as cheap as I thought I could..
How did I do it?
HW Specs…
Intel D805
ASUS M/B Via chipset MicroATX
1G DDR2
160 Maxtor ATA
ATI 128Mb video (to free up shared memory)
DVD-RW (also used to test backups)
SW Specs…
Host=Debian4 from Kanotix liveCD
VM=VMWare server free-version
Guest1=n’Lited SBS (everything stripped but AD,Exchange w/OWA and file sharing)
Guest2=standard 2k3 install used as 5 user terminal server
Guest3=FreeBSD6.1 used as web server
All things considered the project worked quite well the 3rd guest kinda broke the back-bone largely due to a lack of RAM, which adding the ATI did help but not enough. Switching AMP duties to the host eliminated the need for my beloved BSD but made the 2 guests run like champs. To further stress everything I then added FreeNX duties to the host and had a couple of sessions running OO and at the time Bon-Echo (FF2) was the latest in Sid. Adding NX had no significant performance issues on the guest OS’s as I had anticipated.
All guests were created on my workstation an X2 3800 w/ 2G DDR RAM, shutdown and moved once the new “server” was up. I should note that all 3 guests ran way quicker on my X2 when used all together. RAM or CPU couldn’t tell yah which made the biggest difference as both are dual core. Also to note the standard 2k3 server was configured with 2 cpu’s.
So in conclusion I was able to do as was requested however with some caveats. Firstly I used very small Virtual HDD’s for the installs and relied on Samba for access to physical HDD space, V-HDD’s storing critical data would scare the heck outta me and make for huge snapshots which I use as OS backups. Until perfect access for physical HDD access exists IMO this is the safest way to do it. Also the processors used should be a lot slower than the 3Ghz Xeons in the article and of course anyone else trying a similar task their mileage will vary, greatly..
ps.. The machine definitely ran quiet enough as you can’t hear it over my X2 which has the CPU fan running full-bore all the time.
Cheers
What’s the point of the graphics card? I don’t think it’s used if you’re logging in remotely through TS. Was someone also using this as a desktop machine while it was serving the rest of the office?
PlatformAgnostic .. The video card was used to free up 64M of RAM which was suitable for the test in the real world an extra gig of RAM would be more practical.
This was only a test box that I built and resold to someone else as a nice xp64 workstation
The client and I decided to go with 1 or 2 dual opterons w/ 4-8G of RAM .. They currently don’t have a TS and one of the existing servers is actually runnning an old version of Navision Financials. Since keeping access to Navision is critical and we’d like to make the system more secure once rolled-out, all access to Outlook/Exchange and Navision will be done through the TS. He’s been running Ubuntu on a couple of PC’s that failed WGA and likes it enough to use it as a desktop OS base in all his future upgrades.
Both the client and I felt that he has been a victim of MS lock-in enough and have decided to rectify the problem and use Ubuntu where applicable. Plus now I won’t have to show up monthly to clean spyware.
Have a merry christmas…
I was a pure McSoft trashware server systems administrator for six years in an educational environment.
I’ve done the Novell DOS 3.12 to NT4 to 2000 to 2003 jumps. This was done while maintaining the integrity of the programs and data on the servers.
My liver probably took a hit for all the pain relievers that were taken during the `migrations`.
If you feel comfortable playing with the McSoft then stick with it. I choose to be progressive and move forward with systems that work.