Re: Would someone build me a Linux server for giantdisc.org

["Andy Laurence" <andy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From: "James Fidell" <james@xxxxxxx>
> Chris Hunter wrote:
> > 'makes we wonder what else a server can be used for ... eg: could
it be
> > used as a multi-threadedPC - add a monitor & keyboard / mouse
& use it
> > to run HA & Office, say, as well as GiantDisc, and Windows
& OSX,
> > simultaneously ?
>
> Not sure about running windows and OSX concurrently, but I used to run
> windows on a VMware virtual machine on my linux desktop box when I
> needed it for reading word/excel files I'd been sent.  I believe it's
> quite feasible to run multiple concurrent instances of VMware with
> different OSes installed, appearing to be completely independent
> machines to all intents and purposes.

You certainly can.  VMWare ESX is an enterprise-scale application for
server
consolidation.  Amazingly, you can even move virtual machines from one
physical server to another without rebooting!  There's a demo they use to
show this technology whereby they setup a virtual server with a video being
served from it.  They then move the virtual machine from one physical
server
to another without so much of a stutter on the video!  Of course, there's
got to be some buffering in there, but it's pretty cool stuff.

> There's also Xen, which is free and does much the same sort of thing.

VMWare player is also free.

> I'd want a fairly serious server to run several virtual machines at
once
> though.

It depends what you wanted to do.  We found little difference in the number
of Citrix sessions our servers could handle whether running as a normal
server, or running VMWare ESX and two virtual servers.  Bizarre, and I
can't
quite understand how.  I guess there must be very little overhead.

Cheers,
Andy