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What is the difference between VMware Player and VMware Workstation? Adding hosts and licenses

Virtual machines have already firmly taken their place among the tools that significantly increase the efficiency of using server platforms and personal computers. The ability to consolidate several virtual servers on one physical server allows organizations of various levels to significantly save on hardware and maintenance. Desktop users use virtual machines for both educational purposes and to create secure and portable user environments. In a corporate environment, virtual machines on desktop systems are also used for testing software in various configurations, running specialized virtual templates, and centralizing storage of virtual user desktops. With the massive use of virtual systems, one of the most important activities is maintaining and optimizing the performance of virtual machines. While most virtualization platform vendors provide users and system administrators with a variety of tools and tools to maintain an efficient virtual infrastructure, optimizing the performance of both the platforms themselves and virtual machines is a more nuanced issue. The use of various optimization techniques largely depends on the platform used, the use cases for virtual machines, the available tools and the qualifications of the personnel.

In Russia, the most popular virtualization tools are products from VMware. And this is no coincidence: VMware, being one of the oldest market participants, is currently its leader and largely determines the direction of development of the virtualization sector as a whole. Today, the commercial platforms VMware Workstation, VMware ESX Server and the free VMware Server platform are of greatest interest to users. Despite the fact that VMware Server is a server platform, many users successfully use it as a desktop platform due to its free nature, although in almost all respects the functionality of the VMware Workstation 6 product is much higher.

Questions about optimizing virtual machines and guest systems running in them arise both for home users of virtualization products and for companies seeking to make full use of hardware resources. This is especially true for virtual servers that must be highly available from an internal or external network, and servers that intensively use any of the computer’s hardware resources (for example, a hard drive by database servers).

Comparative review of VMware Server and VMware Workstation

VMware Workstation and VMware Server, although intended for different categories of users, are nevertheless used in similar situations. VMware Server is used not only to maintain a small virtual server infrastructure in the SMB (Small and Medium Business) sector, but is also used for software development and testing purposes. Also, many home users use VMware Server as a free alternative to VMware Workstation, although the latter has significantly greater functionality specifically for the end user. From the table below you can see when you should use VMware Workstation and when the free VMware Server will suffice.

PossibilitiesWorkstation 6.0.0Server 1.0.3
Run as a serviceNo (but it is possible to minimize the UI in the System Tray)Yes
Starting a virtual machine at bootNoYes
Local controlThick client, command line
Multiple user accessNoYes
Software interfacesC/COM/PerlC/COM/Perl
Remote Host ControlNoWeb console
Remote management of virtual machinesNoFat client
Managing Multiple InstallationsNoNo 1
Ratio of virtual machines per core2-4 2-4
Hardware virtualization supportIntel VTIntel VT (experimental)
Virtual Hardware Generation6 5
Virtual processors via SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing)2 2 (experimental)
Maximum RAM for one virtual machineup to 8 GBup to 3.6 GB
Maximum RAM for all virtual machinesUnlimited 2Up to 64 GB 2
IDE controllers/disks on them1/4 1/4
SCSI controllers/disks on them1/7 4/60
Maximum virtual disk size (IDE/SCSI)up to 950 GBup to 950 GB
Virtual network adapters per virtual machine10 4
Virtual switches10 9
Snapshots via thick clientYesYes (only one)
Snapshots via command lineYesNo
Cloning virtual machinesYesNo 3
Virtual machine commands (on the same virtual network segment)YesNo
Recording virtual machine activityYesNo
Debugging virtual machinesYesYes
Shared folders with the host systemYesNo
Recording virtual machine activity to a video fileYesNo
Drag&Drop interface between guest and host systemYesNo
Officially unsupported host systemsSuSE Linux 7.3Windows XP Professional (32/64 bit)
Windows XP Home
Windows 2000 Professional
Red Hat Linux 7.0
Red Hat Linux 7.1
Support for 64-bit systemsYesYes
Paravirtualization supportYes 4No
Price$189 (downloaded from website)
$209 (retail supplies)		Free 5
  1. Available when used with the Virtual Center product (not free).
  2. On operating systems with PAE mode enabled.
  3. Available when managing a Virtual Center product (not free).
  4. Available using VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) 3.0.
  5. Technical support is not free, but it is not necessary. Users can buy VMware Gold or Platinum Support and Subscription Services.

Optimizing VMware Workstation and VMware Server Performance

Optimizing virtual systems running VMware Server and VMware Workstation platforms consists of four key components:

  • correct choice of hardware and its optimization
  • configuration and optimization of the hosting platform
  • setting up and optimizing the virtualization platform and virtual machines
  • guest system optimization

Hardware

When choosing equipment for a host system, it is necessary to examine the average load of the physical system that needs to be virtualized and select the so-called virtualization coefficient - the number of virtual machines running simultaneously on one physical platform. It is necessary to take into account not only the processor load, but also all hardware resources, since extremely intensive use of any resource of one virtual machine can lead to a slowdown of the host as a whole.

According to experts, most servers currently use approximately 10-20 percent of computer hardware capacity, therefore, in this case, for the VMware Server product it is necessary to adhere to the ratio of 2-4 virtual machines per processor core, leaving some margin for peak loads at some point. -or from the servers. When using VMware Workstation, users often create dozens of virtual machines, and the number of virtual systems running simultaneously can vary depending on the guest OS used.

When choosing hardware components for a virtualization server or desktop host, you need to consider the following hardware resources:

  • Memory
    Estimate the amount of memory used by virtual machines and the applications running in them, add the memory required for the host OS (depending on the chosen platform) and virtualization platform support (usually at least 64 MB).
  • Discs
    Try to use high-performance SCSI drives and RAID arrays. Remember that RAID arrays can be of various types, and the performance of the disk system depends on its choice. Make sure that the host system's disks do not become full, as this has a significant impact on the performance of virtual machines, especially when creating snapshots or working with Redo disks. When using SAN or NAS storage devices, make sure that read and write caches are enabled on them and that their sizes are set correctly.
  • Net
    When choosing network adapters and communication devices, consider the following recommendations:
    • use switches instead of hubs
    • When using Gigabit Ethernet cards on hosts, make sure you use cables and switches with adequate bandwidth
    • do not use more physical network interfaces than necessary - unnecessary adapters receive broadcast packets, which slows down overall performance

Host OS

When choosing a host operating system for VMware Server or VMware Workstation, you must consider its hardware requirements and plan in advance the resources allocated to virtual machines. When optimizing a host OS, the greatest attention should be paid to memory, disks, network interfaces and operating system services. Of course, you cannot install any additional software on the host system that could negatively affect its performance.


Virtualization platform and virtual machines

When optimizing your virtualization system and virtual machines, there are many parameters to consider and different use cases for virtual machines. In each individual case, it is necessary to carefully study which aspect when setting up a host or guest OS may be a “bottleneck” that significantly affects system performance. In particular, the following recommendations must be adhered to:

  • CPU

    If your processor uses hyper-threading technology to represent two logical processors for one physical processor, do not enable virtual SMP (two virtual processors) in the virtual machine settings when creating it.

    You can also manually set the priority for virtual machine processes:

    go to the “Edit” menu, select “Preferences”, go to the “Priority” tab and assign priority to the active virtual machine (Input grabbed - when the cursor is inside the virtual machine) and to the remaining virtual machines in the background (Input ungrabbed).

    These settings affect all virtual machines on the host. You can also assign them to a specific virtual machine (they will override the global settings): go to the “VM” menu, then “Settings”, go to the “Options” tab and the “Advanced” category.

  • Memory

    If you use the host OS not only to run virtual machines, but also for other tasks, you can set the amount of physical RAM that virtual machines can use. To do this, go to the “Edit” menu, select “Preferences”, go to the “Memory” tab and set the required amount of memory for virtual machines.

    Here you can also define how the virtual machines will use the page file. By default, some of the virtual machine's memory is flushed to the page file. If you set the “Allow most virtual machine memory to be swapped” parameter, this will allow you to run a larger number of virtual machines at the same time, but will negatively affect their performance. Selecting the first option will entail using only the physical memory of the host system, which will speed up performance, but, accordingly, will reduce the number of simultaneously running virtual machines.

    VMware Workstation and VMware Server use Memory Trimming procedures. Generally speaking, this setting does not have a significant impact on performance, but disabling it may slightly improve performance when working with virtual machine disks. You can disable it by adding the line to the vmx file MemTrimRate=0 or in the virtual machine settings:

    VMware products also use Page Sharing, which allows virtual machines to share one copy of memory pages, which is especially effective when running the same guest systems with the same applications running in them. In this case, this approach saves up to 30 percent of physical memory, but reduces the speed of I/O operations. If the host has enough RAM, this technique can be disabled by adding the line to the vmx file: sched.mem.pshare.enable = “FALSE”

  • Discs

    Whenever possible, use virtual machine disks stored locally. When using network resources, monitor network bandwidth and availability. By default, VMware Server and VMware Workstation use SCSI disk emulation. Do not change this setting because using virtual IDE disks will reduce performance. Use virtual disks of the “preallocated” type instead of “growable”, although the latter are beneficial in terms of space used (they grow as they are filled), they are somewhat slower. To specify disks of the “preallocated” type when creating a virtual machine, check the “Allocate all disk space now” checkbox. You can also create Independent disks for a virtual machine, which can be Persistent or Nonpersistent. The contents of these disks exist independently of snapshots of the virtual machine. Non-persistent disks are different in that their contents are flushed when the virtual machine is shut down. Independent-persistent drives provide the best performance and are recommended for most use cases. In order to create such a disk, select the “VM” menu, “Settings”, select the disk in the “Hardware” tab and click “Advanced”, make sure that the “Independent” and “Persistent” checkboxes are checked.

    Remember also that using snapshots slows down the performance of the disk subsystem, so do not use them unless necessary.

  • Net

    Remove all unused virtual network adapters for each virtual machine in the VM->Settings menu. When there is intensive traffic exchange with the host OS, it is most effective to use the Bridged network interaction type rather than NAT, since in the latter case there are costs associated with maintaining a virtual NAT device.

  • Other
    • Disabling Debug Mode

      By default, VMware Workstation collects debugging information, which can slightly slow down the performance of the virtual machine. This feature can be disabled in the “VM” menu, then “Settings”, “Options” tab, “Advanced” category, then set the “Gather debugging information” combo box to “None”.

    • Disabling logging

      For virtual machines in VMware Server and VMware Workstation, logging mode is enabled, which has virtually no effect on performance, but it can be disabled by adding the line logging = “FALSE” to the vmx file.

    • Disabling CD/DVD-ROM drives

      Many people forget that some older operating systems, such as Windows 98, constantly check for a disk in the drive, which leads to a loss of performance. Virtual CD/DVD-ROM can be disabled in the virtual machine settings:

Guest OS and applications

Optimizing a guest system is the most subtle aspect of optimizing virtual systems, since much depends on the purposes for which the virtual machine is used, what applications are running in it, and which system components have the highest performance requirements. The most significant configuration objects are: processor, memory, disks, network adapters and virtual machine software.

However, the first thing after installing the guest system is to install the VMware Tools package, which contains improved device drivers that significantly increase the performance of the guest system. The VMware Tools application may not be installed on all guest OSes. To install this package, with the virtual machine running, after the OS is fully loaded, in the “VM” menu, select “Install VMware Tools”.

Conclusion

Once all four optimizations listed above have been completed, continuous monitoring of the performance of virtual machines is necessary, especially if they are running as virtual servers. The goal of optimization in this case should be stable simultaneous operation of several virtual systems on one physical host. Regularly update your software and virtualization platform, and then you can make the most of virtual machines, both on desktops and as flexible server elements of the enterprise IT infrastructure.

There are a huge number of virtual machines (VMs) in the modern software market, but our review today is dedicated to VMWare Workstation. This is a program designed for simultaneous installation and use of several operating systems from one computer.

How to install VMWare Workstation

Installing VMWare Workstation is exactly the same as installing any other program. After the application window appears on your computer, on the left side you will see all the available virtual machines, and on the right - the working window itself, with the help of which management is carried out.

Particular attention should be paid to creating a VM. There are two methods in VMWare Workstation: normal and custom. After choosing the type of configuration, you need to select compatible programs and the operating system itself. Next, a list of settings will be automatically offered.


It is important that you can not only choose the type of operating system, but also the number of cores involved in the work. But experienced users advise not to spend too many resources on the guest OS. Increased resource consumption will only slow down the device, but will not affect the performance of the guest operating system. During installation, you are also asked to select the amount of RAM. As a rule, it is enough to select the value proposed by the system automatically, but the setting can also be done manually.


Setup steps

After this you can start launching. During operation, the software can be paused, and all entered settings and parameters will be saved. To turn it off, just click on the corresponding button in the working window. It is important that sooner or later the operation of the virtual machine will have to be stopped, since unnecessary files will accumulate in it, slowing down the operation of the device.

You can use the VM even after reinstalling the main OS. To do this, just open the working window and copy it.

In general, VMWare Workstation can be safely called useful software. This program has high functionality and a simple interface, and allows you to perform operations on different operating systems without negative consequences for the computer.

VMWare Workstation for Windows

The era of personal computers, with installed applications, seems to be slowly moving toward sunset; client-server technologies have returned. You no longer need a powerful PC, because all data processing is done on the server. The new product requires a structure that, through the efforts of marketers, is called cloud computing. The industry is developing rapidly and in a couple of years we are promised to remove a tenth of applications to the clouds. For all this, specific tools are needed, and who better than VMware to be the first.

Purpose of VMware vSphere

In order not to run ahead of the train, first let’s decide on the purpose and place of the product. Officially, the history of the new name began a little over a year ago (at the end of April 2009), when VMware announced VMware vSphere (vmware.com/products/vsphere). The solution did not arise out of nowhere and replaced the virtualization platform VMware Virtual Infrastructure, the developments of which were used.
In general, the purpose of the product has not changed after the renaming - combining virtual systems, networks and storage into single pools of resources. Although it is clear that marketers have worked on the definition and slightly adjusted the wording to suit modern trends. Now the website states that “ vSphere is the first OS focused on cloud computing”, which makes it possible to quickly and efficiently deploy and manage virtual resources. But we know that “OS is what the Earth revolves on,” and vSphere revolves, well, I won’t get ahead of myself.

The main idea when migrating to vSphere is to make the work environment as convenient, stable and manageable as possible. Due, of course, to optimization - reducing the number of physical servers, increasing the degree of server consolidation. By the way, if you read the description of Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (SCVMM), we come across familiar words :).
The list of vSphere capabilities is very large; here it is better to refer to the official documentation. I will highlight only the most noteworthy:

  • VMware vStorage Thin Provisioning - saves disk space, only the required volume is actually used;
  • VMware VMsafe is a highly reliable clustered file system used for storing virtual machines;
  • VMware API vStorage and vCenter Data Recovery - centralized backup and recovery of VMs from a graphical console;
  • VMware Hot Add - hot “adding” devices without stopping the virtual machine;
  • VMware Distributed Power Management - power consumption management, allows you to significantly reduce its costs;
  • VMware Host Profiles is a management interface that allows you to centrally configure VMware ESX/ESXi hosts and monitor installations for compliance with policies.

Let's add hot migration tools here VMware VMotion, clustering High Availability and high availability Fault Tolerance e, load balancing VMware DRS, virtual disk relocation technology Storage VMotio n and much more. Moreover, savings when using vSphere are also achieved by the fact that for some operations (for example, backup) you no longer need to purchase a third-party product. Previously, you had to buy something like Veeam Backup produced by Veeam Software.
Limits on CPU and RAM consumption are supported for resource pools (Resource Pool) and individual hosts, with the possibility of guaranteed resource allocation (Reservation), the vNetwork component provides bidirectional shaping and traffic limitation.
A complete list of supported operating systems for different VMware products is presented on the VMware Compatibility Guide page, here you will find all the popular systems today - Windows and *nix options.
In vSphere, compared to Virtual Infrastructure, the licensing procedure has also changed, which has become more flexible, since now licenses are focused not on a pair of physical processors, but by the number of processors (their number is driven into the key). Moreover, if the number of cores does not exceed 6 (in the Advanced and Enterprise Plus versions - 12), then no additional payment will be required. At the height of the crisis, this approach was very welcome, because when making a very difficult decision to switch to virtual machines, dozens of indicators are taken into account.
VMware vSphere consists of the following components:

  • hypervisors VMware ESX and/or VMware ESXi – in fact, everything runs on them;
  • VMware vCenter Server Agent, which provides connection of hypervisors to the VMware vCenter Server control center (formerly VMware VirtualCenter Server), vCenter Server itself, which is responsible for deployment, centralized management and access, is purchased separately;
  • other components that provide basic functionality, the composition of which varies depending on the selected license.

Functionally, the components are divided into two parts: Infrastructure Services and Application Services, how they differ is clearly described on the project website.
To make choosing your solution easier, vSphere is available in three editions: Standard, Advanced and Enterprise. For small organizations, they offer Essentials, Essentials Plus, and two versions for Retail and Branch Offices Essentials and Essentials Plus. Moreover, the price for Essentials is quite adequate, ensuring the use of the product on 3 servers (2 CPUs each) to make it interesting and the main thing is that the solution for a small office is an integrated all-in-one that already includes vCenter Server.
In the documentation on the website you can find tables comparing vSphere with other virtualization products in terms of cost and functionality.
At the time of writing these lines, version vSphere4 update 2 has appeared on the VMware website, although semi-official information about the future version 4.1 has already leaked to the network. The main changes concern mainly quantitative changes - VMs in the cluster, registered VMs and hosts, and so on.

Deploying vSphere

Reading the description, the first thought that comes to a beginner’s mind is that it is very difficult. In fact, with a careful approach and fulfillment of all requirements, the process of deployment and subsequent addition of hosts and VMs can even be called simple.
To install vSphere you will need to fulfill a number of requirements and go through several steps:

  • the hardware must comply with the VMware Hardware Compatibility List (HCL);
  • VMware vSphere ESX/ESXi Server - deployed on physical servers (2x2 Hz x64bit CPU, 2+ GB RAM, 2+ GB HDD);
  • VMware vCenter Server and vSphere Client - installed on the same network to manage ESX(i) servers;
  • deploying a SAN storage network;
  • we install client operating systems in virtual environments.

To determine whether the server supports 64-bit VMware, you can use the utility CPU Identification, located on the page (vmware.com/download/shared_utilities.html).
Only the main steps are shown above; each stage also requires intermediate settings (network setup, SAN, if necessary, Active Directory, and so on). Some of these points are described in great detail in the documentation, which can be found at vmware.com/support/pubs/vs_pubs.html. As usual, all the docs are in English and are often confusing, although it is recommended to read in any case (at least if problems arise :) We will briefly examine the main points on setting up and managing vSphere in order to visualize what we are dealing with.
On the download page, which will be available after registration, we select the ESX or VMware ESXi hypervisor, VMware vCenter Server (in the form of an ISO image or zip archive) for installation. Plus there are also optional components - Server Heartbeat, Data Recovery (CD ISO) and vShield Zones.
For smaller organizations, the free VMware ESXi platform is probably more suitable, since it has all the necessary capabilities. In addition, VMware representatives themselves recommend it. First, we deploy VMware ESX or ESXi, considering that their base is Linux, although somewhat stripped down, the installation can be called standard and it usually does not cause problems. We simply follow the instructions of the wizard - accept the license, configure the network and select the disk. On ESX, the license can then be entered into vCenter. After the reboot, we can manage the hypervisor from the console, through the web interface, or by installing vSphere Client. The latter can be downloaded from the virtual machine web page, the address of which will be available after installing ESX(i) or from vCenter.
In addition, in context, you can recall the free web tool VMware Go (go.vmware.com), which allows you to quickly move to using the free VMware ESXi hypervisor to virtualize physical servers in a small company.


The next step is to install VMware vCenter on a computer running MS Windows. We couldn’t find any mention of the version on the site, but the center ran on both Windows XP and Windows 2008 R2 without any problems. vCenter stores all data in a database; for small environments (5 physical, 50 virtual machines) it can be used Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express, which already comes with the installation archive and is offered by default. Otherwise, during the installation process you will need to configure a connection to the DBMS.

If there are not many hosts (up to 250), then the 32-bit version will be sufficient, otherwise only the 64-bit version. That is, to summarize, for a small number of servers, a 32-bit XP client with free SQL Express is sufficient; in more powerful configurations, you will have to deploy a server with MS SQL with a 64-bit OS. All other requirements are described in more detail in the documentation. At the very beginning, you should allow packets to pass through ports - 80, 389, 443, 636, 902/903, 8080 and 8443.
Download the ISO image or zip archive, run the installation file and select the vCenter Server link in the wizard window. By the way, the archive contains distributions of some other products - vSphere Client, vCenter Guided Consolidation, vCenter Update Manager, vCenter Converter, vCenter Orchestrator and VMware Consolidated Backup. The installer language is English. If the entire process is carried out in an Active Directory environment, then you will need administrator rights.
During initialization of the installation script, compatibility checks will be carried out and, in case of non-compliance, recommendations will be issued. For example, since vCenter uses its own web server, it will conflict with the installed IIS on ports. Although in the process you can change the settings by specifying the default port for most services - http, https, LDAP, SSL, heartbeat. The package is self-sufficient; if something is missing, everything necessary (.Net, J# and others) will be automatically installed.
It is possible to combine several systems with vCenter installed into a linked group (Linked Mode), and manage all the settings of virtual machines from any system. By default, a standalone installation is offered, but by selecting the switch to the “Join a VMware vCenter Server group ...” position at the “vCenter Server Linked Mode Options” step, we can immediately connect to an already existing group of vCenter servers. In general, this is the entire server installation. We wait for some time while the wizard configures the services, generates certificates and copies files.
Upon completion, similarly install the remaining components available in the vCenter Installer window, unless of course they are needed. Again, they do not have to be installed on the same computer, although this is usually more convenient.
When installing vCenter Update Manager(vCUM) specify the vCenter server IP and access credentials. We indicate the previously created database as the database to which we need to connect. Attention, when prompted for a password in the “ Database Information» leave it empty, in this case Windows authentication will be used. It is better to place the directory in which updates will be placed on a separate partition of the hard drive, which has enough free space (at least 20 GB). We indicate it at the Destination Folder step for “Configure the location for downloading patches”. The client part of the vSphere Client, with the help of which all the settings are made, is usually installed on the administrator’s computer; the system requirements are not great (CPU 266, 200 MB RAM and 1 GB HDD).

Adding hosts and licenses

Installation is complete. Open vSphere Client from the menu, enter your login and password (checkbox Use Windows session credential will allow you to connect with current credentials), accept the certificate.
The client window that appears is designed in the familiar Explorer style. Select computers on the left, settings on the right, and the current task bar at the bottom. Pay attention to the address line. After the first registration, you find yourself in the OS settings tab in Home - Inventory - Host and Clusters, but we don’t need them yet. To access all vSphere features, simply go to Home.


The control area is visually divided into three parts according to purpose:
  • Inventory - searching for systems, adding nodes and clusters, datacenter, managing permissions, and so on;
  • Administration - managing roles, sessions, licenses, vSphere settings, viewing the log and status of the service;
  • Management - task management, displaying events and virtual machine maps, creating host profiles.

There are not so many sub-items in each, so it won’t take much time to get acquainted with the interface. I can’t help but note the presence of all sorts of tips and wizards; if any required step is not completed, you will immediately receive a link and recommendations on what to do. The interface is task-oriented, that is, the administrator configures something, and vSphere, to the extent possible, performs tasks sequentially, the main thing is that there is no need to wait until one task is completed to configure the next item. Most operations take some time and occur in the background, so monitor the status at the bottom of the window.


A pop-up window immediately shows the number of days remaining until the trial period ends. If you have already purchased a license, now is the time to enter it. Let's go to Administration - Licensing, select the system and in the context menu the item Manage vSphere Licenses. Copy the license into the window, and optionally a short description in the field below and click Add License Keys. To match the key to a specific server, go to Assign Licenses or select from the context menu Change License Key.
Now the most important thing for which we installed all this is the ESX(i) connection. First, we create a DataCenter, I don’t tell you where to look, since they will slip in the necessary link in any case, and only then they will let you go further. All you have to do is rename the DataCenter to make its affiliation clearer. Click on DataCenter and select the link Add a host.

Another wizard appears, in the first window, enter the name or IP of the node and login/password for management, connect, accept the certificate and receive information about the system. If required, we can add a license here and enter host details. You will have to wait a while until the host is added (the process will show a status bar at the bottom of the window).
Next, the process is almost the same, we select a host, recommendations open in Add a virtual machine(all recommendations can be disabled in the settings). The Summary window displays all data on the host by going to the window Configuration we get the opportunity to change some settings - network parameters (VMotion connection, iSCSI, NFS and others), virtual switch and so on. After adding several hosts, the ability to create a cluster will become available. Select the New Cluster item in the context menu, the wizard will ask you to enter the name of the future cluster. Using checkers, we install support for HA and DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler). DRS technology is a simple balancer that monitors and distributes resources in a VM as evenly as possible (more details vmware.com/ru/products/vi/vc/drs_overview.html). If it is activated, the wizard will then prompt you to select one of the VM migration options - Manual, Partially and Full automated, plus specify the migration method (from Conservative to Aggressive). We configure power management (DPM), activate host monitoring, activate EVC (Enhanced VMotion Compatibility), and swap file storage location. By the way, the essence of EVC is very simple. As you know, there are different processors and the guest OS installed on the system can use different features like SSE. But what happens if you take this OS and transfer it using VMotion to another system, which has completely different technologies? So EVC brings everything to a common denominator, simply turning off the “unnecessary” ones, as a result, the VM transfer is painless. There are two options for enabling EVC - for AMD and Intel hosts. After selecting the items, a list of compatible processors will be shown. Although if all the servers in the cluster are the same, EVC can be completely disabled.
The cluster has been created, but we have not added hosts to it yet. It's very simple, just grab it and drag it with your mouse. A new wizard starts immediately, in which you can leave everything by default, click Next twice and add the remaining hosts in the same way.
After all operations, the Deploy OVF Template item becomes available, allowing you to add virtual machine templates in the Open Virtualization Format both from a local disk and via the Internet. You can create such an image yourself using the VMware OVF Tool (you can find it by searching on the website) or download it from the Internet. The adding process is simplified by another wizard. The added OS can be immediately launched and tested in operation. All that remains is to distribute the added OS images to the hosts. To do this, select the Migrate item in the context menu and in the wizard window specify the host to which it needs to be copied.
Considering that cloud systems will be serviced by a large number of administrators with different rights, they need to be somehow divided according to capabilities. vSphere uses a role concept; after installation in Administration - Roles, 9 role templates are available that allow you to select and assign rights to the user in one click. A simple wizard allows you to create any number of new roles.
It is impossible to talk about all the capabilities of such a powerful product as vSphere in one article; the functions Fault Tolerance, Storage vMotion, hot adding of devices, resource management, monitoring and many other issues are left out of the scope.

A new version of the popular product became available in November; Windows and Linux are supported as host operating systems. VMware Workstation 7 is positioned as a personal virtualization platform. One of the reasons for this positioning is that a personal computer is used to run virtual machines. The product includes an extensive set of additional tools that allow you to use various network settings, record and playback virtual machine sessions, debug applications and much more. VMware Workstation 7 can be used in conjunction with a development environment, making it especially popular among developers, educators, and technical support specialists.

Exit VMware Workstation 7 means official support for Windows 7 as both a guest and host operating system. The product includes support for Aero Peek and Flip 3D, which makes it possible to observe the operation of a virtual machine by moving the cursor to the VMware taskbar or to the corresponding tab on the host desktop.

The new version can run on any version of Windows 7, just as any version of Windows can be run in virtual machines. In addition, virtual machines in VMware Workstation 7, fully support the Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM), which allows the use of the Windows Aero interface in guest machines.

IN VMware Workstation 7 3D support has been greatly enhanced, with support for OpenGL 2.1, Shader Model 3.0, as well as the XPDM (SVGAII) driver for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. Added support for Windows XP Mode, allowing you to import a Windows XP Mode virtual machine using VMware Workstation 7 and run it using advanced features such as multiprocessing, high-quality graphics, and other VMware features.

Support for the new operating environment from Microsoft is not all innovations in VMware Workstation 7. New features include the use of up to four processors/cores, 32 GB of RAM, the ability to change the size of virtual disks on the fly, and the Auto Protect function allows you to create snapshots at specified intervals. IN VMware Workstation 7 It became possible to pause a running virtual machine to urgently free up system resources.

If you upgrade from VMware Workstation 6.5 to VMware Workstation 7 All settings of virtual machines and applications are saved. The only thing you need to do is install the new VMware Tools on your virtual machines to be able to use some of the new features. These features include the ability to install a host or network printer without additional drivers using the universal ThinPrint driver. The VMware Tools package itself is now dynamically updated.

Among other features VMware Workstation 7 We can highlight the ability to encrypt virtual machines, as well as the ability to run in a virtual machine without additional settings for the VMware ESX 4.0 hypervisor. This allows developers and other specialists to work with the hypervisor without the use of additional hardware. Developers receive enhanced debugging capabilities, as well as integration with the SpringSource Tools Suite for debugging Java applications.

Unlike some of its competitors, the product VMware Workstation 7 not free, but the capabilities presented in the product are impressive! Competing products do not offer the same variety of features.

It's safe to say that users using earlier versions VMware Workstation will want to upgrade immediately, and for those looking for a personal virtualization platform, the choice is obvious - this VMware Workstation 7.

This article is dedicated to the best virtualization platform for desktop computers VMware Workstation, forgive me fans of VirtualBox, HyperV, etc.

A virtual machine is a program that allows you to emulate a stand-alone computer in a working operating system environment. A virtual machine allows you to run your own operating system and applications just like a physical computer.

This program allows you to emulate a processor, RAM, hard drive, BIOS, etc.

The emulation program itself, as well as the operating system running on it, is called a virtual machine, while the main operating system and the physical machine are called the host system.

Purpose of VMware Workstation

1. VMware Workstation allows you to try out any (almost any) operating system on your computer without having to create new partitions on your physical hard drive.

2. VMware Workstation allows you to install multiple operating systems on one computer without the need to configure physical hard drives.

3. VMware Workstation allows you to work with several operating systems simultaneously with the ability to dynamically switch between them without rebooting the system.

4. VMware Workstation allows you to test applications running various operating systems (for example, XP and 8).

5. VMware Workstation allows you to emulate a computer network.

6. VMware Workstation allows you to reduce the risk of infection of the host system by running unsafe software in an isolated virtual environment.

7. Teachers use VMware Workstation to create virtual machines for students, including all the applications required for teaching. Nothing bad will happen if a student intentionally or accidentally destroys the experimental environment during the learning process. It will take only a few seconds to restore a damaged virtual system from a backup copy (a previously created Snapshot).

System requirements VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2014

As stated in the VMware Workstation Technology Preview 2014 documentation, platform system requirements are similar to VMware Workstation 10, with the following exceptions:

1. 32-bit operating systems are no longer supported as a host system (now the platform can only be installed on 64-bit systems)

2. Windows XP 64-Bit, Windows Vista 64-Bit, Windows Server 2003 64-Bit and Windows Server 2008 (64-bit (not including R2) are also not supported as a host system

Otherwise, system requirements are similar to VMware Workstation 10

  • Minimum processor clock speed 1.3 GHz
  • The minimum amount of RAM for the host system is 1GB, 2GB is recommended.
  • The minimum amount of RAM for a guest system is 256 MB.
  • 1.5 GB of free hard disk space

There are versions of the program for Windows and Linux. Windows and Linux versions of the program have a single serial number, so when purchasing an application for one of these OSs, the user can use it for free on the other. If you need a program for Mac, you must install VMware Fusion.

VMware also has a free product - VMware Player, which can be used free of charge for personal, non-commercial purposes.

What is the difference between VMware Player and VMware Workstation?

VMware Workstation is a much more powerful solution with advanced features such as snapshotting, remote vSphere connections, cloning, virtual machine sharing, advanced configuration, and more. Workstation is intended for use by technical professionals - developers, quality assurance specialists, systems engineers, IT administrators, technical support specialists, consultants, etc.

Installing VMware Workstation

1. Download preview of VMware Workstation 11


Fig.1 VMware website

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c. Download program. To download the program, you must register on the site.


2. Run the program installation file VMwareWorkstation(the new version of VMware Workstation is installed only on 64 bit Windows systems).

3. At the first step of installing the program, click the button Next


4. In the license agreement dialog box, set the radio button I accept the terms in the license agreement and press Next


5. In the next window for selecting the installation method for the program, specify Typical


6. Specify the path for installing the program VMwareWorkstation and press Next


7. If you want the VMware Workstation program to check for updates when you start, check whether the checkbox is checked Check for product updates on startup and press Next


8. In the next window, you must specify whether the program will send anonymous statistics to VMware. These statistics include the name of the product being used, version, build number, and program configuration. This data allows the company to identify popular configurations and timely optimize its product in the right direction.10.


11. When installation is complete, press the button Finish