Windows 7: W2008 server in a VM - can it run other VM's

Hi all
I'd like to test out various capabilities of W2008 server so was thinking about installing this as a VM.

However to usefully test out the server capabilities I need it itself to run some virtual machines.

Is this at all possible or am I wasting my time.

Hardware is sufficient - Quad processor 16 GB RAM.

I read somewhere that running a Virtual machine guest on a machine that itself is a virtual machine isn't possible -- but if this is true it rather inhibits a lot uuseful Server testing.

Whilst vmware says it doesn't support running Virtual machines inside other virtual machines I wonder if I could say install something like VBOX on the virtual machine as the VBOX program would presumably just be seen as another application .

SO Host SUSE LINUX or Windows 7 running VMWARE.

VM W2008 Server .
on the vm server run Virtual Box with XP and Windows 7 guests (one of each).

I could inhbit paging on the XP and Windows 7 guests to minimize the virtual paging activity.

There should be plenty of CPU and RAM since the primary host wouldn't be running anything except the Virtual Machine software. The guests could have all the resources.

Anybody tried this type of approach yet.

(I could try VMWARE ES-X but thats much to expensive for what I want to do and is grossly overkill).

Cheers
jimbo.

it is very possible (the only thing you might not get is VT-x or AMD-v support) as what you are doing is emulating a PC (and functions like a pc)
i would also advise to use different HDD's for different VM's...
the only thing you might lose (becaues of the no cpu virt. support) is XP mode...


just as long as you give each one its own core and enough ram you should be alright...
there might be some noticeable lag in the 2nd layer vm because commands have to be translated twice (once in its own vm and second in the Vmware)

You can certainly run a vm within a vm. However, the performance is likely not going to be all that great.

What is the reason that you want to test virtual machines from within Windows Server 2008 anyway? Personally, I would instead recommend the use of a hypervisor based product like VMWare Vsphere (ESX or ESXi) or something like Microsoft Hyper V 2008 rather than running a VM server application on top of another fully functional OS. These hypervisors always seem to make better use of the hardware.

Agreed - Hyper-V for 2008 is a free DL for Server 2008 (both 2008 and 2008 R2, IIRC) that works tremendously better in terms of resource usage - that would make the running a VM in a VM aspect a lot better experience in your case.

Hi there
Thanks for the replies

The reason for running the server in a VM is that I can try out all sorts of combinations -- I'm not too bothered about the actual peerformance at this stage as I just basically want to try out various configurations.

Alsi If I screw the whole thing up (which is a 100% certainty as I don't have a lot of experience with servers) - with a VM its easy just delete that vm and load another one.

Cheers
jimbo

Jimbo,

Using a VM for playing around and learning is one of the key reasons for using a VM. However, it seemed like you wanted to load Windows Server 2008 into a VM...and then use it to run additional VM's and this nestled concept didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I certainly see why you would want to run and use Server 2008 in a VM...I just didn't understand the further VM's from that VM.

That would be a part of the playing around with it - certainly, WS2008/R2 allows for running VMs natively using Hyper-V - but it is not a product that is easily accessible - by which I mean that you can only use Hyper-V if you are running Server 2008 in the first place. Therefore, someone without a lot of Server OS experience is also lacking in the experience in using Hyper-V and other server virtualization products. hence the need to play with the VM within a VM concept.

Thanks
I think you.ve understood what I'm trying to do.

cheers
jimbo

I tried Microsoft Hyper-V 2008 for about a day and threw in the towel. The product is FAR too difficult to manage and administer. Just trying to connect to the console with a Vista machine on a domain and the Hyper-V server in a workgroup was an absolute PITA to setup. I seriously have no idea why there is so much complexity built-into the Microsoft product...especially considering in a data-center it's very likely that your VM server would be segregated off from the rest of the network.

I prefer the simplicity and ease of administration from the VMWare products. They just work and work as you would pretty much expect them too.