Vmware

The coolest thing that is helping small businesses is VMware Server. Now that it is free more and more will begin to use it. The ESX version is very expensive for small businesses.

We're proposing a new server and we're going to put Ubuntu 6.06 server on it and install VMWare on top of it. We're putting a Microsoft Terminal Server as a virtual server. Since the terminal server is basically being used as a remote workstation, there are lots of issues that could occur. This will allow us to create vmware snapshots before any new software or updates. If any problems do occur we can just restore the snapshot.

We're also going to backup their Netware 6.5 Small Business server into a virtual machine as well. I've successfully used a Helix Linux boot disk and the Linux "dd" command to clone a Netware box to a virtual box at another client.. In this case, though, we're going to use a supported program called Portlock Storage Manager to clone the Netware box. This backup virtual machine can then be used in emergencies...it's not a standby server so we well still have to restore data from tape to the virtual Netware server if it is needed. We could even port it back to a physical box if needed.

Two external USB hard drives will be used to backup the virtual servers. I am hoping to setup LVM in Ubuntu so that I can create a LVM snapshop with the virtual server powered off in seconds so the virtual server can go back online while the copy process is being done.