For many years I have been using VMware Server 1 and 2 to deploy workgroup servers but it seems VMware have abandoned this product in favor of ESXi. ESXi is a great product and I use that too in my datacenters but for workgroup hosts that do not meet the CPU or hardware requirements the baremetal ESXi is not an option.
So in steps Oracle VirtualBox, www.virtualbox.org. I have been watching VirtualBox for a longtime and some of my colleagues and friends have been using it on their desktops, while I have stuck with VMware Workstation. With the release of version 4 I thought it may be the time to try it out as a replacement for VMware Server.
VirtualBox is primarily intended for desktop use but does have a "headless" mode which could be used in my environment. No desktops on servers here thanks!
All my CentOS 5 based VM hosts start off with a minimal kickstart install of around 800MB and get fully configured by puppet thereafter. A fully installed VM host with CentOS 5.5 and VMware Server 2 fully configured and running is 2G plus virtual machines.
So I will see how VirtualBox compares with VMware Server in installation, size, management and performance.
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