[rescue] VMware (was: replacing an Ultra2)

[Chad McAuley]

On 4/15/07, Michael-John Turner <mj at turner.org.za> wrote:
>
> I haven't compared Server and Workstation lately, but I'm not quite sure
> how they justify charging for Workstation when Server is free and
> (theoretically) offers more features...
>
> -mj

Depending on what your virtualization needs are, Workstation has some
features that Server does not.  Two that come to mind off the top of
my head are multiple snapshots (although I'm assuming this is actually
technically possible in Server, just without the pretty GUI to manage
the snapshot tree). and teams.  The teams feature allows you to set up
a multiple tier network from whatever VMs you have set up.  This
allows you to power on/off and suspend/resume the VMs as one unit, as
well as restrict bandwidth between the different tiers.

For hardware consolidation purposes, I doubt most people would need
either feature.  Server does allow you to have a single snapshot per
VM, which allows you to have a known-good reference point to go back
to before software/OS upgrades or configuration changes and the like.
And Server allows you to specify which VMs get powered on when the
host system is powered on (although IIRC you still have to power
down/suspend/resume VMs individually), which would probably be the
main aspect of the teams feature most folks wanting to consolidate
hardware would want. I can definitely see Workstation-only features
being very useful for testing/development/helpdesk environments.