Digital Rants

Update: Changed slightly to reflect points from beta 2.

I like beta software. It basically tells me how competent and polished the development team is. And how good the team is managed. Readers of my blog will no doubt remember the scathing review (link) I had with the beta/release candidate/final of VMWare Server 2.

VMWare Server is my first foray into virtualisation. It was a free product and I was godsmacked when I tried it. Imagine the possibilities - run all your machines in a virtualised environment and the ability to redeploy easily from machine to machine. Alas it was not meant to be. VMWare has grown too big and too slow. Everything is designed wrong - VMWare cannot keep up with the rapid development of the Linux kernel (requiring third party patches); disk I/O is excruciating slow (forcing the CPU into IO_WAIT states).

It's time to move on, and on the spur of the moment, I decided on VirtualBox 3.0 beta.

Follow up:

The download
The download size of VirtualBox is significantly smaller than VMWare - just 46Mb for the binary version. Installation is straightforward as well with pre-built packages (RPMs, etc). I downloaded the .run edition and it works just fine on my bastardised Mandriva 2008 setup

Installation
Installation is a breeze. No complicated installation procedures, no obscure questions. Just run the installer and bang, everything is done. Especially pleased the VirtualBox modules compiled straight away on 2.6.28.x vanilla kernel (yet to try on the 2.6.30.x series).

Migration from VMWare
Although VirtualBox works with VMDK disks, I still think it's best to use the VDI format instead. Migration from VMWare's VMDK to VirtualBox VDI took longer than necessary. I googled for the instructions and it is convoluted and time consuming. I think the proper way to convert VMDK->VDI is to use VBoxManage clonehd. Will post more instructions on this later.

Update (25 June 09): Go here for blog on how to migrate VMWare VMDK disks to VirtualBox's VDI (link).

No Web interface
Good riddance. Who needs one? Everything can be done in a GUI, or via the commandline (VBoxManage) or some custom developed program (SDK). A web server uses quite a lot of resources sitting there. A command line alternative is really the better way to go here.

Networking
Nailed it! No need to ask all those silly questions at install time! Let the user configure the kind of network they want when creating the virtual machine and do the necessary magic behind the scenes!

Automation
That is one weak point of VirtualBox, but it's not really a problem. Start up scripts can be written quickly and easily and the user can define EXACTLY what is needed. Virtual machines can be started in the background (via the VBoxHeadless command), and the desktop can be accessed from any RDP client.

I'm still working on the script for this, but I do not expect any problem. You can google the Internet for some scripts, but the one I find work on individual VMs, I prefer a collective one.

Performance
VirtualBox is a beast! It simply blows VMWare Server 1 away. No longer are my CPUs tied up in WAIT states. The processors are finally doing what I paid them for, actual work! Overall the host OS is more responsive under VirtualBox than under VMWare Server 1.x.

Update 27 June 2009: SMP still seems dodgy. Under Windows XP it's hogging the guest CPU, and under linux it crashed. Going by single processor for now.

Conclusion
VirtualBox is a better than VMWare. I have migrated all my virtual machines to VirtualBox. And already I can see the speed of the gallery2 and this blog web apps.

VB version 3.0 in beta form is more user friendly and reliable than VMWare Server 2.0 can ever be. VMWare Server is a glorified preview to ESX (which I'm sure is great). But Sun just knows better. And understand what is needed in virtualisation, and what's not.

It's easy to create and manage manager VMs with VirtualBox. No frustrations with retard UI, no performance bottlenecks. It just works. And it's still in beta!

Update 27 June 09: SMP is a little dodgy for now, but hopefully will be resolved in release candidates or the official release. Performance is really blitzing fast (as long as you're using single CPU) and the processors are no longer stuck waiting for IO.
Parting Notes
I wonder if VirtualBox is smart enough to interact with Intel SideStep, i.e. pumping up the CPU cycle as load comes up (VMWare can't do that). Will be a great thing if this can be done.