virtualising an existing server using VirtualBox

[MR ZenWiz]

On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 3:46 PM, Fajar Priyanto <fajarpri at arinet.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 3:55 AM, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> Note: I do still have multiple VirtualBox installs, but the more that I
>> use VMWare Player, the more I like it. I'm in the process now of
>> converting 3 VB machines over to VMWare.
>
> The only downsides are:
> - Need to re-run the vmware setup everytime there is kernel patch on
> the host. Won't be a problem most of the time, only VM downtime.
> Virtualbox seems not affected by kernel patch.

This is true fro kernel patches, but not fro new kernels.  Both VMW
and VB have to be rebuilt with new kernels.  I'm using the non-OSE
version of VB, and its dkms integration also doesn't work, so no
relief there, either.

> - If somehow we want to move the VM to another host, we must make sure
> the virtualization feature in the BIOS of the host is similar.

The point of making a machine virtual is to escape the underlying
hardware issue altogether.  VMW and VB do this because they have their
own vm base independent of the hardware.  If you're depending on
hardware virtualization features, you're stuck on that hardware.