How we did it

We installed Virtual Server 2005 and the necessary Windows 2003 software on several host platforms, including a Netframe 1600 server with two, Xeon CPUs and 4GB of RAM, a similarly configured HPDL380 G3 box, and an HP DL580 G2 server with four 2.5Ghz Xeon CPUs and 4G-bytes of RAM. We then proceeded to restore old instances of Windows NT 4 SP6 (along with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and Exchange 5.5) as well as image datasets from tests run on Windows 2000 Advanced Server with SQLServer and several Visual Basic applications for the SQL Server. Both Microsoft application servers, were made from restored tapes dating back several years. We updated the application servers with service packs, then tested to see how quickly they could be encapsulated for migration.

We used all of the available methods to install virtual servers on the three host platforms, including raw CD installs, over-the-network installations, as well as those used by Active Directory Service. We tested the software with multiple operating system versions including Windows NT 4 Server SP5 and SP6, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition server packages, as well as NetBSD 1.5, and SuSE Linux 8.0.

We used SSL logons to a Web page we made to increase virtual server instance workloads, using WebAvalanche from Spirent, simulating a maximum of approximately 1400 users per server to achieve a balanced linear increase in CPU utilization.

We used Windows Perfmon, the Virtual Server Management Console and the Microsoft Operations Management software to track resource utilization.

We also attempted to fill allocated disk space, both in static mode (cant expand) and dynamic mode to test VS instance stability, and we saw the error messages expected (during static) and saw allocated disk space expand (when we had permitted) correctly established. We also used our SAN to allocate differing partition sizes, and found that Virtual Server 2005 instances could find and readily use the SAN.

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