Migrating off Vmware-Server, but where to?

Derek Atkins warlord-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org
Thu Dec 2 09:49:03 EST 2010


Hey BLUers,

I've been running a VMware-Server system to host virtual machines in my
home production network for several years.  I started with
vmware-server-1 and then migrated to 2 when that came out.
Unfortunately, according to [1] vmware-server has been EOLed, and there
does not appear to be a "free" (as in beer) replacement.

My requirements:

1. Only I create VMs, so I don't mind requiring shell access to the
   VM server in order to create a VM.  However, a web service to do this
   would be nice.

2. I use vmware-server's ACLs to create two non-admin classes of users:
   VM owner, and VM user.  A VM owner has the ability to minimally
   reconfigure a VM, power it up and down, etc.  A VM user has access to
   the VM console.  All of these users need to be able to perform these
   operations remotely from the VM Host, preferably without local
   shell/login access to the VM host (perhaps via a webapp?).

3. Users should not be able to see the existence of VMs to which they do
   not have access.

4. All remote access should be encrypted.

5. The VM needs to be a "hosted solution", because the VM Host does need
   to run Linux -- I don't want a "raw iron" VM solution.

6. I need to be able to migrate my existing VMs (machines and disks)

7. I only need to virtualize x86 and x86_64 systems

8. The resulting system needs to be very stable..  While I'm only
   running about a dozen VMs, downtime should be limited to power and
   network outages, or planned hardware maintenance.

I'm sure I have other requirements that I'm just not thinking about
right now.  However, as you can see from my requirements, vmware-server
has been a perfect fit for me.  But alas, it's going away so I'm looking
to migrate to something else.  The question is, to what?

It looks like KVM is the winning hypervisor solution.  Is this correct?
What interfaces exist out there on top of KVM?  I've heard of "libvert"
but have not seen what actual UIs exist.  Are there other solutions?
What about VirtualBox?

Any guidance from people who have actually spent time researching this
would be nice and appreciated.

Thanks!

-derek

[1] http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/lifecycle/general/index.html#policy_server

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org                        PGP key available





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