Very good information about how many logical and virtual CPU can be supported on different types of virtualization. However, could you please guide us where there are any significant better performances or bottlenecks when the number of CPUs are quite large.

I have researched more on the pros and cons I listed and modified them accordingly.

I recently come across a situation where there was a change in DNS IP address and new IP address need to be updated on across 4000 linux servers on the network. Rather than going to each server one by one, we just modified the puppet module and there was updated…

I would always recommend to install all the relevant vmware patches and hardware firmwares before the system goes into production to avoid any instability performance issues.

How many virtual machines can be built on one ESX server? and what maximum size of storage can we attached to one ESX server?

Jenkins works well with Puppet automation and subversion tools.

How do you backup SQL server databases?

I have been managing databases these days. Could you please advise if you use Symantec Backup Exec 2012 for backing up oracle or mysql databases as well?

Which backup tool do you recommend for backing up oracle databases?

What backup solution do you use to backup databases?

Do you have any monitoring tool or script in place which keep on tell how much space is remaining in datafile now other than OEM?

Awesome write up !! Looking at this, I recently implemented it in my current setup and my management is very happy to view its results !!

Which storage are you using with ESXi? Do you think there is any performance impact using local disk and using disks from storage?

If you are using VMPlayer for multiple guests, make sure you have enough CPU and memory on your computer, otherwise you will find your computer using 100% CPU and memory.

What operating system are you running on VMPlayer guests? Did you find any decrease in performance on your PC while VMPlayer guests are running?

Nice article !! What are the differences between free version of VMWare player and licensed version of VMWare plus?

So, if you were asked to choose one out of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V based on budget for around 30 servers, what would you recommend?

I believe SolarWind LEM is open source. Is there any limit of servers we can use it as a free version?

Are Solarwind log management tools network tools? Can they even gather logs from clients and store in a centralized server?

What are the products you have evaluated before using AppDynamics? What challenges did you face in in-house implementation?

What are the other areas of improvement in Appdynamics you think about?

Yes Carlos, we will be glad to see your review of CA Wily and AppDynamics with comprehensive matrix and with proper level of details you are discussing!! Also, thanks for your nice comments!!

ok, nice to know about it !! Hope you have a good experience with Appdynamics and would also recommend it to others !!

Nice article!! AppDynamics has been used a lot these days in monitoring JVM performance and still there are lot of improvements needed like custom dashboard.

Nice article with detailed technical installation and description!!

What I am concerned is licensing and pricing. So, we might need to opt for linux ldap only due to its open source and its integration with AppDynamics is going to be a bit complicated. Could you please also share whether you got support from AppDynamics regarding AD…

Did you use windows AD to authenticate users? or use linux LDAP or some other?

Nice article about licensing. I was looking for it for a while now. Could you please also tell me whether licenses are based on number of users or number of servers?

Since you were not involved in implementation, have you found it interesting starting as a new user of AppDynamics? or did you face any issues in understanding it?

That's really nice if it can be implemented on android and ios agents as they are well demanding in market. Did you face any challenges with customer or technical support during implementation or you were able to implement it without any issues? How long does it take for…

What the was user group size for which you implemented AppDynamics and monitored performance for it?

Could you please guide on how licensing works with AppDynamics? Is it based on server or user?

I see that you have been using it now for a year now. What kind of challenges did you face during AppDynamics implementation?

What hardware did you use for AppDynamics implementation? Is it OS dependent? Can we implement in Linux infrastructure?

Nice write up !! What are the alternate products for AppDynamics?

I have used VMWare for virtualization. And I really feel that it is best for virtualization, when it is compared to Oracle VM and any other virtualization. Regular enhancements and good technical support makes VMWare best in market.

Thanks Carlos for sharing link. Could someone please guide where do I need to contact for licensing? I am not able to locate the licensing option on the web.

Nice write up on Pros and Cons. Did you face any challenges in upgrading to vSphere 5.1?

That's nice to know that using vSphere, we can even migrate datastore to datastore. Is there any size limit for datastore migrations? Or do we need to create multiple datastores of small sizes if we already have a migration plan?

You marked technical support as 4. Can you please share an example where you had a delayed response or difficulty in getting support from Oracle?

That's correct. These days open source programs are more popular and they also provides features similar to paid products.

Yes Alin, only noticable con is that support and upgrades are not available. Rest cons are not so important.

Could you please provide me with the contact information for the sales team or give me an idea regarding licensing costs? Can we use Zimbra free of cost?

@Kal Heer. That's really great that they provide such features. Could you share the size of your databases? I am wondering how large they were.

Awesome write up!! Could you just guide me if we have EBS storage and EC2 from different zones, is there way to combine them or do we need to purchase another EBS?

Could you please advise where we can refer for linux/ubuntu AWS EC2 costs?

I would say to use HP Blades..........I have been using it and getting excellent technical and customer support for it. Also, these days, everything is scalable on hardware level too.

Can we install Solaris as well now on latest versions of ESXi?

Hyper-V and VMWare, both are giant in virtualization market. Both has scaling and other features. Both have continuous developments in their area. If I am asked to choose, I will choose VMWare because it has more interoperability with storage products like EMC.

Does mysql have license based on number of clients as well? Or can we use single server license for N number of clients?

Nice explanation and example. Puppet has really made life easy for system administrators. It is a very nice automation tool used to build multiple computers at the same time.

Yes, the resource usage is quite high for VMWare Player application. While you are using this application, other applications becomes quite slow.

Very nice software that can be used without any cost. Useful for those who want to play virtual machines on their desktops rather than buying virtualization servers.

Free version only supports one guest machine on the host. So, you probably have to purchase licenses if you really want to use Xen features.

@ctsanders...........did you buy license for PFsense or are you using trial version or does it use open source license? -Kapil

Thanks David for the feedback. Can we use Acronis for mysql hot backup too?

Thanks Patrik. Looks like we need to buy enterprise support for Bacula to use it for hot backup of mysql.

Awesome write up. Now iDRAC has got more control over server after integrating with vSphere.

Can we use Symantec Backup for mysql hot backup? What are the other utilities that can be used for mysql online backup?

We recently implemented Exchange 2010 for 80 users and it went smoothly. Customer is happy with the features and its GUI. We can access emails using email clients like outlook, web clients like browsers too. Once the users are created in AD, they can be configured to use…

Our company implemented 7.6 (FA), and it went fine. However, the estimation time was showed as 4 hours. but it took almost a day (18 hours). So, be careful to take enough time in advance.

I have seen that the IP reputation feature works well in identifying spam and ham. How do you fix if a ham threat is caught as spam? Do you have end user quarantine feature or does it need to be released by administrator everytime?

This is the best tool when it comes to monitoring. It provides a user friendly GUI interface and alerts can also be configured to monitor the utilization and other network services.

Can we also use Wireshark over the internet to capture traffic? Is it available for linux versions?

Along with XPDL, I would also like to know whether the models built in Bizagi are compatible with MS Visio and vice-versa? Or is it completely proprietary tool of Bizagi?

As I am mostly concerned about the operating system license along with application licenses. So, could you please let me know whether it only works with windows or do we have packages for Bizagi available for open source operating systems too? What is the minimum…

@Lee Eckersley - Thanks, however, I am not able to locate trial version of Prism for linux operating systems. If you get any idea about installation packagee for any open source OS, please share.

Prism is a nice tool for automating IT infrastructure. The best thing is that custom reporting is available at user friendly interface.

There is a trial version available for Prism. If you try that, you will see how it gathers information effectively from huge tables and love it and is a must buy for developing organizations. This is highly recommended for medium and large sized organizations.

Prism is undoubtedly an excellent product. We recently started using it and it has been very effective in generating reports from large amounts of data and help IT to improve infrastructure better.

One of the best BPM solutions for documentation projects which helps to reduce paperwork. The important thing is that it is very user friendly. Any user or organization can easily adapt it.

Hi, Is Acronis open source or only paid version available? Can it installed on linux OS? I am basically concerned about the cost at the moment. Would you recommend it for backup of 30-35 servers?

How long have you been using modeler? Are there regular enhancements in it from the Vendor? Could you share your experience about it.

Do you think Bizagi is user friendly and any new company can easily adapt it? There are multiple applications which are useful but every user can't become familiar with it so easily.

Does installation of Bizagi on Windows cause high cpu or memory usage? I heard that most of the applications work fine on Linux and Mac, but they cause high cpu or memory usage when installed on windows.

What features of Bizagi looks interesting to you? Would you recommend Bizagi for middle-sized organizations?

Could you please guide me whether Zimbra is open source or do we need to purchase its license from VMWare?

Could you please share what version of Prism have you installed? And what is latest stable version available in industry?

As far as product is concerned, I believe Prism may be the best for all BI tools. These days I am concerned with customer support and technical support by Vendor. Could you please share your experience with Vendor in renewing support and getting support tickets resolved?

As far as product is concerned, I believe that RHEV is best virtualization in the industry. However, I would like to know your experience with customer support and technical support with RedHat? Have you have faced any issues in renewing your licenses or getting the support…

Nice article. I would say that drag and drop feature of Prism is quite useful which makes the interface very user friendly even for those users who want implement as a new. Most of the BI tools doesn't have this functionality Could you please share your operating system…

Looks like you also reviewed Tableau, QlikView etc. what features of Prism you found more interesting? Did you buy a separate license for Elasticube Manager?

Have you already been using any other BI tools? What are the challenges you faced in implementing Prism? How much did it take for you to plan and implement?

Would you recommend Prism for a small web hosting company? Did you face any challenges implementing it? Was it implemented by Vendor?

What are the alternatives available for Prism? Have you tried any open source tool for this?

Does Incapsula implementation require dedicated hardware/software? Is there any limit of websites per device can manage or is it based on license?

Nice and informative information. Could you share your customer service experience for the product Incapsula regarding license renewal and for critical DDOS incidents?

Did you use a dedicated server for VPM applications? or can it be installed on shared server?

What OS did you use to install VPM applications? Does it have self OS or did you install it on Windows, Linux or any other OS? Just want to confirm if we can install it on linux too?

As far as open source is concerned, would you recommend nagios, icinga or zabbix?

Excellent write up !! Apart from pricing, which would you recommend if we compare other services like customer support, scaling of servers, high availability features etc?

Nice article for increasing performance by making HHDD.

Can we use Solarwinds to monitor linux as well as solaris operating systesm?

Had you faced any challenges in monitoring AS400 through Nagios? I am running a mix of windows, linux and solaris, AS400. So, do you recommend Nagios or Solarwind that can monitor all 4 kind of servers?

What hardware and storage have you used for vmware architecture?........what do you advise on dell hardware and emc storage for around 10 web servers?

Since you are reseller, you might have idea on vcp certifications. Could you please advise whether it is necessary to have trainings from vmware if you would like to go for vcp certifications even if you have hands on experience?

Could you also share advantages as well as disadvantages you have faced in latest version? like added and removed features also.

Thanks for the lovely review. Could you please share whether you have used hardware also provided by oracle or was it a different one? What would you recommend for hardware?

Thanks for the excellent review on Hyper-V. Just wanted to know if there is any limit of hosts on hyper-V? What external monitoring tool do you recommend for monitoring hyper-v servers?

What are the alternatives for FLUX?

Is there any limit on number of virtual machines on RHEV?

What challenges have you faced in its deployment? What kind of storage do you prefer with it?

Is the license for Hyper-V expensive over ESXi or Oracle VM?

Just a quick question...........I have a number of guests on vcenter. My management wants a list of all VM servers. Is there a way I can extract csv file containing names of all guests......

@ctsanders - Thanks for the awesome explanation !! I completely agree that along with product cost, we should also concentrate on recurring costs.

@kleegeek........thx!!

@kleegeek..............I have 10VMs with webhosting environemnt. Which storage do you recommend for this?

Nice one !! I have used vsphere clients on windows desktop. I am migrating some of my computers to ubuntu. Do we have vsphere client avaialble for linux OS?

Nice one!! I see that you have worked on Citrix and Hyper-V too along with ESXi. How much do you recommend ESXi over Citrix and Hyper-V? Which method you used to use for scaling Xen machines?

Latest versions overcomes this limitation too mentioned in the post. Now, ESXi can now be managed through Linux.

Nice one, do we need to purchase separate license of vSphere to connect to ESX hosts?

I have built some of the VMs and now I want to integrate storage disks with VMWare. Which of the storage like EMC, Dell etc is recommended with VMWare to assign disk space to guests?

I recently had an issue in which a 2TB LUN provided by storage on solaris server was not detected by Vertias Volumer Manager. On googling, I found that on some versions, more than 1TB is not supported. Is there any patch to fix it up or What is the latest version available…

I want to install multiple similar Xen vms. I want to install only one VM and rest should be replica of first way. Could you please advise what is the best way to do that.

What is best way to scale Xen VM machines? I have idea about creating templates in vmware. Is there similar way for Xen server too?

What is best way to scale Xen VM machines? I have idea about creating templates in vmware, is there similar way for Xen server too?

@tina5giga and @Armin..........I agree with both of you.

Have you used vpshere software to connect ESX host or is there any other software available too?

Have you used vpshere software to connect ESX host or is there any other software available too?

Nice one !! You have mentioned that it was free of you. I just want to confirm that it is free for everyone or was there a special offer for you?

Nice one !! please advise whether any flavour of linux can be installed on RHEV or only redhat linux?

Nice Post !! Please advise what additional features can we get in CSE (closed source edition) which are not available in OSE (open source edition) ?

Nice one !! I would like to know whether oracle VM is platform independent? Can we install Solaris or any other flavour of linux on it?

Is there limit of clients that can sync information from puppet master?

How many hosts/nodes can be created using free version of Hyper-V?

could you please give me more details what are CSVs terms in related to Hyper-V? Is there descriptive article for this?

Does Hyper-V support AD integration to mange its hosts?

What is license cost for Hyper-V? is there limit of nodes that can be built over Hyper-V?

Is there any limit of cluster nodes while creating a cluster in ESXi?

@tina5gaga................I would say for dev/qa, free features are more than enough.........but for production, paid features can be purchased based on requirement.

Which version of VMware have you used? Which storage do you prefer with VMware? HP, EMC, Dell or other? Did you face any issues with deployment?

Which version of vSphere have you used? Is it free to use or do we need to purchase license for it?

Hi, now we can integrate AD too with ESXi using vsphere. :) Have you tried that?

@tina5saga........I would rate 8 out of 10 for ESXi. I have used Oracle VM and Xen too. I have found ESXi most interesting........

Which SAN have you used with ESXi hosts? Is that scalable?

Which SAN is preferred over ESXi? I am using Dell Compellent so far, it seems to be fine. But I have heard people using EMC, HP. I am planning to buy one more storage. Which one do you recommend for ESXi hosts?

Loved this post!! however, I would like to understand can we prefer KVM over ESXi? What features does it have over VMWare virtualization?

Is there linux version available for vsphere? If yes, where can we download it?

Upto how much TB storage is supported on VMWare ESXi 5?

@tina5giga................I would prefer ESXi due to its reliable and scalable clustering and high availability features :) I would rate 7 out of 10 to ESXi for its features and popularization :)

I would prefer ESXi due to its reliable and scalable clustering and high availability features :) I would rate 7 out of 10 to ESXi for its features and popularization :)

I believe we can install VMWare workstation at free of cost and install guest operating system on it. What additional features do we get by paying for its license?

Can we use clustering in Hyper-V too?

How many nodes can be added in a cluster in Windows 2012 cluster?

Can we use SAN storage with VMWare, Citrix and Hyper-V as well?

Can we migrate VM machines using vsphere?

MySQL is platform independent and can be run in mixed OS platform like windows, linux, ubuntu etc. It gives compatibility even over different OS during backup and restore. Data can be backed up from one OS and can be restored on other OS.

MySQL is an open source database free available under the GNU General Public License, that means developers can use it at no cost as long as the associated projects are also open source.

I checked on statement-baesd replication and I am able to track down as below:- Replication capabilities in MySQL originally were based on propagation of SQL statements from master to slave. This is called statement-based replication (often abbreviated as SBR), which…

MySQL can be integrated with LAMP/WAMP, web applications and number of programming languages. It is widely used for phpadmin and wordpress now a days.

As of MySQL 5.5.16, commercial distributions of MySQL include an authentication plugin that enables MySQL Server to use PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) to authenticate MySQL users. PAM enables a system to use a standard interface to access various kinds of…

MySQL is platform independent and can be installed on windows, linux and other OS too. It is an open source database under the GNU General Public License, that means developers can use it at no cost as long as the associated projects are also open source.

Integration with mobile apps and online meetings has increased its demand. It has been proved as a very good chatting software for large sized organizations.

I have not used Anturis, but I have heard that this is very good monitoring tool for cloud servers.

Along with smaller companies, I have found lot of bigger companies has moved to ESXi Virtualization to reduce their cost resources and increased availablility.

I found it very useful to see performance graphs like CPU and memory utilization. Based on free resources, I was able to claim and assign it to overload resources :)

Free vesion supports upto 32GB. If you need to use advanced features, you need to purchase a license and license cost is too expensive. Once you have got licensed features in place, I believe VMWare ESXi is best in today's market for Virtualized solutions.