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If i have one server with 3 virtual machines.

1)VM - 2008 server
2)VM- window XP
3)VM - Window XP 2

Is it possible that i can make one VM machine as server and other has clients and then test proxy server things or window deployments services on those VMs.

Or i need physical machines to test that stuff

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2 Answers

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Sure.

You can even create different vSwitches and route between them using a VM that has interfaces on both vSwithes.

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wow. If i have 8GB RAM and intel core 2 quad core Processor. Will that work fine with good speed – John Dec 7 '09 at 2:57
Depends on what you're expecting to do and how many VMs you expect to have running at a time. Just try it out - RAM will likely be your limiting factor. Be sure to install the VMware tools in all of your VMs. This will allow the VMware server to better optimize the RAM usage of the guests. – ErikA Dec 7 '09 at 3:00
I think i will be using max 3 VMS. How much more RAM i need to work fast – John Dec 7 '09 at 3:18
Like I said before - it completely depends on what you'll be doing with the servers. Just start out with 1 GB for each VM. If you run into performance issues, you can always increase that VM's RAM allocation. – ErikA Dec 7 '09 at 3:31
thanks mate , i will give it a try – John Dec 7 '09 at 3:33
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That is exactly where I find VMs helpful.

As far as Windows and Deployment Services is concerned, VMs are fairly transparent. VMs can help you test deployment settings up until you need to make sure that the hardware settings work.

In my company we had to deploy over 100 Windows Server installations over the network and VMs helped me iron out most issues with it. I say most is because there are a few things you have to keep in mind that VMs cannot test for you, namely the very beginning of the deployment process where the system has to first transition from network boot.

VMs cannot let you test hardware compatibility or that it works on a particular hardware configuration, because it isn't there. So keep that in mind that if some configuration or software has a hardware dependency, VMs will not be able to help you with that aspect. But if you want to test whether the Windows deployed with IE configured a certain way, and group policy implemented correctly and such, then VMs are useful and they make testing faster.

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that looks cool . I want to check all that active directory , user groups , policies stuff . It means i can do it with VM . – John Dec 7 '09 at 3:03
Yes, VM is perfect for that. And if you include "UNDO disks" or the like, you can always roll back changes you did not like. Hence, it makes some troubleshooting and configuration testing faster. – James Hawkwind Dec 7 '09 at 3:06
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