VirtualBox As A Production VM

[KirkM]

Hi folks,

So I've been digging and digging and I finally landed here.

What I've been digging for is to find out if ANYONE is using VirtualBox as a production tool...say in lieu of VMWare of Hyper-V? It would seem a whole lot of people are using these tools for sandboxes and test beds but what I've not found much of are reviews or testimonials of folks using this as their primary Hypervisor. Anyone?? Thoughts?

Look forward to hearing from folks! Thanks!

[birdie]

Works perfectly.

Can be automated.

There's really nothing to say.

[scottgus1]

I ran our office SBS domain-controller/file-print server as a Virtualbox guest, along with the antispam filter, LOB apps server, and two auxiliary work environments as backups when a workstation went down. 5 guests all on one 12-core 48GB RAM server running Windows 7 Pro as the host OS. Ran smooth as silk for several years. Complete automated backups using my self-rolled scripts to 4 different backup locations, two onsite strong workstations that could spin up the main guests in event of the main server dying, and two offsite locations (my boss's & my basements). Total data loss in the event of the building being destroyed, max 1/2 hour (four and a half 9's).

[Rootman]

I did twice. We had an app that would not run on a 64 bit OS or any OS newer than WIn 7, had to replace the PC. Backed it up and created and ran it on a VM on the new PC host. Had it auto start and run full screen. Ran it for over a year and a half without issue.

Also had a PC with a strange old app that died. I virtualized it and ran it that way until we got the PC replaced. Had to be a specific hardware to talk to the hardware. When I virtualized it it ran so we could see historical data but would not talk to the hardware so was not useful to collect new data. Ran it for 2 months. Had to pay nearly 3k for an old crappy 486 with a specific set of hardware to get it back to running.

I also have a Win 10 VM that is used for regular checking and testing. Rather than setup a PC to do it I just fire up the VM and use it, save time, space and money on hardware. I use it to test various user credentials, test rights on network shares to verify NTFS rights and anything else that I need to log in as another user.

[KirkM]

Thanks folks! I REALLY appreciate it!!! This helps tons. I guess I'm just making sure someone could confirm the "reliability" factor.

I've got a couple of old Dell Servers that I'm going to play around with. Hopefully I can get it to see this old InforTrend SAN I have as well. I'll keep folks posted!

[scottgus1]

I'd recommend using somewhat older versions of Virtualbox than the completely new releases, so bugs can be worked out. Do a test lab first to see if things stay stable. Then, "if it ain't broke don't fix it" when updates are reported.

On my production office Win7 host, I turned off automatic updates for the OS, and only ran updates after Patch Tuesday had been and gone a few weeks, so I could see if the internet blew up over a bad update. (I also did not go emailing, web-surfing, or frivolous downloading on the office server either, so malware attack vectors were down considerably.) I have also seen Microsoft recommend deferred updates on production servers. Windows 10 Pro can also turn off auto updates with the local Group Policy Editor.

I also did not update Virtualbox until required by a needed new feature or bug resolution. This kept things flowing well. A late-numbered 6.0.x or 5.2.x, but not the last one or two, might be a good place to start.

Re the SAN, if it shows as a typical network resource, Virtualbox should be able to access it. See Virtualbox Networks: In Pictures