virtualbox.org

Hey all,

Long time (5 months) user, first time caller.

I have the opportunity at work to research a cheaper solution to using Vmware. I've used Virtual box at home just to fiddle around with, installing both windows and linux OS's. But I'm wondering if this is something I can bring to the work place to satisfy a problem that may require 20+VM's. So a couple questions if you don't mind.

* I know that VB can allow 'remote' connections, but when we are talking 20+ should I be worried? Will I need more than 4 machines to accommodate? (simple windows installs nothing fancy here)
* Is there a version of VB that doesn't require the overhead of a 'operating' OS? (command line install/setup)
* Will I need to have more than one network card to allow this amount of connections or will multicast do the trick?
* How beefy should the machines be to allow 4 to 5 VM's to run at once? (3.2quad core 16gigs of ram a piece will work?)

I'm sure you've all answered these questions before, and yes I'm a nubblet, but if i can use this as a free solution, I might get some free coupons to smörgåsbord! (all i can eat soft serve!)

No one can answer this questions without knowing details about the guests.

Except one question: An Host OS is always needed.

Define Guest... (my inexperience shows even more)

Do you mean what OS will the client machines be using? We are all using windows 7 professional. I'm going to assume we are going to use win server 2003 for the Host, since we have a few boxes laying around.