virtualbox.org

Forgive my green questions-- essentially I have a feeling Virtual Box is a good solution for me-- I may be wrong... or at least in over my head.

The gist is I need to run a piece of database software (Maxwell Pro Contractor ) which requires a specific OS (I have a few choices--MS server 2003, 2008 or 2011). This software also wants the full MS SQL Server and I would have 10-15 users at other machines then log into Maxwell Server instance with Maxwell Client software to use the SQL database (and our compute demands are not large). This is a small, yet complex, accounting program.

Concerns are these-- I have an old machine (~2001 P4, 4GB max) i'd like to get this setup running on (like in the next day or two)-- and in the near future i'd like to move the guest MS Server VM to a better hardware (xeon, 16GB)-- and perhaps on another host OS (Windows to Linux). Is it as easy as I have read? Or will I run into substantial configuration barriers changing Host OSs and hardware...?

My thinking:

Install Win 7 64bit as a host on the old Pentium 4--- then install Virtual Box, install the MS Server guest from an ISO, then install the accounting program... get my clients networked to the Guest VM server... and get to work.

And as time warrants-- purchase and setup new hardware and Host OS -- finally migrating the Guest VM server to the new hardware.

Speaking generally-- I find the idea of VM separating the OS from the Hardware very attractive-- hardware fails and drives quit-- i'd like to be able to shuffle servers as I need. Am I way off target? Do I just install MS Server on the old P4 and call it good?

That question is the easiest and also the hardest question you could ask.

Short answer : yes you should be able to, following regular P2V (physical to virtual) procedures.
Long answer : Many many things you are going to have to look out for. What will be your nemesis is the lack of portability of Windows (by design) and the lovely MSSQL DB running in it.

Once you got your P2V successfull, you're free to move your VM anywhere you want, as long as you stay in the same kind of CPU, the only part that is not virtualized.

I think I follow-- and thank you for your insight.

P2V is (surprise) new to me, so--> wiki "P2V procedure" --> virtualbox org/wiki/Migrate_Windows-- And there I am reading yet another resource of which I was ignorant.

Am I correct in assuming that you mean the MS Server and SQL database were installed on a physical machine? My post intended to convey that I would install the MS server as a guest VM on the Win7x64 host on the old P4 hardware. And then moving the VM to another host machine at some future date.

Either way-- this is all very good reading for me. Thanks again.

I was under the impression you already had a machine running with this, and you wanted to migrate that into a VM, but I guess I was wrong

If you do not have such machine yet, but want to get started directly in a VM, no need of P2V or the likes. And yes, you should be fine moving the VM with minimum issues.

Minimum issues... except that an old P4 will probably make a crappy VM platform, especially under Win7-64bit: single core, no VT-x, probably not an amazing amount of RAM or disk space either. You'd probably be better off installing from scratch in a VM on the new host.

"minimum issues..."

Wow, mpack, good catch. I had completely forgotten the details about the P4. Well-- I suppose i'll build a server this weekend.

And another broad question about my design. I understand from the manual the Virtual Box uses a standard architecture to store the VM guest on the hard disc. How does partition type of the Host system affect this?

Can I move a NTFS stored VM to a eft3 linux partition and vice versa? I'm sure i'm missing some major points here-- i'll keep reading.

You can yes, but the paths within the config file will change, so you'll have some modification to do.

Like any application, VirtualBox has a preferred folder structure for files. I would suggest that you stick with the default folder hierarchy until you have more experience.

The VirtualBox files are just files, so the partition type of the host is not important provided it can accomodate large files.