Virtualization choice on Intel NUC
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I just bought one of Intel NUC. I'm looking at different hypervisor options on that box. Here's what I require:
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management from OS X - other systems are not an option, I only have iMac, and I don't plan to buy/virtualize/bootcamp any other system
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Adtran vwlan must run on it - I know it runs on Esxi, and I currently have it on Virtualbox, someone got it to work on KVM too, does anybody have any experience with it on other hypervisors?
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free backups - Unitrends have free option for Esxi and Hyper-V, anyone knows if it works on Xen or KVM?
I'm going to throw a few Linux VMs on it, that's basically all it's going to run. So considering all my requirements, is Esxi with Vmware Fusion my only option?
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One of these?
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Yes, this exact model:
https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/nuc-kit-nuc5i5ryh.html -
@marcinozga well capped at 16GB of RAM I think you can do all of that purely from a hardware perspective. Those little boxes are pretty cool! I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to go over the hypervisor stuff.
http://ark.intel.com/products/84984/Intel-Core-i5-5250U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-2_70-GHz
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There's a way to fit 32GB RAM into these boxes, but the memory cost more that the NUC box
http://www.amazon.com/IM-Intelligent-Memory-SODIMM-IMM2G72D3LSOD8AG-B15E/dp/B00UM9ULBW
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Blatant "restrictions" like not using bootcamp or a VM means you are limited to command line for pretty much everything.
XenServer will obviously be the easiest because you can natively use SSH to get in from your Mac console and manage everything.
VMWare can also have SSH enabled, but it is not by default.
Hyper-V will be the odd one out here, but Microsoft does offer a RDP client for Mac. I do not know if it will work with Hyper-V server or not, but Hyper-V server can have remote desktop enabled easily enough. Still it is all command line once logged in to the RDP session, because Hyper-V server only has command line.
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@marcinozga said:
- free backups - Unitrends have free option for Esxi and Hyper-V, anyone knows if it works on Xen or KVM?
Unitrends and Veeam free only work on HyperV for free and only on ESXi when ESXi is expensive. Xen can take its own backups.
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@marcinozga said:
I'm going to throw a few Linux VMs on it, that's basically all it's going to run. So considering all my requirements, is Esxi with Vmware Fusion my only option?
I can't think of any scenario where Fusion would be an only option. That's a Type 2 hypervisor.
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If you have VirtualBox working, why would you consider Fusion? If you are going to use a Type 2, VirtualBox is the one to use. But I really doubt you want a type 2.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
- free backups - Unitrends have free option for Esxi and Hyper-V, anyone knows if it works on Xen or KVM?
Unitrends and Veeam free only work on HyperV for free and only on ESXi when ESXi is expensive. Xen can take its own backups.
Veeam is windows only (installation) so no go. Unitrends does agent based backups on free Esxi.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@marcinozga said:
I'm going to throw a few Linux VMs on it, that's basically all it's going to run. So considering all my requirements, is Esxi with Vmware Fusion my only option?
I can't think of any scenario where Fusion would be an only option. That's a Type 2 hypervisor.
Fusion to manage Esxi, not to use it as hypervisor. That's the only option on OS X, and with 40% discount (I own Parallels license - VMware has deals for "converts") it would cost me $120.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you have VirtualBox working, why would you consider Fusion? If you are going to use a Type 2, VirtualBox is the one to use. But I really doubt you want a type 2.
I want to get rid of Virtualbox, that's why I bought NUC. There are few additional apps I have running on Mac, that I need running all the time, on something that's more electric bill friendly.
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@JaredBusch said:
Blatant "restrictions" like not using bootcamp or a VM means you are limited to command line for pretty much everything.
XenServer will obviously be the easiest because you can natively use SSH to get in from your Mac console and manage everything.
VMWare can also have SSH enabled, but it is not by default.
Hyper-V will be the odd one out here, but Microsoft does offer a RDP client for Mac. I do not know if it will work with Hyper-V server or not, but Hyper-V server can have remote desktop enabled easily enough. Still it is all command line once logged in to the RDP session, because Hyper-V server only has command line.
I don't want to fire up a VM or reboot entire computer every time I need to do something with VM host.
There are some GUI management tools for Xen and KVM for OS X, but the biggest limitation is Adtran vwlan. It's officially supported only on Esxi, but there are reports of it running on KVM, and it runs on Virtualbox, but I don't want type 2 hypervisor. -
@marcinozga Spin up XenServer on your NUC and then try to get adTran going on it. If it works, great! If not, switch to another Hypervisor.
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@dafyre said:
@marcinozga Spin up XenServer on your NUC and then try to get adTran going on it. If it works, great! If not, switch to another Hypervisor.
That's what I'm probably going to do.
