Virtual Server Solution and OS

[Victor Mendonça]

Greetings!

I will be implementing a virtual sever solution at work and I'm trying
to get as many facts as possible for the best setup. 

We want to setup a server at our support department to host a minimum of
8x Windows machines running simultaneously (ranging from XP up,
including server, 32 and 64-bit). Some of these machines might run MSSQL
which will increase the overhead, however they will be used for testing
and bug replication only, so there is no need for them to be lightning
fast. 

The department could grow and the number of virtual machines might
increase in the future (let's say 3x additional machines).

There's also a need for backup, user management and remote management.
Costs need to be kept as low as possible, while still providing a good
and acceptable performance. Also, the company does not have a formal
Linux guy, so they might need to outsource support if I ever leave the
company.

I've been doing some research on the following OS's and Virtual Server
solutions, including cost, support, usability and other aspects:


=> OS
-CentOS
-Ubuntu
-Suse
-Open Suse
-Open Solaris

=> Virtual Severs
-Vmware Server
-Vmware ESXi
-VirtualBox
-Xen
-KVM


My choices are going for VMware ESXi and either CentOS or OpenSuse (even
thou I'm an Ubuntu guy). 

Any ideas and/or comments are very welcome!

-- 

Victor Mendonça
http://wazem.org

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