Open source, cross-platform, virtualization software that enables developers to deliver code faster by running multiple operating systems on a single device, used to deploy applications on-premises and to the cloud. Oracle VM VIrtualBox is Oracle's cross-platform virtualization offering, acquired with Sun Microsystems in early 2010. The software was originally developed by Innotek GmbH.
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Windows Server Failover Clustering
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) is a group of independent servers that work together to increase application and service availability.
It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.
Windows ServerFailover Clustering works very well for applications that can sustain a short disconnect when failing over. It works, and works well, in providing single-node applications HA, meaning an active/passive setup. It is not a load balancing solution. Use NLB for that. Another area that it works well is when used in combination with Hyper-V. We set our Hyper-V hosts up as clusters, and those clusters also host clusters for SQL Server and other enterprise class applications like BMC's Control-M/Enterprise and Control-M/Server.
Live Migration of VMs between hosts. If you have sufficient network bandwidth, it is fast and I never had a failed live migration break the VM or kill it. Worst case is the live migration will fail (not enough RAM for example) but the VM always stayed up.
Windows Server Failover Clustering enables Scaleout Storage, which is probably the coolest feature Microsoft has to offer at this moment. It gives you Active-Active SMB file shares which can now be used by most Microsoft Services like MS SQL, Hyper-V, etc. and clients if Windows 8+
Cluster Validation is really complete and easy to understand. The validation gives you comprehensive error messages that help to diagnose and fix rapidly to get your Failover Cluster running in no time.
I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots).
Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things.
The setup of the Windows Server Failover Clustering is complex, requiring different networks and multiple network cards.
Better integration between the Windows Failover clustering and Hyper-V. Unlike VMWare you have to make changes to two places instead of just one panel.
I wish there was a web portal to manage the cluster. Instead you have to remote desktop into the VIP address and go to the Cluster manager.
It has proven its value to us both for maintaining SLAs and providing the ability to perform much needed and regular systems maintenance without taking applications offline for more than a few seconds.
Easy and quick to use. Runs at sufficient speed even with 5/6 VMs running, and can handle a bridged network with ease. Easy to disassociate from the host to ensure the environment built within VB is quarantined should anything happen, meaning no risk to physical hardware. Quick to pick up. Quick to add new machines. Cloning feature very quick and comprehensive. I've never had a VM crash or freeze.
Usability of Failover Clustering on Windows Server is generally good. Failover Clustering console is not hard to understand if the complexity of the product is taken into account. Most of the task on the Cluster can be done via PowerShell, so automation is possible and not hard (PowerShell is very intuitive). Configuring storage is the hardest and most confusing task during cluster configuration, so storage configuration should be planned in advance. Cluster Validation Wizard is verbose but most of the errors are easy to understand.
Online documentation is excellent. Everything I needed to know, I learned from the online documentation. I haven't used phone support as I haven't needed to but would presume it is similar to Microsoft Support for other products that I've used. Phone support from Microsoft is hit and miss. It depends on who you get. That said, my rating is based on the online documentation.
VirutalBox is very similar to using Vmware with the slight difference in appearance and what might be considered a less polished look. However, what it lacks in polish and looks it makes up for in functionality, easy of use and the wide range of operating systems and features it supports without the need of buying the full professional edition
Both VMware and Microsoft Failover do the job and they both do it extremely well. For many bussiness and environments though, they will have the existing investment in a Microsoft environment and Microsoft infrastructure. The introduction of VMware will or may achieve the end result however it introduces new dimensions like support, licensing, documentation and ensuring the support team are trained.
The only problem I have found is that the deployment is dependent and intrinsically linked to the Host OS. This is different from bare metal solutions which remove that dependency on a Host OS. The latter is more reliable and removes a layer of potential failure.
For personal use, there is no monetary investment, I am running 5 CentOS servers flawlessly in my home lab.
Saves a ton of money in an enterprise environment by not having to purchase physical test servers. (Cost of Enterprise product is way lower vs Cost of standing up physical servers and/or cloud servers)
Makes virtualization very easy and friendly for everyone for test instances.
Failover Cluster gives us the power to do updates or hardware upgrade / change without having to create an outage. Which permit us not to work night shifts.
By creating one cluster with all Hyper-V servers, it enabled us to move VMs via live migration between host to balance RAM usage which was time consuming and took a lot of time over network before.
It created some problems that caused us to have to investigate quite some time before finding the cause. We encountered dll locking that caused the Failover Cluster to force-restart a host. Logs are really not the strong point of Failover Cluster Manager, and even Microsoft Support wasn't able to help much. We had to find the problem ourself.
