Building a virtual machine testbed is an important part of any application testing or development work. Testbeds not only determine how an application performs, but also how it fits in an enterprise's overall IT environment. Money may be tight in these difficult economic times, but building such a testbed does not have to be an expensive proposition. eWEEK Labs was able to build a testbed of an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server and a VMware ESXI virtualization instance using a combination of free software and some hardware found here and there.
For application developers and IT administrators, virtual testbeds are
crucial tools in determining how applications perform and how well they will
fit within an enterprise's IT environment. Building such a testbed doesn't have
to cost a lot of money, a key concern at a time when IT budgets are taking a
hit while demand on IT continues to grow. I set about to build a virtual testbed
out of free software and legacy hardware in the Labs.
The following are the steps I took to build an OpenFiler iSCSI NAS server
and a VMware ESXi bare metal virtualization instance. Click on each of the
steps for a slide show illustrating the process in more detail.
1. The first step was
finding
the hardware and figuring out the layout. Again, all that was used here was
hardware found around the lab. Using this and adding a SATA RAID controller and
some USB sticks, I put together an iSCSI NAS
device and a management workstation. I also used a host of free software.
2. Next came
installing
OpenFiler from formatting to setting the password, and making sure it
could be managed via a Web browser.
3. The third part was
configuring
OpenFiler to get it ready to work with VMware ESXi.
4. Next came
installing
ESXi onto a USB flash drive, a process
that should take about 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
5. Finally, I
configured
ESXi to get the testbed up and running.
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