VMware Workstation helps organizations deploy many applications and operating system workloads on a single server. Thus, it helps in better resource management. The workstation is an efficient and advisable solution for local desktop virtualization as it lets you securely run an additional operating system as a VM on a single computer.
What Are VMware and Virtualization?
- In simple terms, VMware builds virtualization software
- Virtualization software generates an abstraction layer over computer hardware
- This layer allows the hardware elements (like RAM, memory, storage, and more) to be categorized into multiple virtual machines
What is a Hypervisor?
- A virtual machine (VM) is an isolated computing environment or software that allows users to operate applications on an operating system via a physical machine
- Each application consists of separate libraries and a guest OS. As shown in the diagram above, the hypervisor comes beneath the virtual machine. So what is a Hypervisor?
- A Hypervisor is a firmware that builds and runs virtual machines
- Every hypervisor consists of two types:
- Type 1 hypervisors are HyperKit for MacOS, Hyper-V for Windows, and KVM for Linux
- Type 2 hypervisors are VirtualBox and VMWare
Use of Hypervisor:
Consider an example where you want to run 2 apps on your server in total isolation. This process would require 2 guest operating systems, which are controlled by a hypervisor.
Benefits of Hypervisor
Some of the most common benefits of the hypervisor are:
- Cost-efficiency
- Flexibility
- Portability
- Easy setup and maintenance
- Better resource allocation
How Components of Virtualization Work?
CPU
- When a developer installs a hypervisor in a machine, you abstract each CPU into the virtual CPU
- This allows multiple VMs to share a processor core
- In simple words, hypervisor typically assigns one workload per CPU
Memory
- In simple words, virtual memory is the RAM of a computer machine
- The virtual machine settings show how much of the host's memory is allocated to the virtual machine
- The memory size shows how much memory is available to the application available in the virtual machine
- With this resource, a developer can add and modify the virtual machine capacity
Storage
- In virtualization, the storage component is the data cluster from multiple network storage devices
- It manages the storage components from a central console
- You can assign required storage to virtual machines manually
- The extensions on the end of a file are:
- VDI
- VHDX
- VMDK
- HDD
Note: However, different hypervisors like to use different file types.
Demo - Installing, Creating, and Duplicating VMware Workstation
VMware provides the facility to run on multiple workstations. It encourages an individual to create, test, and run software on the same system with minimum configuration requirements.
In the demo, we will look at the following:
- Installing VMware Workstation Player
- Creating a VM with VMware Workstation
- Duplicating a VM Using VMware Workstation
Installing VMware Workstation Player
Link to download VMware player: https://www.vmware.com/products/player/playerpro-evaluation.html
Step 1 − Go to the website and select "Download Now"
Step 2 − Once you download the file → double click on "Next"
Step 3 − Then, a window will pop up for setup; read the following instructions → Click "Next"
Step 4 − To proceed further, tick the box "I accept the terms in the license agreement" → Click on "Next"
Step 5 − Again, select the "Next" button
Step 6 − Click on "Finish"
Congratulations, you have successfully installed the player.
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Creating a VM With VMware Workstation
To create a VM, follow the steps given below.
Step 1 − First, click on "Player" → File → New Virtual Machine
Step 2 − A table will pop up requesting you to find a "Boot disk," "Boot Image," or to install OS at a later stage.
In this case, you should select the second option and proceed by selecting the "Browse" option. Later, you should choose the ISO image that you want to install. Once the process is complete, click on "Next".
Step 3 − In this case, proceed with the Windows Server 2012 installation. Suppose you want to activate the noncommercial version of windows, click on "Next"
Step 4 − Now, enter the required size for your virtual hard disk within the "Maximum size disk" dialog box. Then click on "Next"
Step 5 − Select the "Finish" option
Network Setting With VMware Workstation
Step 1 - To set up the networking modes of a virtual machine in a VMware, click on the "Edit virtual machine settings".
Step 2 - Once you select edit, it will display a window on the left-hand-side panel. In that, select the "Network Adaptor" option.
Step 3 - After this, if you want to scale down the bandwidth usage of a virtual machine, click on the "Advanced" option and set the incoming and outgoing bandwidths accordingly.
Duplicating a VM Using VMware Workstation
To create duplicates of VM machines, you should use VMware Commercial Version.
Start with the process by following the instructions below.
Step 1 − First, open the VMware managing console and right-click on a VM you want to duplicate. Click on "Manage -> Clone," it will direct you to a new window
Step 2 − Now, click on “Next -> create full clone -> Next”
Step 3 − Enter a name for the clone and select "Finish"
Note: Once the cloning process is complete, it creates a duplicate VM.
Final Thoughts
With that, you have concluded the VMware Workstation tutorial. Here, you learned the need for VMware, and what VMware and Virtualization are. You also looked into what hypervisor is, the benefits of hypervisor, and finally saw how components of virtualization work.
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If you have any questions for us? You can anytime let us know by dropping a message in the comments section of this tutorial; our VMware experts will help you with them as soon as possible. To learn more, watch the following video:
