Within the overview of the host, you are able to see the utilization of the phyiscal server. How much Processor and how much RAM the overall system is using. From there, should you need to, you can adjust accordingly to help increase or decrease the performance of the server to better allow the server to run.
This can be done by managing the overall allocated memory to the server as shown previously on Page 1 or by adjusting the amount of CPU's each virtual host is using and how the amount of RAM, Video RAM, Sound ouput and so forth as shown below. There are many options available within the Management console to help ensure that both the hosts pysical environment and virtual server environments never run out of control.
In order to get a better sense of the utilization of the each invidividual virtual server running on top of the system, you can look at its overview. This overview will show you the basics you need to know about the server before you go indepth and manage more advanced options of the virtual host.
The basic overview shows you how many CPU's you have given the environment, much RAM you have allocated to it, the size of the virtual hard disk you have created, how its networking is configured and so forth.
A quick overview of this area can allow you to see if you need to make adjustments to the environment you are looking at. If so, the best way to do this is to find a time to stop the virtual environment to make the changes as many changes that need to me made must be done while the environment is frozen.
Above left, you can see the CPU options. Depending on the type of server the Parallels server has been installed on you will have a number of CPUs to work with. They are either 2,4, or 8 CPUS. You are able to allocated the number of total cores you would like to give your servers virtual server. While allocating all CPU's to a specific set of host(s), it can also greatly reduce the performance of the phyiscal server as well as the virtual hosts as well. The best way to manage these services is to make sure that all servers are spread out evenly for both memory and CPU usage whenever possible. There may be times where a virtual server requires more horse power at this point you can modify its settings to make up for this.
New to the latest version of Parallels server for Mac is the ability to manage snapshots. This feature, which has been available in the desktop version of the software and other more enterprise level solutions for a number of years, has just recently been implemented into version 3.0.
This feature allows you to take a snapshot at a specific interval and will hold onto those backups for any number of days / weeks / months. This is a great way to roll back to an older version of the system in time in case of a software update issue, or the need to work with a previous system to work on a problem.
Things to keep in mind with the Parallels server for Mac, is that it is still not up to the same level of virtualization as other bare metal solutions offered from companies such as Parallels or VMWare. On one side, a large enterprise would never virtualize all their servers on a solution such as this as this solution is not designed to do this.
However, for small, medium, and large companies looking to reduce cost and implement virtual Mac OS X server and other various blends of UNIX / Windows based servers, Parallels Server for Mac offers an advantage in both price point and supported server installations which other VM based solution do not offer. This is the first solution of this type which natively runs on top of Mac OS X based server hardware so all the regular features which administrators are used to having are not there.
While not an enterprise solution, this solution does indeed slide in nicely within an enterprise environment to act as a compliment to virtual clusters and blade servers which are unable to virtualize Apples Mac OS X Server (10.5 and 10.6) platform.
Interested in this type of deployment for your own company or are curious to know more about this solution, give us a call or send us an email today and let us show you how this solution might be the perfect fit for your existing server infrastructure.