I don't think you can do it the way you suggest anyway. You want to run win2k8 as main system on the server with one of the EBS roles, then run VMware server under that server and have the other 2 EBS servers run as VMs? A standard 2k8 server won't take up those EBS roles, you'd have to install EBS server itself for that.
What works and what I've tested is running 2k8 server with Hyper-V and installing the 3 EBS servers under that. I wasn't too happy with the performance and features, so I also tried another version which also works:
Installed a 64bit Linux OS as base, and under that VMware Server, and then the EBS servers as VM's in that. This works well as the Linux OS doesn't eat up as many resources as win2k8 does.
Even better was running ESXi as base OS and the servers under that as VM's. This gave me the best performance. The only issue I had there was that ESXi server doesn't provide the Webbased management console that VMware server does, and I prefer using a webbased UI as then I can access the VM's easily and manage them from any Linux PC.
Another option would be using ESX which includes the Web UI, but isn't free.
And a further option that would work is to install w2k8 core on your server, and not the complete grafical windows stuff. Under that you could install hyper-v and run your EBS servers, but you'd have to learn how to use the w2k8 core commands.
Generally the best configuration performance wise would be using VMware's ESX.
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by: leewPosted on 2009-05-14 at 20:54:30ID: 24392152
This is unwise. You should not be doing this with VMWare server. Performance will not be anywhere NEAR where is should be. HyperV will be MUCH faster - as will VMWare ESXi (which is not "VMWare Server" and must be installed on bare metal). Performance differences between HyperV and ESXi are fairly minimal - though ESXi supports RAM sharing - apparently that works fine since so many people do use it, but I'm still concerned about it.
EBS supports virtualization scenarios where ALL or SOME servers are put in Virtual Machines. I do not believe it supports running Virtualization AND one of the roles on the same hardware... either virtualize them all on the same piece of hardware (which ESXi would do and HyperV COULD do using a Server Core install with HyperV only), or use a second physical server for one of the roles.
I'd suggest reviewing links on EBS and virtualization:
http://go.microsoft.com/fw
http://blogs.technet.com/n
(NOTE: In general, the HyperV advice should hold for ESXi - not so much for VMWare Server).