In a situation where you need to simulate and test how couple of computers running different operating system will work together in a network, it is practically impossible to do it with real physical machines. It not only expensive but also not suitable when you are the at the first stage.
VMware Workstation includes a feature for this kind of scenario called as Team which allows you to bring any number of virtual machines to work together in one network like it is implemented in real world. For example you may :
- Want one machine to act as server with Active Directory Setup.
- Second machine can be simple Windows 7 Machine.
- A third machine to implement another server which is in the same domain.
To do this VMware Team concept helps you adding existing VM to form a team connected by one or more than one network adapter over a bridged, NAT or Host only conditions.
Steps to create virtual team :
- Launch the VMware work station.
- Either from Team menu or from the Home Screen look for options which says New Team.
- Set the location of the team. This will not take much of space.
- Add Virtual machines to this which you can browse and add. In case you do not have you can create right from here.
- Add one or more lan segment. Remember you will not be able to add any IP address here, it is just like your physical adapter to connect all of them.
- Next screen you can decide which type of networking you want to do i.e. Birdged, NAT etc.
- Save and you are done.
The biggest advantage of this method is you can boot all the computer at the same time which saves a lot of time and you can do a shutdown also. In case you are running out of space, create a linked clone of VM.
Done this your team is ready with virtual machine required to work together. Now you will need to boot all of them and configure IP settings to work as team.
