Web Server Wars: Rise of the Virtual Machines - Our Review of Oracle's Virtual Box

Web Server Build: Test 1 - Oracle's Virtual Box

The first thing we noticed when setting up Oracle's Virtual Box on our Windows 10 Pro machine was the wide range of plugins they offer and various configurations as soon as you begin the installation process. We were able to select any of the following options to include in the install. The space required for the install is 171 MB, with all of the subfeatures requiring less than 1 add'l MB of space...so the application does take up a fair amount of space.

Step 1: Selecting relevant subfeatures included with the Virtual Box Installation

The USB Support will be handy in case we want to install/backup anything to a thumb drive.

We'll need the Bridged Networking option to make our virtual network cards accessible from other devices on the network (specifically, to communicate w/ the router so our web traffic knows where to go)

The Python feature is intended to be used with the Virtual Box API, and is primarily meant for developers, so we'll remove that install option.

Step 2: Select an installation location on your hard drive

We created a folder on our C: drive called 'Test' with the directory 'Virtual Box' inside. We installed each VM in the same Test folder on the same SSD drives to maintain congruency between tests.