VMWare - Use multiple virtual machines?

I was wondering. I am using VMWare in order to setup a linux machine running inventory software. I would also like to use Nagios or Zenoss for monitoring. I noticed that Zenoss can be downloading a pre-made virtual machine. Would it be okay to use serveral different virtual machines or would it be better to install the inventory software and monitoring software on one VM?

Pros VS cons?

I'd go with one rather than having two VMs....you dont want to get in the habit of having too many VMs because then things just look crazy and you're disorganized....at least that's how I felt when I had like 4 VMs and I wanted to keep things organized and have separate functions running on each. The system resources will be used more if you have two VMs performing functions that can be performed on one. And if you're doing this just as an experiment, dont go through the hassle of of setting them up in separate VMs.

Zenoss is pretty simple to setup. The link to it is here: www.zenoss.com/community/docs/install-guides/
You choose your distro and the instructions are specific to it.

I tried to install Pandora FMS about 10 times but the documentation was insane....especially the part about setting up certificates.......i dropped that idea and jumped on Zenoss.

I haven't tried Negios

I personally find it much easier to have separate VMs, as they are so easy to set up. (You just need to have the appropriate storage space!) Also, it makes it easier to prevent conflicts between the different applications under evaluation. As long as the host machine has enough processing power, RAM and disk space, there should be no problems.

Thanks for the information. I only have two at this time. I think I will leave them separate while I evaluate them.

I ran into the same issue..

Start thinking about what should be conbined into one VM early.

There is no reason to have a seporate VM for each and every thing. but you probably should have your NMS on the same instance as you IM server....

TW