I have a temporary need to consolidate 2 currently separate servers onto a single machine. I am considering using VMs, but it would be far less work if I could just have 2 different server names point to the same machine.
The services themselves don't overlap, so that is not a concern. One is a file server and the other is a web server.
This is a private, behind-the-firewall scenario, on a primarily Windows network.
It is possible, but it's not like you describe it. You can add a CNAME DNS record, known as an alias. This just points a second name to the original server's DNS name. So the server does not think about itself as being ServerB and ServerA, but DNS clients will find the server's IP address using either name.
You are better off using the name of the file server as the real name of the server (the name that you configure on the server itself) and using an alias for the web-server, because IIS is designed to listen on various DNS addresses. I've had issues with accessing file servers using aliases in the past (see here).
