[nflug] Virtualization
Cyber Source
peter at thecybersource.com
Mon Dec 15 15:10:19 EST 2008
virtualization just plain rocks, end of.
Why? Lets see.
1. Hardware transparency! No need for whether you have kernel modules
loaded, latest drivers, etc.. Can take a windows vm from box to box and
the hardware does not change cause its virtual.
2. Nice way to keep old stuff running. I have my old phpaga (great app)
which does all my invoicing, is php4 based with mysql, pear and a bunch
of other things. This thing was a COMPLETE pain in the ass to install
and after becoming somewhat proficient in vm's, I suggested to the
developer, why not make a vm out of an install, this way all you need to
do is setup a new database. I took my old FC4 box and made a vm out of
it, just for my invoicing app. Which I run on what I call my application
server, which fires up and shuts down the vm via crons and does backups
as well.
3. snapshots. wanna make a change and not sure of the ramifications?
take a quick one second snapshot (with extremely small footprint) that
if the change was not good, can revert the snapshot in seconds right
back to where you originally were.
4. backups. tar em up.
5. read-only (see below)
on and on, the experienced can see the possibilities unfolding. I just
bid on a job where it will be to take 11 old ass hodge podge (like 6
different distros and windows) and create 1 thin client server and 1
virtual machine server (running the free vmware server). This wall in
one whack, all workstations still running ancient hardware will be
upgraded and running the latest and greatest ubuntu and then from within
the thin client, the will access their windows xp vm's via terminal
service under their ubuntu desktops. no ups's needed, they can only log
off windows (which are read-only too, data gets written to network
shares (samba) that get scanned nightly from clam under the Linux samba
shares. windows is read-only itself, no need for anti-virus).
Sorry for the babble, just busy but wanted to chime in.
Brad Bartram wrote:
> I'm not too worried about the equipment working. It's only used at
> certain points in the workflow and that would be eliminated by
> centralizing.
>
> I deal with a lot of front end data processing - (between .25 - 2TB at
> a go) - which is analyzed by the users individually. Storing that
> amount of data is a beast and is especially so when Oracle is
> involved. So, by processing the data on a big server-class machine
> with lots and lots of RAM and fast disk access to both the storage
> side and the database would be a great step in increasing productivity
> and efficiency. Virtualizing the workstation environment makes sense
> to me since the front end is pretty light once the processing is done.
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 2:32 PM, Justin Elze <formulals1 at gmail.com
> <mailto:formulals1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Connecting from thin clients to the VMs via terminal services or
> citrix assume?
>
> My only fear would be whatever specialized equipment your running
> working over terminal services....I work with a customer who runs
> a custom app written foxpro for dos....regardless we created a
> number of VMs from a base image and all of their employees use
> older machines and terminal services to connect works very well.
>
> Obviously this isn't a good metric but I have a few dual quad core
> machines with 26gb of ram running 20+ virtual
> machines....obviously a lot of these VMs are low load but
> performance is great....also saves room/power consumption in the
> datacenter.
>
> Having the ability to clone VMs and quickly bring up new machines
> is great for testing/dev enviroments is a huge benifit of
> virtualiaztion.
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 2:23 PM, Brad Bartram
> <brad.bartram at gmail.com <mailto:brad.bartram at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I actually have a couple of different applications I'm toying
> with right now.
>
> For the first one, I'm looking at running a windows based
> application for multiple users. I can't get into too much
> detail for various reasons but it's a traditional client /
> server app with an oracle backend. Under the current
> configuration, I have quite a few front end machines at the
> user's desks with each machine being about $10,000. The
> problem is that the machines aren't that powerful - they just
> have some specialized equipment connected to them.
>
> Ideally, I want to take those machines off the user's desks -
> consolidate the hardware in the data center and virtualize the
> user's environment allowing them to connect via a thin
> client. This is very, very simplified - but it's the gist of
> what I'm thinking.
>
> The second application would be the distribution of resources
> in a web services environment. This would be a linux
> environment and would be a LAMP (or in my case LAPP - the
> first P being postgres) setup. Just trying to get the most
> bang for my buck I guess.
>
> Brad
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 2:10 PM, Justin Elze
> <formulals1 at gmail.com <mailto:formulals1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Are you leaning towards VMWare or Xenserver?
>
> Currently I run a number of Xenserver deployments running
> on HP C class blades and using HP MSA1500 SANs for shared
> storage this allows for xenmotion(moving VMs between
> physical servers with no downtime). Overall I have been
> very happy with Xenserver I have been using it since
> release 4.0 and it has come a huge way in the past year to
> the current version 5.0.
>
> Xenserver makes it very easy to vlan tag interfaces on VMs
> giving you the ability to host multiple customers on the
> same hardware and keep them unaware of each other.
>
> One of Xenservers short comes when you virtualize all the
> servers at a SMB is tradionally backups were done with a
> directly attached tape back up and there is no provision
> in xenserver for it.
>
> What kind of enviroment are you looking to virtualize? I
> could probably give more appropriate advice/suggestions
> knowing that.
>
> Justin Elze
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 1:41 PM, Brad Bartram
> <brad.bartram at gmail.com <mailto:brad.bartram at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> I'm interested in this whole virtualization of servers
> and services trend that's been on going for quite a
> while. I've worked with it on workstations and in the
> traditional host - guest configurations to gain access
> to non-native applications - you know, user-level
> stuff. I'm interested in it on the server side of
> things though. I've read the marketing propaganda and
> seen the vendor white papers and all the trade
> news-vertisements, but I'm interested in hearing some
> real world opinions.
>
> I know some of you have opinions on it. So what's the
> good, the bad, the shortcomings, and the strengths?
> Are there any things I should look out for or things I
> should consider in planning out hardware purchases and
> such?
>
> Thanks
>
> Brad
>
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