[nflug] Virtualization
Cyber Source
peter at thecybersource.com
Mon Dec 15 15:40:11 EST 2008
glad to have helped, delve in, you'll be glad you did.
Brad Bartram wrote:
> Thanks Pete - good insights. It's what I'm looking for.
>
> On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 3:10 PM, Cyber Source
> <peter at thecybersource.com <mailto:peter at thecybersource.com>> wrote:
>
> 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>
> <mailto: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>
> <mailto: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>
> <mailto: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> <mailto: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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