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Re: [Xen-users] para- and full-virtualization on same system?

To: Kent Watsen <kent@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Xen-users] para- and full-virtualization on same system?
From: Mogens Valentin <mogensv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 13:04:44 +0100
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Kent Watsen wrote:

Can I consolidate all my servers to one machine - here are my current machines:

   1. OpenBSD (used for external services: dns, http, smtp)
   2. OpenBSD (used for internal services: dns, http, smtp, imap, ldap,
      smb, nfs, svn, bugzilla)
   3. OpenSBD (used for upgrading either of the above servers without
      any downtime)
   4. OpenBSD (used as a build/test machine)
   5. FreeBSD (used as a build/test machine)
   6. NetBSD (used as a build/test machine)
   7. RedHat (used as a build/test machine)
   8. CentOS (used as a build/test machine)
   9. SuSE (used as a build/test machine)
  10. Solaris (used as a build/test machine)
  11. Windows (used as a build/test machine)
  12. MacOS X (used as a build/test machine)

Pretty interesting, as this is more or less the exact same situation we're having at my job - building for multiple platforms. We're in the early planning stages on how to solve that scenario, and I've been sysadm for only 1½ month, so a Bit of time's needed ;)
You say build platforms, but don't mention testing.

Our software is OpenGL/3D dependant.
We have two scenarios: Building and testing.
It's mostly for XP, RH, Suse and OSX, + other *nix's to some extend.
We may choose to crosscompile as much as possible from a couple of boxes, and use a virtualized setup for testing. At the moment, I can't see Xen used for testing, due to inappropriate graphics in domU's, so we may have to use vmware, though it's not the fastest.

A few comments:

ad 12: I know OSX can install on a emulated X86, but I don't have personal experiences. I would doubt it's usefullness. At least we're not going to drop our G5 for that :)

ad 11: I'd wait for AMD in june, but still, graphics in Xen?

ad 10: Don't know the status of OpenSolaris on Xen. One domU instance should work, apart from that, dunno.

BSD's: Same as ad 10. AFAIK, all should install in domU, but how well they run, dunno. Would like a refresh in this. Anyone?

Your listing seems to suggest you're basically BSD based.
Planning to use one of the BSD's for dom0?


If you consolidate /all/ your services on one box, you'll create a single point of failure issue for yourself. I would at least use one virtualized box for infrastructure and another for the building.

Having two identical all-in-on boxes with redundancy/failover might be another solution. Might even be used for parallelized builds...
And maybe keep a dedicated Mac.


I'm having a related situation at home. Having stopped freelancing and gotten a good job, I just wan't a single box here. Been looking a Shuttle's lates announcement, an SFF box for AM2, taking 4GB DDR2, using nVidia 51-series chipset.


Might be an idea for us to keep in touch on this.

Notes:

    * The OpenBSD-based servers are RAID-ed
    * There are actually more machines as I run multiple releases of
      each build/test OS...


If it can't be done on one machine, than would either of these 2-machine solutions work:

   1. Partition machines by server vs. build/test
          * one machine has:  1-3 (all para-virtualized)
          * other machine has:  4-12 (5/9 para-virtualized)
   2. Partition machines by para- vs. full-virtualization
          * one machine has: 1-4 and 10-12 (all full-virtualized) [would
            GSX be better?]
          * other machine has: 5-9 (all para-virtualized)


What would you do?

Thanks!
Kent



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--
Kind regards,
Mogens Valentin


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