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

[Mogens Valentin <mogensv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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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