RE: [Xen-users] XCP Test workstation

["Brett Westover" <bwestover@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>I got tired of ending up with hardware that costs too much to upgrade (damn 
>you Intel) so now I buy hardware that's cheap enough to replace. The main 
>concern however is you need to think long and hard about your CPU choice 
>because pools like to have the same CPU in them. I like more less powerful 
>cores over less more powerful cores so I'm building a lot of AMD hexicore 
>systems. The new cloud will probably be AMD 8 core boards.

Well I really like that idea, and it serves two purposes for us. It would be a 
shift to a more efficient cost model, and its much more scalable. Now we have 
to fit the purchase to our requirements, and then make entirely separate plans 
when it comes time to upgrade. This model scales from my "cheap and easy" test 
requirements, all the way up to a large production cloud.

One question, when you DO need to upgrade to the next generation of processor, 
does that just become a separate pool? So you're kind of stuck with the CPU 
type you've selected, for that whole pool forever... but then come time to 
build a new cloud, you can make a different choice if you're requirements have 
changed, or the market has moved on whichever comes first. You have to build in 
the redundancy you require to the new cloud, and then do cold migrations of 
your workload to the new cloud. Does that sound right?

Another question, how specific are you willing to get on hardware? I am 
literally looking to build a parts list in the next few days, and I would love 
to swap notes and get your opinion. (anyone's opinion in fact, though it seems 
I'm mostly talking to Grant here).

>"... a local drive that's currently used for nothing much..."
Last question, I'm guessing you slap a single local disk into each server just 
to boot the OS. What are your thoughts on using a flash disk instead? If the OS 
is not particularly write heavy, it would seem that this would save on cooling 
and power. We currently use Debian based "routers" which are really just 
commodity servers with 2 nics and flash disks to boot the OS image. Would XCP 
run well that way, or is it more dependent on its local disk?

Thank you for all your input.

Brett Westover.

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