[CentOS] OT: Recommendations for a virtual storage server

[James A. Peltier]

----- Original Message -----
| ----- Original Message -----
| | On 1/28/2011 3:55 AM, carlopmart wrote:
| | > Hi all,
| | >
| | >    I need to install a virtual machine acting as a virtual storage
| | >    server under
| | > CentOS 5.x (using kvm, xen, virtualbox or vmware). This virtual
| | > storage machine
| | > needs to server storage to another ESXi server and at the same
| | > time
| | > to the host
| | > where is installed.
| | >
| | >    This is due to the limitations of hardware I have available.
| | >    Both
| | >    hosts needs to
| | > server several machines.
| | >
| | >    It is very important that the virtual machine consumes the
| | >    least
| | >    resources
| | > possible (host has 5GB RAM and i need to run three virtual
| | > machines
| | > minimum,
| | > including this storage server as a virtual machine).
| |
| | What's the point of adding an extra virtual layer compared to an nfs
| | or
| | iscsi share from the host (nfs if it is shared, iscsi if it is the
| | VM
| | image store)? This seems like it would be more efficient if you run
| | exsi on the hardware with centos and the others as guests anyway.
| |
| | --
| | Les Mikesell
| | lesmikesell at gmail.com
| | _______________________________________________
| | CentOS mailing list
| | CentOS at centos.org
| | http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
| 
| There are some advantages that I can see in that if your hardware dies
| you can migrate the entire host and disks over to another VMWare
| hosts.
| 
| If your NFS host is not H/A a loss of the host would take down the
| virtual machines too. Additionally, virtualization offers the ability
| to migrate the VM and disk to newer hardware somewhat transparently
| allowing you to take advantage of the latest/greatest/buggy tech.
| 
| Just my 2c ;)
| 
| --
| James A. Peltier
| IT Services - Research Computing Group
| Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
| Phone : 778-782-6573
| Fax : 778-782-3045
| E-Mail : jpeltier at sfu.ca
| Website : http://www.sfu.ca/itservices
| http://blogs.sfu.ca/people/jpeltier
| 
| 
| _______________________________________________
| CentOS mailing list
| CentOS at centos.org
| http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos


I should add though that you will likely see a rather large performance penalty on the I/O side

-- 
James A. Peltier
IT Services - Research Computing Group
Simon Fraser University - Burnaby Campus
Phone   : 778-782-6573
Fax     : 778-782-3045
E-Mail  : jpeltier at sfu.ca
Website : http://www.sfu.ca/itservices
          http://blogs.sfu.ca/people/jpeltier