[CentOS] OT: Why VM?

[Digimer]

On 05/27/2011 02:33 PM, James B. Byrne wrote:
> I have been working off and on with Xen and KVM on a couple of test
> hosts for that past year or so and while now everything seems to
> function as expected, more or less, I find myself asking the
> question: Why?
>
> We run our own servers at our own sites for our own purposes.  We do
> not, with a few small exceptions, host alien domains.  So, while
> rapidly provisioning or dynamically expanding a client's vm might be
> very attractive to a public hosting provider that is not our
> business model at all.
>
> Why would a small company not in the public hosting business choose
> to employ VM technology?  What are the benefits over operating
> several individual small form factor servers or blades instead?  I
> am curious because what I can find on the net respecting VM use
> cases, outside of for public providers or application testing, seems
> to me mostly puff and smoke.
>
> This might be considered OT but since CentOS is what we use it seems
> to me best that I ask here to start.

Live migration between physical hosts. Also, ease of recovery in the 
event of a failure. Can move the VM to entirely new hardware when the 
old hardware is no longer powerful enough... etc.

-- 
Digimer
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