[CentOS] VMWare GSX Server and CentOS

Ross S. W. Walker

rwalker at medallion.com
Thu Jan 11 05:06:32 UTC 2007


> -----Original Message-----
> From: centos-bounces at centos.org 
> [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of John R Pierce
> Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 11:53 PM
> To: CentOS mailing list
> Subject: Re: [CentOS] VMWare GSX Server and CentOS
> 
> Joshua Gimer wrote:
> > Has anyone had experience (good or bad) with VMWare GSX 
> Server running 
> > CentOS as a VM under high load?
> >
> > Here is the situation. We are planning on rolling out some 
> new boxes 
> > to replace an existing box. Currently this box (Sun V860) 
> is running 
> > web services, database services, mail for students, and is an 
> > instructional box for compiling code, and web scripting among other 
> > things.
> >
> > We are planning on doing one of two things, either using VMWare and 
> > splitting up the services or using Solaris Zones. The 
> box(s) has to be 
> > able to access data stored on the SAN (Fiber Channel HBA's). The 
> > boxes(VM's), or Zones would be split up accordingly:
> >
> > Database box: Oracle, Postgres, and  MySQL
> > Mail: Sendmail, POPS, and IMAPS (roughly 25,000 mailboxes)
> > Web: Apache, PHP, mod_ssl
> > Interactive Logins: Compilers and such.
> >
> > Any information about any experiences with VMWare and CentOS, under 
> > similar load would be helpful. I will probably make this 
> same post on 
> > the Sun Solaris Mailing List, and VMWare's forums. Thanks 
> in advance!
> 
> I dunno, but I'm curious why you want to run so many VMs' or 
> zones?    
> the database/mail/web stuff would probably all run most 
> efficiently in 
> the 'host' OS... I can see some advantages to running student 
> interactive logins in a VM or zone for security isolation.
> 
> 
> its that, or I'd put the infrastructure things (email, school web, 
> school databases) on a dedicated and secure hardware 
> platform, then put 
> all the instructional stuff on a seperate hardware platform.  
>  I don't 
> like having too many eggs in one basket.

I agree keep the infrastructure stuff physically separate from the
student stuff. That said, say a 4 node cluster for infrastructure stuff
running VMs on each node in a scenario where the other nodes can take
over VMs from a failed node. Have them run to Fiber storage or some kind
of SAN and you should be all set.

For student stuff you can run a separate cluster using VMs for different
courses, maybe Vmware, maybe Xen whichever works for you.

CentOS should be able to handle all that very well, it is after all RHEL
and has been tuned for heavy duty workloads.

-Ross

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