[CentOS] Server Virtualization

[Ross S. W. Walker]

Clint Dilks wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I work for a school in a New Zealand university and we are wanting to 
> implement Server Virtualization for both CentOS and Windows 
> systems.  So 
> I thought I would ask here what experience people have had 
> with this and 
> what issues that you all think should be considered?

Irrespective of which virtual server solution you choose be aware that
virtualization brings with it steep storage requirements. Think of
providing around 1TB of RAID10 storage for 20 guests. VMs do lots of
tiny random IOs so for 20 guests split between 2 servers I provide
500GB of RAID10 to each via iSCSI SAN.

>  From my own research it seems that VMWare or Xen are really the two 
> major products to be considered, are there any others I should be 
> considering ?

Not really.

> Is anyone running Linux "Guest" O/S's inside a Windows host 
> ??  And if 
> so can you share your reasons for this?

I do at work so I can prototype some Linux stuff on my Windows box.

> Anyway thank you for your time and any experiences / 
> knowledge you are 
> willing to share :)

I would try both VMware server and Xen on CentOS, if you have 2 servers
set them up side by side and plugged into your storage SAN. Run them
through their paces, do some benchmarks get a feel for ease of use and
maintenance.

When your ready and have a budget you can move up to the commercial
versions, ESX and Xen Enterprise.

-Ross

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