[CentOS] openfiler (was: using CentOS as an iSCSI server?)

[nate]

Alan McKay wrote:

> Vmotion is a great selling feature of virtualization to win over nay-sayers
> :-)

Oh so OT but I can't resist!

Also can be a good way to kill off prospects of using vmware if
budgets are tight. When people think vmware most of them
instantly think enterprise version and several thousand $ per
CPU. Sort of like when people think Oracle they instantly think
enterprise edition and $40k+ per cpu.

I've been running vmware since 1999 and have never used vmotion
beyond basic eval stuff.

Currently I've got more than 350 VMs running in production and QA
and none of them can do vMotion. Combination of ESX/ESXi and
version 3.5 and version 4.0. In total about 34 servers, 12 of
which are off site(using local storage mentioned earlier), the
rest use fiber channel to a high end storage array.

>From a blog entry I wrote recently -
http://www.techopsguys.com/2009/08/25/cheap-vsphere-installation-managable-by-vcenter/

> However, once I get a quote I'll probably find out I cannot afford it
> anyway.

See..

The core set of vmware features has gone down in price(not taking
into account ESXi) more than 90% in the past two and a half
years. For me and my 350+ VMs thats a steal.

That said I am pushing to go to a advanced version for next year
with new HP cClass blades and 10GbE. But I sold the company on
vmware with the lower end stuff and have made it perform flawlessly
for the past 14 months or so. Now they see the benefits and want the
higher end stuff for production anyways, and to get production onto
modern systems, currently running on 4+ year old HP DL585G1s.

nate