On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 1:15 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote: > On 5/10/2010 11:37 AM, Ross Walker wrote: >> >> I have ESXi hosts here running 20 VMs per host with some doing >> terminal services, some doing email, some doing database and other >> network services and I have not noticed any diminished performance, >> and yes going virtual is simply the easiest way to perform upgrades. > > I think it is unfortunate how difficult it is to back up a working linux > machine and restore it onto different hardware, given that the system > really is very hardware independent. But, detecting the hardware and > mapping it to device drivers seems to be a black art hidden inside of > anaconda and then the local hardware related settings are fairly > hopelessly intertwined with application and user preferences in your > backup copies. I always thought that this would be a common enough > problem that some distribution would address it, but so far it hasn't > happened. That's why God invented the systems administrator! Here I use kickstart scripts for baseline server types that perform all the basic configurations on install. Then I typically keep the server-centric config in a common location, /etc/<servername> and use symbolic links to the system supplied config, this can also be scripted for quick recovery. I keep the application data on separate volumes then the OS (typical OS image is 8GB, most is swap) using iSCSI so I can connect to them from another VM easily enough (RDM or direct iSCSI), everything is installed via RPM, if the distro repo version isn't adequate I build my own and keep a custom in-house repo, no third party repos. I have yet to look at Cobbler which is suppose to simplify the creation and management of all these kickstart scripts and provide a nice interface, but haven't had the time yet. If I am setting up an ESXi infrastructure the first thing I would do is setup a Cobbler server and a Windows deployment server (maybe a Solaris Jump Start server) and integrate it with the VMware vCenter templates. Then it's all point-n-click server deployment from there. -Ross