[BlueOnyx:16827] Re: Soliciting Suggestions

Fri Jan 9 02:37:45 -05 2015

Hi Chuck,

Just to be clear here, Aventurine in the latest iteration is capable of
running KVM (Hypervisor) and thus virtualize Windows as well as BSD and
others as well. There are some limitations compared to other systems, at
the same time it's easy to use as it uses the same GUI as we all know
very well.

BUT, it's limited to a maximum of 2 nodes and to the disk-system you put
into those systems.

I'm using Proxmox now for all of my virtualizing and it's a breeze, it
doesn't use a client but is web-based and supports both KVM and OpenVZ
(same containers as Aventurine). Setting up a 3-node cluster with shared
NFS-storage (FreeNAS with ZFS) is a breeze. 

What will this give us that the others can't?
Economy
-------
Well, it's free without support, support is not expensive compared to
VMWare and other systems.

Scalability
-----------
Well, if you feel a server need more memory? With 3 nodes in a system
just do a live-migration of the guests to the other 2 nodes and shutdown
the one you need to expand. No downtime for customers. With the built in
HA-system this also helps in cases where a server crashes or breaks. On
top of that, if you need more power, just add a node or 2, they add
nicely to the running system without intrusion on the running guests.

Compatibility
-------------
As it uses a standard Debian minimal server on the host it is compatible
with most server-hardware on the market. You can also mix different
hardware in the Cluster as it really only uses RAM and CPU on the nodes
as long as you use a central storage-system. Nodes can thus be minimal
in disk-system.
As it supports OpenVZ out of the box it's easy to have a lot of vps's on
one server, the same as with Aventurine.

Security
--------
Well, you can run a completely separated network for the guest
(VLAN-support) for both KVM and OpenVZ, this minimizes the need for
running a firewall on the server itself. Actually, a firewall should be
run as the first device for splitting the traffic between hosts and
guests, the guests can also be split between different VLANs and give
you completely separated networks for different customers. Add
site-to-site VPNs connected to VLANs and you can sell extended LANs to
your customers where all server services is hosted but locally available
to customers, alternatively run a Terminal-Server for applications that
need to be available both on and off-premise for customers.

Performance
-----------
With older cheap 1U nodes and a good NAS you can really run a good
"high-performance" system which will keep your customers happy. We've
done a couple of server-room conversions on a good budget, good
installation time and with good performance for the customers. 15
Windows-servers virtualized in under 1 1/2 day. All of those running at
a much higher performance rate compared to the old servers, all using
standardized virtio-drivers for compatibility with newer hardware.
Live-migration and HA is now possible on all guests as well as a built
in system for backups which makes it easy to restore a virtual-machine
if needed. A good backup-system is still needed for the data inside the
guests.

Ease of use
-----------
Proxmox is fully manageable with a Web-browser. Use Firefox, Chrome or
IE (don't please!). Console and all settings is available using the GUI.

If you need more information or help, contact me off-list and I'll help
you out. 

Best regards,

Rickard

On fre, 2015-01-09 at 00:40 -0600, Chuck Tetlow wrote:
> Hi Danny, 
> 
> I just loaded a "new-to-me" server that I got for a pretty good deal.
> Its got 24 500Gig drives in two RAID6 arrays, and a pair of Xeon
> chips.  So I did the same thing - instead of dedicating the entire box
> to just one server, I decided to virtualize. 
> 
> I considered using Virtualbox, since I've been using it on my desktop
> for years and been pretty happy.  But I also recognize that VMware is
> the original, the most used, and most experts consider to be the best
> virtualization platform out today (at least for business purposes).
> Plus, its the first virtualization software I ever used back in 1998.
> In checking, I found that you can still use it for one server without
> license fees.  Sounded like a good price, so I tried it. 
> 
> I had the server loaded up in no time flat!  It was easy.  But then it
> took a while for me to figure out that VMware has split their product
> into the virtualization host OS (called hypervisor) and a separate
> management GUI tool that runs on a different machine.  Nice idea -
> keeping that management GUI load off the host.  But a little tricky if
> you didn't know about it beforehand. 
> 
> It wasn't too hard once I'd realized what they did, and
> downloaded/installed the Vsphere management GUI.  I've currently got
> one production BlueOnyx 5108R running, and a second one to tinker
> with.  I've also loaded up one CentOS server to for a network backup
> server, a Linux desktop, and a Windows server to access remotely and
> play with (mostly to see how much it would load down the host).  Since
> this machine only came with 16Gig RAM, I realize I'll need to expand
> that.  But other than that - its working great, even with all five
> virtual machines crunching away. 
> 
> I'll be honest - I'm not as familiar with the Linux native
> virtualization options.  I know a little about Hyper-V, only because a
> customer demanded on using it - then lost the tech he had trained on
> it and pushed its management onto me.  So I've had to learn some of
> the Hyper-V crap - and you DON'T want to go there!  Virtualbox is good
> (and also free), but doesn't seem quite as mature as VMware.  And I
> just can't speak about the Linux native Xen, Linux-VServer, or OpenVZ
> - because I haven't used them. 
> 
> Of course, there's also the Solarspeed Aventurine.  But I believe its
> primarily written/developed to support BlueOnyx (and likely other
> similar Linux guests) - so I was concerned that I would have problems
> with Windows guest OSes.  I don't know that for sure - and maybe
> Michael can speak to the capability/compatibility of other OSes
> besides Linux. 
> 
> But whatever you decide to use - I believe you are correct that
> virtualization is the right way to go.  You've got a BIG HONKIN' box
> there - don't waste it sitting around mostly idle if you can use it
> more efficiently with multiple virtual servers on it. 
> 
> 
> Chuck 
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Original Message ----------- 
> From: "Danny O'Day" <danny at missing.com> 
> To: blueonyx at blueonyx.it 
> Sent: Thu, 8 Jan 2015 19:31:29 -0800 
> Subject: [BlueOnyx:16822]  Soliciting Suggestions 
> 
> > Greetings Group - 
> > 
> > I have ordered a new server I will be taking delivery on next week
> which I 
> > am hoping to use to delete a few servers out of my rack.  I went
> with a 
> > Lenovo TS140 i7-4770 3.4GHz 32GB with 3 3TB 7200 rpm drives. 
> > 
> > Currently I have one instance of Blueonyx 5208 running on one
> server 
> > (Hosting about 5 sites), another server running mail
> services(Debian 
> > ISPconfig for mail only), and 2 additional development servers
> (indexing 
> > project and video services through VPN).  I'm hopeful this new box
> will 
> > have enough horsepower to knock out 3 of these machines into one by
> going 
> > to a virtual server setup. 
> > 
> > I've never stepped into this realm very deeply and want to keep with
> linux 
> > as the OS on the server. 
> > 
> > Anybody have any suggestions on how best to proceed and advice on
> what 
> > problems I may hit. 
> > 
> > Thanks in advance, 
> > 
> > Danny 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________ 
> > Blueonyx mailing list 
> > Blueonyx at mail.blueonyx.it 
> > http://mail.blueonyx.it/mailman/listinfo/blueonyx 
> ------- End of Original Message ------- 
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Rickard Osser
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