Xen users - Dec 2009 - Shared storage between open Xen, VMware ESX, XenServer, KVM and a normal Linux...

Guys!

 I have one fiber channel IBM storage (10T) and 8 HP Proliant servers with
32G of RAM on each and 1 HP with 4G of RAM.

 My question is:

* How to use the same storage (block device) with all my different
virtualization servers simultaneously?

 I have 2 open source Xen with CentOS 5.4, 2 VMWare ESX, 2 Citrix XenServer,
2 KVM powered by Ubuntu and 1 Debian exporting the IBM storage to a SAN via
NFS/iSCSI/CIFS... And, I have more open source Xen servers using the same
storage, but via NFS instead via fiber channel (HBA).

 So, how to store the virtual harddisks on a repository visible by all
flavours of virtualization technologies?

 Is there some kind of cluster file system compatible with CentOS, ESX,
XenServer, Ubuntu and Debian out there?

 Or... do I need to divide the storage, for example, creating LUNs for each
kind of hypervisors?

 I''ll try to ilustrate:

|FC IBM STORAGE|
                   \_ (HBA) XenServer 1
                   \_ (HBA) XenServer 2
                   \_ (HBA) ESX 1
                   \_ (HBA) ESX 2
                   \_ (HBA) CentOS with Xen 1...2
                   \_ (HBA) Ubuntu with KVM 1...2
                   \_ (HBA) Debian 1
                                        \_ (NFS) XenServer 3
                                        \_ (NFS) XenServer 4
                                        \_ (NFS) Ubuntu KVM 3

 My Debian 1 is exporting the FC Storage via NFS, this is necessary because
not all my hosts have the HBA interface but, I really want to be able to do
a live motion from XenServer 3 to XenServer 1, for example! Or from KVM 3 to
KVM 2...

 I appreciate ANY help!

Regads,
Thiago


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On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 02:05:39PM -0200, Thiago Camargo Martins Cordeiro
wrote:
>    Guys!
> 
>     I have one fiber channel IBM storage (10T) and 8 HP Proliant servers
with
>    32G of RAM on each and 1 HP with 4G of RAM.
> 
>     My question is:
> 
>    * How to use the same storage (block device) with all my different
>    virtualization servers simultaneously?
> 
>     I have 2 open source Xen with CentOS 5.4, 2 VMWare ESX, 2 Citrix
>    XenServer, 2 KVM powered by Ubuntu and 1 Debian exporting the IBM
storage
>    to a SAN via NFS/iSCSI/CIFS... And, I have more open source Xen servers
>    using the same storage, but via NFS instead via fiber channel (HBA).
> 
>     So, how to store the virtual harddisks on a repository visible by all
>    flavours of virtualization technologies?
> 
>     Is there some kind of cluster file system compatible with CentOS, ESX,
>    XenServer, Ubuntu and Debian out there?
> 
>     Or... do I need to divide the storage, for example, creating LUNs for
>    each kind of hypervisors?
> 
>     I''ll try to ilustrate:
> 
>    |FC IBM STORAGE|
>                       \_ (HBA) XenServer 1
>                       \_ (HBA) XenServer 2
>                       \_ (HBA) ESX 1
>                       \_ (HBA) ESX 2
>                       \_ (HBA) CentOS with Xen 1...2
>                       \_ (HBA) Ubuntu with KVM 1...2
>                       \_ (HBA) Debian 1
>                                            \_ (NFS) XenServer 3
>                                            \_ (NFS) XenServer 4
>                                            \_ (NFS) Ubuntu KVM 3
> 
>     My Debian 1 is exporting the FC Storage via NFS, this is necessary
>    because not all my hosts have the HBA interface but, I really want to be
>    able to do a live motion from XenServer 3 to XenServer 1, for example!
Or
>    from KVM 3 to KVM 2...
> 
>     I appreciate ANY help!
> 
I think NFS is the only supported method that works with all of the
listed virtualization solutions.

The other options is to have multiple LUNs, one for each technique, or
whatever your requirements are.

CLVM is option for Xen/KVM, VMware prefers to use VMFS, XenServer has
it''s own SR/LVM stuff etc.

-- Pasi


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After listening to the advice given I have spent the last week evaluating my
options.  Each distro seems to have it''s strengths and weaknesses.

Ubuntu is still my distro of choice though it''s on obvious and easy to
move to Debian.  One thing of note is that according to Ubuntu they have not
abandoned Xen for KVM.  You can read more about it here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Xen   That said I was also able to upgrade all
my machines to Xen 3.3 through backports.  While this platform is currently
lagging I''m hopeful that it will eventually catch up.

Beyond Ubuntu my preference is OpenSuSE, but with the issues I''ve had
I''m going to have to wait until some of these are resolved before
considering moving.  I did get the IBM x3500 working satisfactory and have not
had a lockup in a week.  I was really leaning towards moving to OpenSuSE but
after three days of trying to work out the network card issues I''m
going to put it on hold until they get some of the current bugs worked out.

I did try Centos 5.4 and it did seem to work well.  I thought it would have been
one of the more up to date distros in regards to Xen but it has a pretty old
version of the hypervisor.  There is probably an easy way to update this but I
didn''t put a lot of effort into it.

So short term I''m going to stay with Ubuntu with plans to migrate to
OpenSuSE down the road unless Ubuntu puts forth some effort to update
it''s Xen offerings.   I think right now I''m going to spend
some time with ConVirt 2 and see if I can get it working with my existing or
future environments.

Thanks to everyone for their input and for a great list.
Dana


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On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Dana Rawding <dana@twc-inc.net>
wrote:
> I did try Centos 5.4 and it did seem to work well.  I thought it would have
been one of the more up to date distros in regards to Xen but it has a pretty
old version of the hypervisor.  There is probably an easy way to update this but
I didn''t put a lot of effort into it.
The easy way to update Xen on Centos is to use Gitco''s repo :
http://www.gitco.de/repo/
Not much effort at all. Create yum repository config file, "yum
update", reboot, and you''re ready to go.

-- 
Fajar

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Is there a repo for i386 rpms?  All I can find at Gitco is x86_64 rpms.

Dana

On Dec 9, 2009, at 8:20 PM, Fajar A. Nugraha wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Dana Rawding <dana@twc-inc.net>
wrote:
>> I did try Centos 5.4 and it did seem to work well.  I thought it would
have been one of the more up to date distros in regards to Xen but it has a
pretty old version of the hypervisor.  There is probably an easy way to update
this but I didn''t put a lot of effort into it.
> 
> The easy way to update Xen on Centos is to use Gitco''s repo :
> http://www.gitco.de/repo/
> Not much effort at all. Create yum repository config file, "yum
> update", reboot, and you''re ready to go.
> 
> -- 
> Fajar

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On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 7:33 AM, Dana Rawding <dana@twc-inc.net>
wrote:
> Is there a repo for i386 rpms?  All I can find at Gitco is x86_64 rpms.
Not that I know. You might be able use Gitco''s srpm and rebuild it
yourself for i386 with minor modification to SPEC file.

-- 
Fajar

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