CentOS - Jan 2007 - VMWare GSX Server and CentOS

Has anyone had experience (good or bad) with VMWare GSX Server running
CentOS as a VM under high load?

Here is the situation. We are planning on rolling out some new boxes to
replace an existing box. Currently this box (Sun V860) is running web
services, database services, mail for students, and is an instructional box
for compiling code, and web scripting among other things.

We are planning on doing one of two things, either using VMWare and
splitting up the services or using Solaris Zones. The box(s) has to be able
to access data stored on the SAN (Fiber Channel HBA's). The boxes(VM's),
or
Zones would be split up accordingly:

Database box: Oracle, Postgres, and  MySQL
Mail: Sendmail, POPS, and IMAPS (roughly 25,000 mailboxes)
Web: Apache, PHP, mod_ssl
Interactive Logins: Compilers and such.

Any information about any experiences with VMWare and CentOS, under similar
load would be helpful. I will probably make this same post on the Sun
Solaris Mailing List, and VMWare's forums. Thanks in advance!

-- 
Thx
Joshua Gimer
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Joshua Gimer wrote:
> Has anyone had experience (good or bad) with VMWare GSX Server running 
> CentOS as a VM under high load?
>
> Here is the situation. We are planning on rolling out some new boxes 
> to replace an existing box. Currently this box (Sun V860) is running 
> web services, database services, mail for students, and is an 
> instructional box for compiling code, and web scripting among other 
> things.
>
> We are planning on doing one of two things, either using VMWare and 
> splitting up the services or using Solaris Zones. The box(s) has to be 
> able to access data stored on the SAN (Fiber Channel HBA's). The 
> boxes(VM's), or Zones would be split up accordingly:
>
> Database box: Oracle, Postgres, and  MySQL
> Mail: Sendmail, POPS, and IMAPS (roughly 25,000 mailboxes)
> Web: Apache, PHP, mod_ssl
> Interactive Logins: Compilers and such.
>
> Any information about any experiences with VMWare and CentOS, under 
> similar load would be helpful. I will probably make this same post on 
> the Sun Solaris Mailing List, and VMWare's forums. Thanks in advance!
I dunno, but I'm curious why you want to run so many VMs' or zones?    
the database/mail/web stuff would probably all run most efficiently in 
the 'host' OS... I can see some advantages to running student 
interactive logins in a VM or zone for security isolation.


its that, or I'd put the infrastructure things (email, school web, 
school databases) on a dedicated and secure hardware platform, then put 
all the instructional stuff on a seperate hardware platform.   I don't 
like having too many eggs in one basket.