Hello Xen group. I''m new to the list but so far I have had excellent response to my questions. Thank you! May I pose one general question to the group? I am evaluating Xen Para Virtualization for use at our site. How do you feel about it''s: reliability, usability, utility? Is it a quality piece of software? Would you recommend it? Is it mature enough for a production environment? Does it perform well? TIA Tony -- Tony Angerame UNIX Systems Administrator St. Mary''s College Moraga, California (925)631-8345 _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> Hello Xen group. I''m new to the list but so far I have had excellent > response to my questions. Thank you! May I pose one general questionto> the group? I am evaluating Xen Para Virtualization for use at oursite.> How do you feel about it''s: reliability, usability, utility? Is it a > quality piece of software? Would you recommend it? Is it mature enough > for a production environment? Does it perform well? >Tony, We have been using paravirtualized guests for some time under rPath and they work great. I have had mixed results with different guests under FC6 but using a different Dom0 I have had pretty good success. My only suggestion is that if you have a distro combo that is working well for you, stick with it for THAT version of Xen that you are using. Overall, it performs fairly well. We use tap:aio (file) based images and we get a little performance hit with but overall we are getting better allocation of CPU time that if we didn''t have virtualization. We have two instances on (on two separate boxes) that act as web servers that serve ~1.5M web hits per day (each). They seem to do just fine. Gary _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Gary, Are this webservers serving static content (apache) or are they running any sort of application (tomcat/jboss) ? Can you describe your servers configuration, just to get a picture? We are getting some initial benchmarks, but I would apreciate external input on this one. Thanks in advance, Guido Barosio On 2/9/07, Gary W. Smith <gary@primeexalia.com> wrote:> > Hello Xen group. I''m new to the list but so far I have had excellent > > response to my questions. Thank you! May I pose one general question > to > > the group? I am evaluating Xen Para Virtualization for use at our > site. > > How do you feel about it''s: reliability, usability, utility? Is it a > > quality piece of software? Would you recommend it? Is it mature enough > > for a production environment? Does it perform well? > > > Tony, > > We have been using paravirtualized guests for some time under rPath and > they work great. I have had mixed results with different guests under > FC6 but using a different Dom0 I have had pretty good success. > > My only suggestion is that if you have a distro combo that is working > well for you, stick with it for THAT version of Xen that you are using. > > > Overall, it performs fairly well. We use tap:aio (file) based images > and we get a little performance hit with but overall we are getting > better allocation of CPU time that if we didn''t have virtualization. We > have two instances on (on two separate boxes) that act as web servers > that serve ~1.5M web hits per day (each). They seem to do just fine. > > Gary > > > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >-- Guido Barosio ----------------------- http://www.globant.com guido.barosio@globant.com _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 14:15 -0800, Tony Angerame wrote:> Hello Xen group. I''m new to the list but so far I have had excellent > response to my questions. Thank you! May I pose one general question to > the group? I am evaluating Xen Para Virtualization for use at our site. > How do you feel about it''s: reliability, usability, utility? Is it a > quality piece of software? Would you recommend it? Is it mature enough > for a production environment? Does it perform well?Xen has invaded pretty much everything I have to some degree, a few hundred servers in all and growing. All of my servers have at least 2 network cards so a private back end network exists for storage, or even for the guests themselves to use. This is what I have running in production with great success : * Load balanced Lighttpd, php5/fastcgi, memcache cluster facilitated with a virtual appliance made from pound ( www.apsis.ch/pound/ ), 2 running Apache, but I use lighttpd whenever possible. * Classic MySQL Clusters .. Then the above tossing in cluster FS''s and a nas to make a single system image. I also use Xen as just a management layer, devoting 99.9% of resources to single guests (just to save some trips to the DC to do reboots, fscks, etc). I ''start'' each client with a small network of 1 or 2 guests and just grow them to entire virtual networks as the users need it. The trick to success with Xen is proper planning. Come up with a good naming convention for your guests. A dom-u named www-centos doesn''t work well to keep things in order. A dom-u named 1-c-43 with vif''s named 1-c-43.0 1-c-43.1 (for eth0 eth1 respectively), helps keep things in order. My recommendation : Get a 3x3 dry erase board with 5 or 6 markers of various colors to go with it, an eraser and a quiet place to sit down. Draw it all out, then get to work :) Good luck with Xen! Best, --Tim> > TIA > > Tony >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users