Hello, I am looking for recommendations on a good server for Xen. I will be setting up Debian installs for many clients. I understand about the requirements of ram and disk space, but am a bit confused about what cpu / motherboard to look for. I will be using the latest version of Xen and want something in the $1500 - $2000 range. What is the best Xen hardware for the money at the moment? Thanks, nathan amick _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
I''m no ''xen hardware expert'', but the quad-core Core 2 Quadro''s are looking very attractive indeed. As a matter of fact, their price is falling dramatically (especially during August when AMD are due to release their own competing quad-core offerings)... I am planning to use an E6600 quad in each of my new Xen boxes (along with 8GB of RAM and raid 5) - pick whatever motherboard you hear good experiences for. (I cannot name any off the top of my head - sorry!) But basically, with HVM and some very sharp prices, Intel is where you should be looking right now. Jan On 30/05/07, ThoughtObject <technologic@thoughtobject.com> wrote:> > Hello, > > I am looking for recommendations on a good server for Xen. I will be > setting up Debian installs for many clients. I understand about the > requirements of ram and disk space, but am a bit confused about what cpu / > motherboard to look for. I will be using the latest version of Xen and want > something in the $1500 - $2000 range. What is the best Xen hardware for the > money at the moment? > > Thanks, > nathan amick > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hi, On Wed, May 30, 2007 at 04:33:51PM -0500, ThoughtObject wrote:> I am looking for recommendations on a good server for Xen. I will be > setting up Debian installs for many clients. I understand about the > requirements of ram and disk space, but am a bit confused about what > cpu / motherboard to look for. I will be using the latest version of > Xen and want something in the $1500 - $2000 range. What is the best > Xen hardware for the money at the moment?I have been very happy with supermicro''s multi core xeon offerings. http://supermicro.com/products/system/1U/?typ=X3000 http://supermicro.com/products/system/1U/?typ=X5000 I have only been using PV mode, though I see the option for hardware virtualisation in the BIOS of these models. Cheers, Andy _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Anyone know any good ways to find systems guys that know XEN? We started looking around Houston, TX and then expanded to anyone willing to relocate on all the major job sites. It has been very hard to find anyone with clue. Yes, a few people put xen, clustering, LVM on their resume, but you ask them a few basic questions and they admit that they click xen once on a suse install or something. Is it worth continuing to look, or is our best bet to train guys in house?><>Nathan Stratton CTO, Voila IP Communications nathan at robotics.net nathan at voilaip.com http://www.robotics.net http://www.voilaip.com _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Hi Nathan, On Wed, May 30, 2007 at 10:07:53PM -0400, Nathan Allen Stratton wrote:> > Anyone know any good ways to find systems guys that know XEN? We started > looking around Houston, TX and then expanded to anyone willing to relocate > on all the major job sites. It has been very hard to find anyone with > clue. Yes, a few people put xen, clustering, LVM on their resume, but you > ask them a few basic questions and they admit that they click xen once on > a suse install or something. > > Is it worth continuing to look, or is our best bet to train guys in house?My personal view is that if they are competent with LVM, clustering, shared storage etc. then learning the Xen component should be quite easy. So I wouldn''t worry about hiring people who otherwise fit the specification but had no Xen knowledge. I would make it clear that getting up to speed quickly with Xen is a job requirement and that their progress in that area would be a key item in their first job performance review. Cheers, Andy _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Nathan Allen Stratton wrote:> Anyone know any good ways to find systems guys that know XEN?That would depend of how much Xen-expertise you need. And how much you''re willing to pay :)> We started > looking around Houston, TX and then expanded to anyone willing to relocate > on all the major job sites. It has been very hard to find anyone with > clue. Yes, a few people put xen, clustering, LVM on their resume, but you > ask them a few basic questions and they admit that they click xen once on > a suse install or something. >Have you tried the "official" vendors (e.g. XenSource, Red Hat, etc.)? Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> Have you tried the "official" vendors (e.g. XenSource, Red Hat, etc.)?Sure they will help us set things up, but we need 1 or 2 full time guys. Right now we have 6 core servers, but now we are moving out of the lab into production. We are using xen for all our VoIP, Video, and OSS systems storage, network, clustering add get a bit complicated. I can contract initial setup, but I want my own guys to run the day to day. -Nathan _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Nathan Allen Stratton wrote:>> Have you tried the "official" vendors (e.g. XenSource, Red Hat, etc.)? >> > > Sure they will help us set things up, but we need 1 or 2 full time guys. > Right now we have 6 core servers, but now we are moving out of the lab > into production. We are using xen for all our VoIP, Video, and OSS > systems storage, network, clustering add get a bit complicated. I can > contract initial setup, but I want my own guys to run the day to day. > >As Andy mentioned, learning about Xen is easy provided you''re already familiar with Linux and the components that Xen use (LVM, bridges, VLANs, etc). I believe your best bet is probably to find a decent Linux sysadmin (preferably RHCE, if you use Xen on RH dom0), and train the Xen-specific part in-house. Xen-experienced sysadmins will most likely be people who have managed tens or hundreds of servers (at least that was the case in our place), which makes them hard to get and quite expensive to hire. It will be a lot easier (and cheaper) to find a decent Linux sysadmin instead. Regards, Fajar _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wed, May 30, 2007 at 10:07:53PM -0400, Nathan Allen Stratton wrote:> Anyone know any good ways to find systems guys that know XEN? We started > looking around Houston, TX and then expanded to anyone willing to relocate > on all the major job sites.There''s your problem -- the good people very rarely trawl job sites, because they get their work through word of mouth and "head hunting". Joel Spolsky''s article on "Finding Great Developers" (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDevelopers.html) is just as true for sysadmins -- just s/developer/sysadmin/ig and keep reading. The place I work for has, to the best of my knowledge, never advertised a technical job. They''ve never had to build a team in a hurry, though, which sounds like what you''re trying to do. Unfortunately, it takes time to build a good team, while the standard answer to "we need it now" is "hire a contractor".> It has been very hard to find anyone with clue. Yes, a few people put xen, > clustering, LVM on their resume, but you ask them a few basic questions > and they admit that they click xen once on a suse install or something. > > Is it worth continuing to look, or is our best bet to train guys in house?At the moment, finding a number of pre-existing people in any one geographic area who have commercial experience in maintaining Xen clusters is going to be *hard* -- and you''ve already said you''re not interested in "checked the box once" people (of which there is always a plethora, and they''re almost always universally terrible). As such, you''re going to have to grow the people yourself. Since you sound like you''re on a time budget, I would recommend finding good generalists, then contracting to one of the big houses who know Xen to setup your infrastructure *and* train your team *while* they''re doing the setup. You''ll need to make it clear that you''re not interested in the contractor doing the setup then running some sterile training course for your new hires, you want "pair systems admin" -- one of their guys sitting next to and talking to one of your guys while they both do the work together: complete knowledge transfer. I don''t actually know if any of the big houses will do that. My employer does that for people, but we''re not exactly in your locality. - Matt -- Part[s] of .us are the global benchmark for pumpkin being a verb. -- Anthony de Boer _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Thu, 31 May 2007, Matthew Palmer wrote:> Since you sound like you''re on a time budget, I would recommend finding good > generalists, then contracting to one of the big houses who know Xen to setup > your infrastructure *and* train your team *while* they''re doing the setup. > You''ll need to make it clear that you''re not interested in the contractor > doing the setup then running some sterile training course for your new > hires, you want "pair systems admin" -- one of their guys sitting next to > and talking to one of your guys while they both do the work together: > complete knowledge transfer. I don''t actually know if any of the big houses > will do that. My employer does that for people, but we''re not exactly in > your locality.You can''t knowledge transfer comptency in anything to someone who doesn''t start out competent. And someone who is competent should be able to sit down and figure out Xen, it isn''t rocket science. He doesn''t need consultants and he doesn''t need RHCEs, he just needs smart competent sysadmins... _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Wed, May 30, 2007 at 11:12:20PM -0700, Lamont Granquist wrote:> On Thu, 31 May 2007, Matthew Palmer wrote: > >Since you sound like you''re on a time budget, I would recommend finding > >good > >generalists, then contracting to one of the big houses who know Xen to > >setup > >your infrastructure *and* train your team *while* they''re doing the setup. > >You''ll need to make it clear that you''re not interested in the contractor > >doing the setup then running some sterile training course for your new > >hires, you want "pair systems admin" -- one of their guys sitting next to > >and talking to one of your guys while they both do the work together: > >complete knowledge transfer. I don''t actually know if any of the big > >houses > >will do that. My employer does that for people, but we''re not exactly in > >your locality. > > You can''t knowledge transfer comptency in anything to someone who doesn''t > start out competent. And someone who is competent should be able to sit > down and figure out Xen, it isn''t rocket science. He doesn''t need > consultants and he doesn''t need RHCEs, he just needs smart competent > sysadmins...There''s "competent", and then there''s "really good". I think we probably have different definitions of "competent". To me, a competent sysadmin is one who, overall, manages to produce more good than they cost in stuffups. (It''s depressing that there''s plenty of people with root who don''t meet even that minimum standard). They typically aren''t all that eager to go out and learn new things and experiment with new technologies, or go outside their "comfort zone" to troubleshoot and problem solve. A really good sysadmin will "pick up" Xen pretty quickly (I did, and I presume a lot of the people on this list did too -- we''re early adopters, and as such are typically the higher end of the competency gradient). If you need people in a hurry and you don''t have the sort of contact network that allows you to know who most of the "really good" sysadmins in an area are and ask them if they want a job, then you''re almost certainly not going to end up with a team of really good sysadmins, you''re going to end up with, at best, competent sysadmins. Why? Because as I said earlier, the really good sysadmins don''t watch job boards. If you''ve got the contacts to know who the good people are, then you wouldn''t be putting ads on job sites and asking on mailing lists. As such, I presume that the OP will almost certainly have to work with the ''competent'' grade of sysadmin, who do really benefit from a good guide while they''re getting up to speed. I really, really would love it if everyone in the industry was your grade of "competent" (and my "really good") -- it''d save me untold frustration. Unfortunately, there''s heaps of the lower-grade sysadmin out there, and in any decent sized organisation you''re going to have at least a smattering of them. If you''re really unlucky, the competent ones are the good ones... - Matt -- "Need? What does -need- have to do with it? I''m talking about pure, unadulterated lust here." -- James Campbell Andrew, in the Monastery, hopefully talking about computer hardware _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
Nathan Allen Stratton wrote:>> Have you tried the "official" vendors (e.g. XenSource, Red Hat, etc.)? > > Sure they will help us set things up, but we need 1 or 2 full time guys. > Right now we have 6 core servers, but now we are moving out of the lab > into production. We are using xen for all our VoIP, Video, and OSS > systems storage, network, clustering add get a bit complicated. I can > contract initial setup, but I want my own guys to run the day to day. > > -Nathan > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-usersHave you considered approaching a reputable IT recruitment agency? They normally work well in a situation where you need to assemble a team quickly. Simon - who ironically works for an IT recruitment agency as a Xen-savvy sysadmin amongst other things ;-) _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 19:36 +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote:> There''s "competent", and then there''s "really good". I think we probably > have different definitions of "competent". To me, a competent sysadmin is > one who, overall, manages to produce more good than they cost in stuffups. > (It''s depressing that there''s plenty of people with root who don''t meet even > that minimum standard). They typically aren''t all that eager to go out and > learn new things and experiment with new technologies, or go outside their > "comfort zone" to troubleshoot and problem solve.Nail on the head.> A really good sysadmin will "pick up" Xen pretty quickly (I did, and I > presume a lot of the people on this list did too -- we''re early adopters, > and as such are typically the higher end of the competency gradient). If > you need people in a hurry and you don''t have the sort of contact network > that allows you to know who most of the "really good" sysadmins in an area > are and ask them if they want a job, then you''re almost certainly not going > to end up with a team of really good sysadmins, you''re going to end up with, > at best, competent sysadmins. Why? Because as I said earlier, the really > good sysadmins don''t watch job boards.What you just described is the difference between a System Administrator a System Integrator and a Programmer. An integrator can spot a square wheel and make it (mostly) round again. Typically, an integrator can also at least ''get by'' with Bash/Perl/C/Python and to a large extent even PHP. An ''admin'' if fresh out of the RHCE pool can install pre-packed stuff and configure it. As they build experience they (ideally) begin building from source, learning a bit of programming, writing some scripts, etc. A programmer made the wheel to begin with, but unless the programmer was an integrator, you probably need an integrator to compensate for the programmer assuming an ''ideal world'', or how the round wheel got square to begin with. Likewise, you don''t want to pay an integrator to sit around playing Tetris waiting for services to fail. Most regulars on this list are integrators, so he did put the question to the right place.> If you''ve got the contacts to know who the good people are, then you > wouldn''t be putting ads on job sites and asking on mailing lists. As such, > I presume that the OP will almost certainly have to work with the > ''competent'' grade of sysadmin, who do really benefit from a good guide while > they''re getting up to speed. > > I really, really would love it if everyone in the industry was your grade of > "competent" (and my "really good") -- it''d save me untold frustration. > Unfortunately, there''s heaps of the lower-grade sysadmin out there, and in > any decent sized organisation you''re going to have at least a smattering of > them. If you''re really unlucky, the competent ones are the good ones...Bah let them keep proving just how much a paper certificate is worth. The only thing that makes one integrator any more or less competent than the next is their methodology. An admin is just developing a methodology, or (sadly) doesn''t see the need to since all he does is call RHEL support. I think, at the least in any interview or consulting that you do, you should point out that you are a system *integrator* , and the difference, to help stop this stupid ''sysadmin'' misconception. If it keeps up, you''ll refer to someone ''sysadmining'' your server like you would refer to someone ''hacking'' your PayPal account. We aren''t going to stop nincompoops from calling themselves admins, so we may as well call ourselves something else to show the difference :) Best, --Tim _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Thu, 31 May 2007, Tim Post wrote:> On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 19:36 +1000, Matthew Palmer wrote: >> There''s "competent", and then there''s "really good". I think we probably >> have different definitions of "competent". To me, a competent sysadmin is >> one who, overall, manages to produce more good than they cost in stuffups. >> (It''s depressing that there''s plenty of people with root who don''t meet even >> that minimum standard). They typically aren''t all that eager to go out and >> learn new things and experiment with new technologies, or go outside their >> "comfort zone" to troubleshoot and problem solve. > > Nail on the head.Haven''t had enough coffee today yet and you guys are depressing me...> We aren''t going to stop nincompoops from calling themselves admins, so > we may as well call ourselves something else to show the difference :)>From the orkut group description:IT Infrastructure Architects (135 members) You manage your boxes without touching them. You have programs for doing that. Your config files live under revision control. Reproducibility and retraceability are your friends. Configuration as documentation. You see value in having 5 versions of gcc available to all your users. Instead of finding a special solution to make that work for gcc, you rather design a software provisioning system, that does this for all packages. You enjoy the fact that your users are happy with the result and are able to concentrate on their real work. You do this because it is the only way, and because it is fun. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users