Xen users - Jan 2009 - Re: [Rocks-Discuss] Rocks or Virtual Cluster?

Thanks for the input. I wish I had a link to the article. It''s just not
clear to me, yet, if they are saying that rocks can cluster up virtual servers
such as xen or if rocks could be installed inside of multiple vm machines to
create a redundant cluster. Either way, sounds interesting.

I''ve played with GFS clusters using them for web services and have been
using VMware but don''t have any hands on with rocks and have just
started using  xen.

Mike


On Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:56:06 -0800, Bart Brashers wrote:
>
>
>Rocks is really all about high performance computing (doing math) and not
>redundancy. There is no support for building redundant frontends, for
>example. Rocks can create multiple virtual compute nodes inside a physical
>compute node, but I don''t know if Xen can move them from node to
node. I
>suspect not. The virtual compute nodes that it creates are also tailored
>to HPC, by default.
>
>You might be better served just using Xen without Rocks. Since you most
>likely would have to create a highly customized virtual machine environment
>to suite your needs, you won''t really be taking advantage of the
Rocks
>aspect of things.
>
>My $0.02.
>
>Bart
>
>>No one has read the article??? :)
>>Must be someone on here who can give me a little input on this. Trying
to
>>find out if the article is
>>talking about creating a virtual environment inside of a cluster or
using
>>multiple machines to create
>>a rocks cluster.
>>
>>Mike
>>
>>
>>On Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:06:32 -0600, lists@grounded.net wrote:
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> Looking at rocks as a possible solution for better redundant
services.
>>> While my redhat GFS cluster has been useful, it is not as useful as
>>>what
>>> rocks appears to potentially be. From what I''m reading, it
sounds like
>>> rocks would give me a great deal more usability. The Linux magazine
>>>article
>>> I read seems to say that I can build a redundant cluster of
VMware/Xen
>>> backends and even at the same time, get the benefits of an SSI
>>>cluster? Is
>>> this true?
>>>
>>> Based on the article, I seek a little additional information so
that
>>>I can
>>> get started on my first rocks cluster. Sorry if I don''t
have the
>>> terminology correct just yet.
>>>
>>> In my application, I would like to use rocks as a physical cluster
>>>that
>>> would allow me to have redundant VMware and Xen servers.
>>>
>>> So for example:
>>> -head node/controller
>>> -server node 1 - redundant
>>> -server node 2 - redundant
>>> -server node 3 - redundant
>>>
>>> The back end servers would run redundant VMware/Xen servers. The
>>>guests
>>> would be LAMP servers along with other network resources.
>>> I also use a mix of fibre channel and Ethernet storage systems.
Some
>>>is
>>> connected directly to servers, some connected to filer heads which
>>>export
>>> CIFS, NFS, etc.
>>>
>>> I have plenty of physical boxes to start working on take.
>>> My very first question, based on the short article I read is as
>>>follows.
>>>
>>> I am assuming the head node requires less powerful resources
because
>>>it is
>>> not going to host any guests, since it is only the controller. But,
>>>while
>>> the article mentions CPU/RAM, it''s not very clear on what
the real
>>> requirements might be. Should I use a very powerful server for the
>>> controller node or am I wasting resources? I''m guessing it
is mostly
>>>just
>>> redirecting traffic so if anything, might need good I/O speeds? If
the
>>> traffic doesn''t flow through the controller, then I could
see that it
>>>might
>>> not need that much speed, just good availability, accessibility.
>>>
>>> Finally, one of the problems I am having is that VMware Server
>>>doesn''t seem
>>> to have redundant capabilities and this is what I badly need.
I''m
>>>using
>>> VMware Server 2.0 for win servers so the problem is that if a
machine
>>>needs
>>> to go down or what ever, I have to shut down the guests, move them
to
>>> another server, fire them back up, it''s simply not
efficient. I think
>>>Xen
>>> allows for redundancy of Linux guests, but I''m not sure
about win
>>>machines.
>>> The article seems to suggest that using rocks, I can get redundancy
>>>for
>>> either.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any help you can provide!
>>>
>>> Mike
>
>
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