Hello Community, I''m very new to Xen Virtualization and hope one of you can advice and guide me. We are planning to virtualize existing 4 old server that we used in a project. The server is 4 years old but I do believe very good HW that we can reuse and take advantage of virtualization. In a nutshell the hardware spec looks like this; 2 Server with Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 (4M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) PC2-5300, 333 Mhz, DDR2 (we can upgrade the RAM to much as you recommend, max 16GB) 2 Core, 2 Thread http://ark.intel.com/products/27219 Intel x64 architecture VT-x Enabled 2 Server with Intel® Xeon® Processor 7130M (8M Cache, 3.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) PC2-3200, 200 Mhz, DDR2 (we can upgrade the RAM to much as you recommend, max 32GB) 2 Core, 4 Thread http://ark.intel.com/products/27285 Intel x64 architecture VT-x Enabled Can we use this machine effectively to run 1. Xen Hypervisor - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HW 2. Xen Cloud - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HW With the above HW, can we use it effectively. All 4 servers HP Proliant The other major question is, does Xen fully support Ubuntu Server 11.10 x64. We are planning to use Ubuntu in ALL our planned 10 virtual machines on these 4 physical servers. Do we need any other 3rd party tools? Anything else that we should be aware of ? Your help is really appreciated and valued. Thank you Cheers Ted. _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Ted <tiruchirapalli@gmail.com> wrote:> We are planning to virtualize existing 4 old server that we used in a > project. The server is 4 years old butAre they still covered by warranty, or do you have some kind of support contract or backup plan to keep it working? Sometimes it''s more effective to just sell those, and buy or lease new ones, with full HW warranty coverage.> Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 (4M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) > PC2-5300, 333 Mhz, DDR2 (we can upgrade the RAM to much as you recommend, > max 16GB)16GB is not much these days. But then again, if your application doesn''t use much, it should work. General rule is to get as much RAM as you can afford while still being economical. e.g. if it turns out that buying that amount of old DDR2 is more expensive than trade-in to a new server with DDR3, the choose trade-in.> Can we use this machine effectively to run > > 1. Xen Hypervisor - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HW > 2. Xen Cloud - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HWNot sure what you mean by Xen Cloud. Did you mean XCP? My best advice is try and see. It should work.> The other major question is, does Xen fully support Ubuntu Server 11.10 x64. > We are planning to use Ubuntu in ALL our planned 10 virtual machines on > these 4 physical servers.11.10, while being the latest stable, is not LTS. If you can wait I highly suggest you wait until 12.04 (precise) LTS is out. That being said, IIRC the main problem with some old version of xen and ubuntu in PV mode is that pygrub/pv-grub might not support ext4. If you use ext3, you should be fine. If you use ext4, just try it and make sure the xen version you use supports it. Also, don''t expect magic here. If your old applications each need one of those kinds of server to perform correctly, and they have high cpu/disk/network utilization, don''t expect you can just jam all of them in one server using virualization and expect it to work fine.> Do we need any other 3rd party tools? > Anything else that we should be aware of ?Based on your questions, I highly suggest you try appliance type first, e.g. XenServer or XCP. Also, if you just want it to work and don''t have previous knowledge in Xen anyway, try broaden your options. For example, vmware esxi (a.k.a vsphere hypervisor) is more newbie-friendly. Or, if you''re comfortable with Redhat or Oracle, they have free virtualization appliance that you can use as well. -- Fajar
Hello Fajar Thanks for the advice and they came very handy in decision making. We have decided to go with XCP for test environment on the older hw and XenServer on the new hw to minimize all the risk. Since XCP and XenServer are quite similar at large, hope that this combination will work for us. biggest concern now is to look at a storage server that goes well with this environment. since we need something really fast enough, its a tough choice. again you are absolutely right with the choice of ubuntu, since we are not in a hurry, better we wait for 12.04 LTS which is round the corner, 26th april. We can fall back on 10.04 LTS if support is an issue. vspehere is far too expensive to consider, so lets stick to XCP and XenServer :) anything else that we should be aware of, before taking the deep dive? Thanks a lot Ted On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:12 PM, Fajar A. Nugraha <list@fajar.net> wrote:> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 1:34 PM, Ted <tiruchirapalli@gmail.com> wrote: > > We are planning to virtualize existing 4 old server that we used in a > > project. The server is 4 years old but > > Are they still covered by warranty, or do you have some kind of > support contract or backup plan to keep it working? > > Sometimes it''s more effective to just sell those, and buy or lease new > ones, with full HW warranty coverage. > > > Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 (4M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) > > PC2-5300, 333 Mhz, DDR2 (we can upgrade the RAM to much as you recommend, > > max 16GB) > > 16GB is not much these days. > > But then again, if your application doesn''t use much, it should work. > General rule is to get as much RAM as you can afford while still being > economical. e.g. if it turns out that buying that amount of old DDR2 > is more expensive than trade-in to a new server with DDR3, the choose > trade-in. > > > Can we use this machine effectively to run > > > > 1. Xen Hypervisor - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HW > > 2. Xen Cloud - any known limitation, issues etc with the above HW > > Not sure what you mean by Xen Cloud. Did you mean XCP? My best advice > is try and see. It should work. > > > The other major question is, does Xen fully support Ubuntu Server 11.10 > x64. > > We are planning to use Ubuntu in ALL our planned 10 virtual machines on > > these 4 physical servers. > > 11.10, while being the latest stable, is not LTS. If you can wait I > highly suggest you wait until 12.04 (precise) LTS is out. > > That being said, IIRC the main problem with some old version of xen > and ubuntu in PV mode is that pygrub/pv-grub might not support ext4. > If you use ext3, you should be fine. If you use ext4, just try it and > make sure the xen version you use supports it. > > Also, don''t expect magic here. If your old applications each need one > of those kinds of server to perform correctly, and they have high > cpu/disk/network utilization, don''t expect you can just jam all of > them in one server using virualization and expect it to work fine. > > > Do we need any other 3rd party tools? > > Anything else that we should be aware of ? > > Based on your questions, I highly suggest you try appliance type > first, e.g. XenServer or XCP. > > Also, if you just want it to work and don''t have previous knowledge in > Xen anyway, try broaden your options. For example, vmware esxi (a.k.a > vsphere hypervisor) is more newbie-friendly. Or, if you''re comfortable > with Redhat or Oracle, they have free virtualization appliance that > you can use as well. > > -- > Fajar >_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xen.org http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 6:44 PM, Ted <tiruchirapalli@gmail.com> wrote:> We have decided to go with XCP for test environment on the older hw and > XenServer on the new hw to minimize all the risk. Since XCP and XenServer > are quite similar at large, hope that this combination will work for us.I''m not sure why you don''t just use xenserver for both. Xenserver is also available in free edition. That way your "dev" environment (will the "old" server mainly act as dev/backup?) will closely match "production". Unless of course you have some specific requirements for XCP, like you need the new features there.> > biggest concern now is to look at a storage server that goes well with this > environment. since we need something really fast enough, its a tough > choice.It depends. netapp (or something in that class) is the obvious choise for enterprise setup, but it''s also obviously expensive. if you want absolute bang-for-buck, a common rackmount server with lots of internal SAS disk (e.g. 16) running either linux or openindiana+nappit, exporting the storage as iscsi, should do the trick. Somewhere in the middle is nexentastor. It''s a well-supported commercial product, with lots of certified hardware (e.g. supermicro, dell, HP) to choose from.> vspehere is far too expensive to consider, so lets stick to XCP and > XenServer :)vsphere also has a free version, you know :) It''s limited (IIRC max number of CPU and memory you can assign to a guest), but should be enough for your hardware.> > anything else that we should be aware of, before taking the deep dive?Lost of test :) -- Fajar