> I'll preface this by saying that I have no experience using virtualization > in a production environment, yet, although I use it a lot for testing and > other non-production uses. > > > At the very least there's licensing issues - there may also > > be "hardware" issues - remember that you must find drivers/ > > packages for the emulated hardware, not the physical hardware. > > I've yet to encounter this as a problem. Typically, the virtualization > layer > takes care of this for you - providing drivers for the virtual hardware > for > the OS to use. In a production server environment, what hardware would you > need that isn't already supported? In addition, because the same virtual > "hardware" would be used no matter what the underlying hardware actually > was, this should simplify things a bit.
I just don't know. I use VPC 5 extensively on my machine locally, but I'm not sure how it would work in a production hosting environment or what the procedures/problems could be. There are things like performance probes from infrastructure components and such - I'm not sure how they work. For example Local Director has a the ability to "see" how busy a server is and to check its status. I would assume other infrastructure gear does the same thing (up-time monitors and such). If they all work at the IP level then they should work just fine, if they don't then I'm not sure. > > The folks from CFX Hosting have already indicated that they > > had to do some "massaging" - for example determining a way > > to let the end use "reboot" the system. > > I don't really understand what this would entail. From within VMware, this > doesn't require any "massaging" at all. You just connect like you would to > any server, and shutdown however your OS allows. But in any case, this is > the kind of problem that you'd only have to solve once, and once solved, > it > wouldn't be an issue for future deployments, I imagine. I dunno. They may want to chime in again with details >hint, hint<. ;^) The issue would be solved and done with as you say - but initially would also raise the price a bit as the hosts try and recoup their product development costs. Development and testing of a solution/package/toolset can be expensive. This is why I think that Windows VPS will stay at the level they're at ($200/month) for a while (6 months to a year) and then start to come in price as the hosting toolsets are refined and finalized. > > Even with that supporting 100 machines is ALWAYS harder > > than 10 if only for the fact that no matter how much you > > try to standardize something is always going to come up > > - and with 100 machines it's that much more likely. > > > > (Our facilities team support 40-100 dedicated servers - > > all "standardized". More machines means more work even if > > you take advantage of short cuts and tool sets.) > > My Unix admin friends would disagree, although I suspect that the truth > lies > somewhere between - keep in mind, too, that these "machines" would be > simple, compared to machines used to host a bunch of virtual servers. I think it would have to. Machines ARE all different even if you try to configure them the same. Heck, even if you buy the same brand model all at once you may end up with different OEM NICs and video processors. But generally when you're taking about a large number of machines you're talking about a cross section of at least three generations. We have, for example 8-way SMP Databases sittings sitting next to 5 year-old Pentium Pro 200 Web servers. Cloning machines and such sounds great (and it is) but it's not the 50 machines that worked that cost the money, it's one that didn't. Beyond that you have other headaches with many machines: firewall and router configuration and other infrastructure items for example that aren't easily automated. I'm also not sure how simple the machines would be comparatively. Specifically I'm not sure that they're simpler for the hoster: all of the plans I've seen has the VPS tied with remote SQL Server and Mail services - so it seems like the user configuration would be about the same (setting up a virtual server is not a hard task in any system really). You'd still have to create the same user accounts quota and such with hosting. > > Also I'm unclear as to the mechanics here... if a VPS breaks > > down nad has to be rebuilt how does that affect other VPSs > > running on the same physical machine? > > It shouldn't affect them at all. It should be as simple, in most cases, as > copying a file, then restarting the virtual OS. I imagine in practice it > might be a bit more complex. I'm not sure how it works (or how most hosts are using it). I know, for example, that if you use a virtual disk file then you can just copy a file. I thought, however that if you used a physical disk partition for performance (which I assume a host would do) that the VM's file system was not maintained as a simple file. I just don't know. Although it also brings up the question of how to best back up and restore VMs. Do you copy the whole disk as you would any other machine or just the VM's virtual disk image (the latter would make back ups easier, but restores less granular)? > > I also agree that using cheaper versions of software is > > a HUGE plus - but this does seem to be a benefit only > > for CF. Needing to license separate OSes and tools may > > very well override that "savings" (at least on windows). > > In general, I agree, and think that we'll see more use of virtualization > with Linux - that's where it's been most successful so far, anyway. But > with > the introduction of the Web Edition of Windows Server 2003, which is a > little over $300, the OS cost is less of a factor even with Windows. True... although 2003 also needs a little more oomph. I'm assuming that's why all the hosts I've seen so far are hosting the VMs on 2003 but running 2000 ON the VMs. It could also be for other reasons, but for now at least every host I've seen is running Win2000 on the VM. > > I'm really not arguing the point with you - I think that > > VPS are great and will revolutionize the hosting industry. > > But I also think there are cost and other benefits to > > application isolation that may be attractive to some users. > > I think so, too, but I think that, in the long run, those users won't be > in > the shared hosting environment but rather in the enterprise, where > failover > and redundancy are big issues. True. I also see a lot of potential for VPS systems in the enterprise as well. We could have definitely used it recently (we're on a "server consolidation kick... unfortunately in preparation for sunsetting CF). Instead of fighting with consolidating four applications onto one server we could have virtualized them much more easily. In this case, as an aside, we're talking about CF 4.5 - which means that application isolation really isn't even an option. So the VPS solution has the potential to actually extend the life of legacy applications in the enterprise. Lastly I'm also very confused as to what's out there NOW. I've seen several hosts now offer Windows VPS solutions.... but I'm not sure how they are. As far as I can tell MS hasn't released the software beyond a "not for production pre-beta" release. It's definitely not part of Windows2003. Is everybody that's spending the cash for this solution actually unknowing "pre-beta" testers? Will they get hosed when the official release comes out? Emulated hardware is still hardware to the system - every version of VPC so far has changed it enough that the guest OSes have had to go through hoops installing new device drivers - with all of the downtime and rebooting that implies. It's like taking a hard disk out of one machine and putting it in another - not pretty and it sometimes leaves the machine unstable. I'm just not sure how all of this will play out. Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=4 FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
