We run almost all of our shared and internal web servers as VMs using VMware with no degradation in performance. Most of them are currently using local storage of the host node. Eventually we will be moving to either a fiber channel SAN storage or multi-pathed direct attach storage to store the vm images.
Currently using local storage we cannot reap the benefits of Vmotion, which handles moving vms from host to host in the advent the host goes down. It can also (based on a rule set) move vms if esx host performance begins to degrade. Nice thing is there is virtually no downtime when this occurs, you may notice a freeze for less than a second in most instances. Vmotion is where you get "cloud" like behavior. In a well desgined and configured environment you should really see no performance differences. In fact if use fiber channel san disk i/o will probably be better than local storage (with a server virtualizied or not). Then it comes down to cost, san and vmware get expensive, but you get into the very highly available arena. You have to do your homework as some hosts say vm, but may not be giving you the HA aspect, so if a host goes down you still will have down time. Although, vms in general tend to be easier to recover than doing baremetal restores or breaking raid and putting a drive in another machine. At hosting.com, they used to sell simple/vms that used nfs storage with no vmotion, now they only sell enterprise vms that use san storage and have vmotion enabled. Difference in cost is about 3 times more because of the storage and vmotion license cost. Then vps is another virtualization technology. Its container based, as opposed to hypervisor, and has some of the same storage and HA considerations. Conatiners are nice in the way they share memory, you can actually get better capacity (more vms per node) than hypervisors, but usually want vps of smaller size (less ram and cpu cores). Depending on your budget you may want to look at vps over vms as they are usually less expensive. Might be a good stepping stone. Byron Mann Lead Engineer and Architect Hostmysite.com On May 23, 2012 4:31 AM, "Edward Chanter" <firew...@cc.uk.com> wrote: > > I'm currently investigating a new UK hosting solution and I was hoping to > pick people's brains: > > 1. Can anyone recommend one or two good, responsive CF hosting companies > based in the UK? > 2. Do people have any experiences with running CF hosting on a VM solution, > how does it compare to a standalone server? > 3. I tried to convince my boss that "cloud" is just another of those > meaningless marketing buzz-words but he's insistent I look at "cloud-based" > CF hosting. Anyone go any recommendations for that in the UK? > > Thanks in advance :) > > -= Ed > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:351320 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
