On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 11:37 AM, Joe Auty <j...@netmusician.org> wrote:
> Tim Cook wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 11:20 AM, Joe Auty <j...@netmusician.org> wrote: > >> Tim Cook wrote: >> >> On Sun, Nov 8, 2009 at 2:03 AM, besson3c <j...@netmusician.org> wrote: >> >>> I'm entertaining something which might be a little wacky, I'm wondering >>> what your general reaction to this scheme might be :) >>> >>> >>> I would like to invest in some sort of storage appliance, and I like the >>> idea of something I can grow over time, something that isn't tethered to my >>> servers (i.e. not direct attach), as I'd like to keep this storage appliance >>> beyond the life of my servers. Therefore, a RAID 5 or higher type setup in a >>> separate 2U chassis is attractive to me. >>> >>> I do a lot of virtualization on my servers, and currently my VM host is >>> running VMWare Server. It seems like the way forward is with software based >>> RAID with sophisticated file systems such as ZFS or BTRFS rather than a >>> hardware RAID card and "dumber" file system. I really like what ZFS brings >>> to the table in terms of RAID-Z and more, so I'm thinking that it might be >>> smart to skip getting a hardware RAID card and jump into using ZFS. >>> >>> The obvious problem at this point is that ZFS is not available for Linux >>> yet, and BTRFS is not yet ready for production usage. So, I'm exploring some >>> options. One option is to just get that RAID card and reassess all of this >>> when BTRFS is ready, but the other option is the following... >>> >>> What if I were to run a FreeBSD VM and present it several vdisks, format >>> these as ZFS, and serve up ZFS shares through this VM? I realize that I'm >>> getting the sort of userland conveniences of ZFS this way since the host >>> would still be writing to an EXT3/4 volume, but on the other hand perhaps >>> these conveniences and other benefits would be worthwhile? What would I be >>> missing out on, despite no assurances of the same integrity given the >>> underlying EXT3/4 volume? >>> >>> What do you think, would setting up a VM solely for hosting ZFS shares be >>> worth my while as a sort of bridge to BTRFS? I realize that I'd have to >>> allocate a lot of RAM to this VM, I'm prepared to do that. >>> >>> >>> Is this idea retarded? Something you would recommend or do yourself? All >>> of this convenience is pointless if there will be significant problems, I >>> would like to eventually serve production servers this way. Fairly low >>> volume ones, but still important to me. >>> >>> >> Why not just convert the VM's to run in virtualbox and run Solaris >> directly on the hardware? >> >> >> That's another possibility, but it depends on how Virtualbox stacks up >> against VMWare Server. At this point a lot of planning would be necessary to >> switch to something else, although this is possibility. >> >> How would Virtualbox stack up against VMWare Server? Last I checked it >> doesn't have a remote console of any sort, which would be a deal breaker. >> Can I disable allocating virtual memory to Virtualbox VMs? Can I get my VMs >> to auto boot in a specific order at runlevel 3? Can I control my VMs via the >> command line? I thought Virtualbox was GUI only, designed for Desktop use >> primarily? >> >> This switch will only make sense if all of this points to a net positive. >> >> > Why are you running VMware server at all if those are your requirements? > Nothing in your requirements explain why you would choose something with the > overhead of VMware server over ESX. > > With those requirements, I'd point you at Sun xVM. > > In any case, while I can't answer all of your questions as I don't use > Virtualbox: yes, you can control VM's from the command line. > > VMware server is designed primarily for Desktop use, hence my confusion > with your choice. > > > > It appears that one can get more in the way of features out of VMWare > Server for free than with ESX, which is seemingly a hook into buying more > VMWare stuff. > > I've never looked at Sun xVM, in fact I didn't know it even existed, but I > do now. Thank you, I will research this some more! > > The only other variable, I guess, is the future of said technologies given > the Oracle takeover? There has been much discussion on how this impacts ZFS, > but I'll have to learn how xVM might be affected, if at all. > > Quite frankly, I wouldn't let that stop you. Even if Oracle were to pull the plug on xVM entirely (not likely), you could very easily just move the VM's back over to *insert your favorite flavor of Linux* or Citrix Xen. Including Unbreakable Linux (Oracle's version of RHEL). --Tim
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