[NTLUG:Discuss] Virtualization recomendations (was Video card recommendations)

[Bob Netherton]

>  On another topic entirely, I signed up for a free OpenSolaris CD.  I
> got a note from Sun saying it had shipped on May 15. 

Send me your mailing address privately and I'll make sure you get a
copy.  I'll burn it myself :-)   I probably have a trunkload of them
back at the office, if I ever get back there.

>   I want to try VirtualBox out. 

VirtualBox is pretty cool.   I'm doing a presentation on it at the
local OpenSolaris Users Group next Thursday.  Chris and I have talked
about cooperation across the two groups and this may be one of those
times where there isn't going to be any "Solaris is the greatest
thing in the world" content :-)   So you all are welcome to come over
and hear about it - or if you guys want we can do it for one of your
upcoming meetings.

Registration URL is at
https://www.suneventreg.com//cgi-bin/register.pl?EventID=2321

Pizza, soft drinks at 6:30 and program at 7.  Will be done by 8:30.

I will be showing several Linux guest operating systems :-)

>  I have not got Xen to work worth a hoot.  

Xen is starting to get pretty stable, especially if you have relatively
modern hardware (which I don't here at home - hence the system buildout
project).  PV drivers for HVM guests are starting to show up which give
the best of both worlds - hybrid HVM/PV.  I have come to the conclusion
that Xen is best used for server type workloads (web servers, compute
severs, application servers).  The expensive graphics rendering doesn't
make it the best thing for interactive desktop applications - it is
just too heavy for that.  I like VirtualBox for those type of
applications.   But the cost of the code scanner makes VB a less than
ideal choice for server workloads that spend a lot of time in the
kernel (translate that to ring 0 in x86 parlance). 

> VMWare Server is OK, but the license makes me uncomfortable.  Ond
> it is not open source. 

I have a couple of problems with VMware server beyond that.  The
continual bloat of the product, adding all the web wrapper stuff
is making this thing a pretty large application.  I teach a class
and we used to use VMware server, but the poor performance of it
lately has caused us to switch to something else - and that
something is VirtualBox (thank goodness we acquired them).

My bigger problem with VMware is that the product is targeted at the
Windows market.   Yeah, I get it - Windows single use servers due to
DLL conflicts is a problem, there are lots of servers running out
there at low utilization.  Got it - but that same approach doesn't
work well for our types of operating systems where we do run
multiple applications at higher loads and certainly more kernel
time.

Even worse than that though is the credibility gap when VMware
starts being positioned has a High Availability (HA) solution.
Now is there anyone with firing neurons that isn't more afraid
of Windows crashing than their hardware ?  No amount of virtualization
magic is going to make that problem go away, and it is
disingenuous to suggest that you don't need HA when you have
VMware.

>  I know something in this space will work out in
> the long run.  KVM, maybe.

Where are the commercial distributions with respect to KVM ?   Most
were lining up for the Xen train, at least before Citrix acquired
XenSource.  I know that we're still strongly committed to it.   I
don't see that much commitment to KVM out of the commercial guys, but
someone please tell me if I'm wrong.


Oh - and on the graphics front, you got a pretty good card for $20.
It's surprising what you can get for $20 today.   It's amazing how
much you can heat your office for about $100 :-)

Bob