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Kgdirect
15 pts.
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Creating a cluster of physical machines to run virtual machines
Windows Server 2003, VMware, Load balancing, Virtual Machines, Virtualization and hardware, Virtualization technologies, VMware ESX, VM, Beowulf Clusters, LVS, Linux Virtual Server
I am wanting to create a cluster of 12 physical machines to be able to run multiple virtual machines. For instance a windows 2003 server running exchange 2003. An linux server running mysql, and perhaps a few others but all in seperate controllable virtual machines that span and use the power of all the physical machines. I've researched and saw beowulf, LVS, etc... and to be honest i'm more confused then when i started. Please some guidance here...
ASKED: Oct 29 2008  4:18 AM GMT
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Kevinnoreen
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I think you should investigate some of the hypervisors that exist for creating virtual machine environments. The three most popular are VMware's ESX, Microsoft's Hyper-V, and Citrix's XenServer. All of these technologies enable you to take a physical machine and virtualize the workloads. By utilizing multiple physical servers, all running virtualized workloads, you can create a cluster which will enable high availability solutions and more flexibility as to where the applications are residing.
Last Answered: Nov 3 2008  10:39 PM GMT by Kevinnoreen   40 pts.
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Kgdirect   15 pts.  |   Nov 7 2008  3:11PM GMT

I’m trying to stay on the cheap side with this…. How about accomplishing this with ESXi?

 

Kevinnoreen   40 pts.  |   Nov 11 2008  9:53PM GMT

ESXi would be a good choice for the hypervisor for creating the virtual machine infrastructure for running multiple VMs on your physical servers. However, much of the management capabilities for items such as vMotion require the more expensive Enterprise versions.

I would begin with ESXi which also gives you a 60 day trial period of the Enterprise functionality. You will then be able to determine if the Enterprise pieces are required for your environment.

 

Virtualaleph   65 pts.  |   Nov 23 2008  9:30AM GMT

with ESXi you’ll get all the power of ESX without management and enterprise feature:
what kinda datacenter you’ll have? It’s a production datacenter or test and dev?
If it’s production I’ll suggest you to have a full Vmware ESX 3.5 Enterprise: you’ll pay for what you get.
HA will restart your VMs if one host fails
DRS will balance your resources usage but, if you’re not very busy and you have a little of experience, you can balance it by yourself.
hth
cheers
Manlio
My virtualization Blog

 
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