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  1. #1
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    Creating A Cloud for Small Business

    If a startup business wanted to create a small cloud to handle an email server, a web server, an accounting system server, a VoIP server, and other machines dedicated to one application what hardware and software would one use? I know Xen and VMware seem to be the big players out there, but which to choose? VMware looks quite expensive, and XEN seems to be free. Does one just use the free XEN hypervisor found on xen.org?
    I know the servers for the hypervisors can be any X86 systems, but what about storage? What options are out there?

  2. #2
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    Well, that is a bit of a loaded question but you're on the right track to get started. Xen and VMWare are mainly just hypervisors and referred to in the virtualization sense (unless you start looking into the full suite of services and hardware necessary to be Cloud, beyond just virtualization).

    Have you gotten into virtualization yet? How important is fast and easy scalability, instant redundancy, high availability, and location independence? These are some key differentiating factors of virtualization. Virtualization is a key component to Cloud, but you could kind of say Cloud is virtualization with a whole lot more...

    Basically where I'm getting at is if you just want to toss up a bunch of applications in house you can do that on a single virtualized server without having to deal with the complexity and costs of Cloud. And you are talking about premise based right?

  3. #3
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    Well basically I want to get a rack in a datacenter, put a bare medal hypervisor on a couple of old servers (let’s say 5), and then buy a dedicated storage device for the actually data to reside on. I believe with the data residing on a dedicated storage medium the virtual machines would be able to jump between the five servers if one crashed or was overloaded.

    I know they (VMware/XEN) can all do this, but what I don’t understand is at what level and pricing. I know XEN is open source and free, but then there are many companies that take XEN and then repackage it as their own. Does the open source free hypervisor found on Xen.org support this jumping between servers and a central data store?

    Another feature that would be nice is the availability to purchase a hybrid cloud model where we have some in the pubic cloud with another provider like Amazon for example and then other VMs in our private cloud.

    I am not opposed to paying for virtualization software, but I think what VMware charge is kind of insane for a startup. I know they have a free version, but I am not sure it’s real limitations. I also seen OnApp and Applogix being mentioned, but I am not sure about these solutions either.

    Then I am not sure which SAN or storage device to look for, and what features to go with.

  4. #4
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    XenServer is what is needed for live migration, and that is not free. It's by Citrix.

    Have you considered approaching a Cloud provider and just asking them for a small private Cloud? The leverage Cloud providers have to do this can get you in an entry level solution cheaper than you can do it on your own, and you'll have much better support and you'll need the support.

  5. #5
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    Regarding the free ESXi license limitations,

    For HA, you'd need a vSphere Essential Plus + a vCenter Server license to enable clustering.

    What you do get for the free license is 1 physical CPU (1-6 cores) and everything more or less toned down to single machine management.

    If this is just an exercise in consolidating machines and having the ability to recover from a dead server without any stringent need for minute by minute HA, then on the cheap, you still have the ability to setup a NFS store and load your images from it - although you'll have to manually 'import' the VM into any new nodes. Should a node crash, your images are still sitting on the NFS storage. Granted, your NFS storage becomes a single point of failure. iSCSI is available in free ESXi as well, but eh.... a proper SAN is expensive.

    All that said, your list of applications don't match what should be going onto a single virtualized cluster as their networking requirements are different.

    • email server, a web server - public facing.
    • accounting system server - should be behind a firewall + VPN.
    • VoIP server - QoS


    Because they're going to be sharing the same LAN leading out of your boxes, some due consideration needs to be given to how you actually segment them. Both vmware and xen have bridge, host-only, and NAT network modes.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by CloudWeb View Post
    XenServer is what is needed for live migration, and that is not free. It's by Citrix.
    if your cloud management platform supports live migration, XenServer is not needed. You can use the free community version of XEN in that case.
    Ditlev Bredahl. CEO,
    OnApp.com + Cloud.net & CDN.net

  7. #7
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    Yeah, OnApp support that, and they are free for the first year! Duh Cloudweb...

    How could you be so inconsiderate.
    Michael Wallace - michael@innoscale.net
    Innovative Scaling Technologies Inc. - A Cloud Service Provider
    24/7 Support, Call us @ 1-307-200-4880
    www.innoscale.net - Seattle, Silicon Valley, Dallas, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Europe

  8. #8
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    lol.. I forgot

  9. #9
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    I have been reading up about OnApp, and this solution looks nice. My only worry is that is seems to be more for a hosting application for webhosts, where this will be for internal use only.

    What other cloud managment platforms are out there that support using the regualar free community version of Xen?

  10. #10
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    Why is it a worry?
    Steven Ciaburri | Industry's Best Server Management - Rack911.com
    Software Auditing - 400+ Vulnerabilities Found - Quote @ https://www.RACK911Labs.com
    Fully Managed Dedicated Servers (Las Vegas, New York City, & Amsterdam) (AS62710)
    FreeBSD & Linux Server Management, Security Auditing, Server Optimization, PCI Compliance

  11. #11
    Xen Cloud Platform - Price: Free!

    http://www.xen.org/products/cloudxen.html

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by KyleLC23 View Post
    I have been reading up about OnApp, and this solution looks nice. My only worry is that is seems to be more for a hosting application for webhosts, where this will be for internal use only.

    What other cloud managment platforms are out there that support using the regualar free community version of Xen?
    It seems to be for hosting only, but its not. It can be deployed in the Enterprise sector also.
    Offshore Hosting & High Privacy in Panama
    Cloud Servers & Shared Web Hosting | Daily Backups | 99.9% Uptime
    www.OffshoreRacks.com

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