Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : What Virtualization software to choose?

[kUdtiHaEX]

Hi all.

The time has come for me to choose what virtualization software I will be running on my servers.

I have a pretty fast and strong server built for this with 4-core CPU and 24 GB of memory. In those VM's i will be hosting custom built systems for my clients - they are web based and built mostly using PHP/MYSQL/APACHE or JAVA/TOMCAT/MYSQL. There will be some other servisec like mailing, instant messaging and so on.

What i would like to have is a good web administration interface (I am not scared of the console but it can make my life much easier). Also, i would like it to be a multiuser oriented so I can just give a login details to my customers and give them a full freedom of doing anything they want. Other things like backups, migration and stuff are welcome because I am planning to have few servers with VM's.

Out there in a wild there is a lot of possible solution for me. So far I would like to go to RHEV but at this moment it is pretty expensive for me but one day (talking about few months) I am surely going to buy it (or something which is better then RHEV but with those features). Beside RHEV, there is VMWare, XEN/KVM, OpenVZ, ProxMox, SolusVM (I am not sure if Solus is just a web interface or a complete solution?). I have tried ProxMox and it works nice so it looks like it is going to be my choice but i don't like it's web interface and it lacks of multiuser environment. Also tried VMWare server and.... geeez, that is so slow but since it's a Emulation based virtualization I can understand but what I really can't understand is a buggy web interface (and not just interface).

So, what would you recommend to me? What solution is the best, how much does it cost and what are pros/cos?

[PCS-Chris]

May I ask what disk setup you have?

If you are hosting a lot of clients depending on MySQL you are going to need a decent amount of I/O.

SolusVM is a control panel to aid in management of OpenVZ, Xen and soon also KVM.

Based on the fact you want to run Java as well, I would reccomend SolusVM + Xen.

[MikeTrike]

SolusVM + Xen would probably do the trick. It's solid, has a growing feature set with active and frequent release cycles.

Also 4 cores with 24GB of RAM? I'm assuming you're only going to run a half dozen VM's on that box with so few cores. However that's probably a bad habit of mine leaning toward enterprise virtualization with at least one CPU core dedicated per VM. Which is ideal for dedicated resources.

However, I'd see about 2 x 4 core CPU's if your box supports it. Also what type of drives are you using?

[kUdtiHaEX]

I will be running 2 HDD's in RAID-1 or maybe 1 disk, to be honest didn't figure that one out yet.

If XEN, which distro - Centos with XEN?

[kUdtiHaEX]

Originally Posted by MikeTrike

SolusVM + Xen would probably do the trick. It's solid, has a growing feature set with active and frequent release cycles.

Also 4 cores with 24GB of RAM? I'm assuming you're only going to run a half dozen VM's on that box with so few cores. However that's probably a bad habit of mine leaning toward enterprise virtualization with at least one CPU core dedicated per VM. Which is ideal for dedicated resources.

However, I'd see about 2 x 4 core CPU's if your box supports it. Also what type of drives are you using?

Well I will not run a 10000 VM's on the single machine CPU is not an issue, RAM is

Drives, at first, will be classic SATA2 drives, 7.2k RPM, 32 MB of cache.

[MikeTrike]

Originally Posted by kUdtiHaEX

Well I will not run a 10000 VM's on the single machine CPU is not an issue, RAM is

It really depends on how intensive they are. Ideally you want one CPU core per VM + dedicated RAM.

Also running RAID1 with just two low end drives, I'd say putting a half dozen VM's with any sort of load is going to lag out badly.

[kUdtiHaEX]

Originally Posted by MikeTrike

It really depends on how intensive they are. Ideally you want one CPU core per VM + dedicated RAM.

Also running RAID1 with just two low end drives, I'd say putting a half dozen VM's with any sort of load is going to lag out badly.

Yes, i know. It is not a perfect setup but also I need to se those systems working live in such setup so I can make it better for the next server. Real load, real experience, more knowledge for me and, at the end, better service for my clients. I am not one of those guys who would put too much users on a single server.

Now I am just looking for a good VM solution to support that.

[PCS-Chris]

That isn't enough I/O for what you are planning to do. A single drive can only offer so many read/write operations per second, this gets reduced for every VPS you host, since data will be on a different area of disc. I draw the line with RAID-1 on a VPS node with 8GB RAM, even then if you have any more than 15-20 VM's on there performance is going to start to really suffer.

I would reccomend 6x SATA/SAS disks with a good quality Hardware RAID-10 controller for a machine with 24GB RAM.

[MikeTrike]

Originally Posted by kUdtiHaEX

Yes, i know. It is not a perfect setup but also I need to se those systems working live in such setup so I can make it better for the next server. Real load, real experience, more knowledge for me and, at the end, better service for my clients. I am not one of those guys who would put too much users on a single server.

Now I am just looking for a good VM solution to support that.

Your best bet with this setup (to get you started). Jump in with something like SolusVM + OpenVZ so all resources are pooled/shared equally more or less. That and so you get every last ounce of performance you can out of those little SATA's. Ideally if you want to use SATA I'd recommend 8 enterprise SATA's like Samsung F1's or WD RE3/4's in RAID10.

[kUdtiHaEX]

@PCS-Chris
That is a good advice, thank you.
Back to my previous question - Centos with XEN kernel? Anything I should know before installation?

@MikeTrike
Samsung F1 disks are the current choice Thanks.

[PCS-Chris]

Why not the newer/faster/more reliable Samsung F3 drives?

I can't reveal too many details, but what I will say is that the version of Xen included with CentOS is very out of date. I would reccomend upgrading it to something newer.

You may also want to have a read around the bits on www.xen.org to learn some basics on how it works underneath.

[MikeTrike]

Apparently I have Formula 1 racing on the mind, I meant F3's on my post. Happens everytime I think about those drives.

[MikeTrike]

Here is a box I'd be more than happy to put some clients on to using just SATA drives in RAID10. Ideally if you're not running SAS, something like this would be plenty good for general web apps.

Originally Posted by Newegg

8 x SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 500GB 7200 RPM SATA
1 x SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTL-iF-O Dual LGA 1366 Motherboard
1 x 3ware 9650SE-8LPML SGL PCI-Express x4 RAID Controller
1 x SUPERMICRO CSE-825TQ-R700LPB Black 2U Rackmount (Redundant PS)
2 x 3ware CBL-SFF8087OCF-10M1m Multi-lane (SFF-8087) SATA breakout cable
2 x WINTEC 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) ECC Registered
2 x Intel Xeon E5506 Nehalem-EP 2.13GHz LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core Server CPU

Est. Cost on Newegg.com: $3,142.98

You can probably get it cheaper if you have it spec'ed out by CDW, Insight, etc. Depending on what you have access to.

[bhavicp]

Also agree with others on the thread and say definitely Xen all the way. I also recommend you do a bit of research into xen or setup a test node and play around with it a bit. However SolusVM will take care of most things for you..

[kUdtiHaEX]

Good, i will do that, the Xen it is.