[HCoop-Discuss] Dedicated servers?

[Ron Senykoff]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:33 PM, Adam Chlipala <adamc at hcoop.net> wrote:
>
> Which benefits are you thinking of, if we also have a KVM for remote
> console access?

Wow, OK. Virtualization is used for far more than dividing up machines
across clients. Some examples:
- Can host multiple servers on one machine without worrying about
conflicts / problems happening when upgrading one, applying patches
etc
- With 2 'bare metal' boxes, you could have multiple servers
clustered, with 1 instance of each on each box. If you need to take
down one instance for patching etc, the 2nd instance could be used.
When done, you bring up the primary and patch the 2nd. No downtime.
- You can move VMs from one machine to another. Not sure about XEN,
but VMWare allows you to migrate VMs while they are running.
- Ability to have 'sandbox' VMs for doing proof of concept etc without
any concern about hosing up some other production instance.
- You can have a standard base image that you install for any new VM.
Basically a prebuilt lean VM waiting for you to install whatever
software you want.
- Members could even have their own VM if desired.
- Ability to run different OSs on the same box.
- Prebuilt VMs can even be installed. Download, start, server.
- It becomes much easier to isolate which application (mysql, mail,
etc) is causing load on the system. With multiple physical servers in
place, you can move the VMs around as appropriate to best distribute
the load. This allows for real optimization of your hardware
utilization.

HTH,
-Ron