----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Nelson-Smith" <sanelson@???>
To: "Hampshire LUG Discussion List" <hampshire@???>
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 8:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Hampshire] New box for Virtualisation
> Hi Rob,
>
>> I need some pretty basic advice on building a new box specifically for
>> the
>> purposes of virtualisation (running about 3 servers). My current
>> Sempron
>> 3200+ with 2Gb of RAM isn't cutting it.
>
> What are you trying to do? What are you doing with your VMs? What
> virtualisation technology are you using? In what way is the current
> setup unsatisfactory?
>
>> So, without the funds to go really
>> top end, I'm going for the fastest CPU I can afford and give it plenty of
>> RAM. Q1 - is this a good strategy for virtualisation?
>
> Depends what you want to do. If, for example, you need a dedicated
> core per vm, then no. If, for example, your vms need more memory,
> yes. Incidentally, is there a reason why you can't simply buy more
> RAM?
>
>> Q2 Do I have to run a 64-bit kernel to address all 6Gb (if I go for that
>> much) RAM?
>
> This is a tremendously FAQ. The short answer is no, but you probably
> should. The detail of how Linux memory management works,
> specificially with respect to getting 32 bit systems to address large
> amounts of memory is here: http://kerneltrap.org/node/2450/7217
>
> S.
>
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> 18:17
>
Hi all
Thanks for your responses. I had better elaborate...
The vmss I'll be running are:
1) DNS
2) PHP/ web
3) At least one machine running my cluster software's "masternode"
At present, these are separate physical boxes and it's about time I got some
shelf space back, let alone some better karma about the environment!
My vm software of choice is virtualbox. I'm about 80% likely to be using
it - but xen is another possibility. It won't be vmware - personal
preference.
The point about keeping all these on a workstation that's just used for vm
and keeping another machine for a workstation is a good one - but not one I
can go with I'm afraid. I'm purging the number of physical boxes I have to
maintain (accepting the overhead of needing to understand vm better!) so
it'll be one hopefully high (but not super high) spec Linux box doing all my
various jobs. PHP and DNS should be pretty low load and the cluster
software won't be that frequently used.
Thanks for all the replies.
Cheers
Rob
