Re: [gentoo-user] vmWare HowTo / best practices

[Pandu Poluan]

On Apr 20, 2013 9:31 PM, "J. Roeleveld" <joost@××××××××.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, April 19, 2013 18:42, Jarry wrote:
> > On 19-Apr-13 17:52, Pandu Poluan wrote:
> >
> >> Well, for me, XenServer-based virtualization is very very simple. And
if
> >> I compile the kernel with all Xen PV (paravirtualized) 'FrontEnds', it
> >> runs near-natively.
> >>
> >> Only the xend daemon need some 'tweaking' to run properly.
> >>
> >> Do a Google search for "gentoo xenserver" and if you find pages written
> >> by me, those are my experiences running Gentoo on top of XenServer,
> >> successfully.
> >
> > What I had in mind is administration of hypervisor itself.
> > ESXi is feature-rich product, and to handle all its possibilities
> > (i.e. vMotion, vShield, HA, FT, vCenter, DRS/DPM, FW, etc) one have
> > to spend quite long time by studying and the learning curve is
> > very steep (again, I'm comparing with VServer or OpenVZ/Virtuozzo,
> > I do not know XenServer).
> >
> > Deploying Gentoo-guest (or "VM" / "DomU" as they call it) is
> > actually very easy. And after reading your wiki-page I'd say
> > it is easier on ESXi then on XenServer, because there is actually
> > no difference between installing Gentoo on VM, or real hardware
> > (no need for special compile options or special device-files,
> > no limit on boot-loader, etc.).
>
> Actually, deploying it on ESXi and on XenServer is both very easy.
> The difference is, XenServer has 2 options for the guests:
> 1) Fully Virtualised
> 2) Paravirtualised
>
> ESXi only supports the first.
> If you install all VMs using the first option, it is very simple.
>
> But, if you want maximum (as in, near native) performance, the 2nd option
> is definitely worth the extra effort.
>
> I use a Gentoo Dom0 (Xen Host) with several Gentoo VMs running on top of
> it. I only had to add a few options to the kernel configuration to get the
> VMs working.
> Similar effort to installing a Gentoo guest on ESXi, but on ESXi, I would
> need to add the VMWare tools to get the VMs to shutdown correctly when I
> need to shutdown the host.
>
> --
> Joost Roeleveld
>
>

True. Since on Gentoo we have access to the source code (and have to
compile our own kernel anyways), it's just wasteful top not leverage the
near-native performance of full PV (paravirtualized) mode, in which all
important devices, namely storage and networking, are offloaded to the dom0
via the proper hypercalls.

XenServer also has all the so-called 'advanced' features of VMware, even in
the free edition. Citrix only charged for the 'automation' tools (e.g.,
automatic workload balancing). But if one is well versed with programming
and the CloudStack API, one can easily create one's own automation system.

In my current employment, I have been busy rebuilding the data center using
XenServer, and decommissioning many VMware ESXi hosts while at it. By the
end of this year, I expect we will be VMware-free.

Rgds,
--

Rgds,
--