[kwlug-disc] Virtualization allocation?

[Paul Nijjar]

On Sat, Nov 06, 2010 at 03:20:13PM -0400, unsolicited wrote:
>
> One of the big reasons to move, in the Windows world, is apps tripping  
> over each other - e.g. IIS. Machine separation becomes the only  
> reasonable answer, especially when you have multi-app servers, where the 
> apps /responsibilities are two different users / departments.

Agreed. This is one of the primary reasons I am looking at
virtualization at all. The question is whether I should be thinking
about doing a lot of virtualization on the Linux side as well. 

Given that we are a smaller place which will be out of rackspace
regardless of whether or not we virtualize, it does not sound as if
splitting up the lightweight services that are on this Pentium III box
make sense. 

The snapshotting and change management advantages Raul cited are
appealing, as do the fast recovery possibilities. But from those
angles it sounds as if putting effort into Puppet/Chef and good data
backups is a better strategy than virtualizing blindly. With a good
Puppet configuration, you can quickly reinstall a Linux box on
heterogenous hardware, re-enabling the services you need. That's what
I am told, anyway. 

On the other hand, experiencing the joys of VM sprawl firsthand might
be fun, too. It does not seem as if it is worth putting a lot of $$$
into hardware for it (at least not on the Linux side). 

- Paul