[geeks] Virtualization Smackdown

[Mark Benson]

Hi,

We're planning a large systems move at work to something running on
Python/Postgres and it means our new production server (8-core Xeon Dell
Poweredge T610) is going to have to support 2 environments, the new one and
a LAMP environment.

While we have as second server (HP ProLiant ML310e v2 Gen8) I'd like to use
that as some form of redundant fallback to add failover capacity.

I also have a HP Microserver that I use for Dev that would ideally need to
support both so I can putz about with them in isolation.

Somewhere in the production environment I'd like also like an isolated LAMP
server to host an internal version of our website so we have a reference
version, and also a Samba server for sharing files between desks.

We don't plan on using Windows on the server side at all.

I'd like to virtualise them to keep instances of MySQL and Postgres from
fighting each other for resources. I've looked into the whole thing and
narrowed it down to using:

Xen
Kvm
VMWare vSphere Essentials

I have very little VM experience aside from Virtualbox and some tinkering
with Xen.

Xen's great if you use XenServer but it's a bitch to patch unless you buy
support (too expensive), or it's easy to patch but a cow to manage if you
use CLI tools.

Never used KVM.

VMware has a solid reputation, isn't that expensive and Essentials covers 3
machines and 6 sockets, which is a perfect fit. I've never used it either.
The only downer is it's on a rolling support contract

I'd appreciate advice from anyone who's used any or all those environments
as to relative advantages and drawbacks. We're a small company and don't
have pots of money.

--
Mark Benson

http://markbenson.org/blog
http://twitter.com/mdbenson
http://twitter.com/dectecinfo