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Ubuntu Server and Virtual Machines
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:47 pm
by supermike
Anyone here using Ubuntu Server for their website hosting, say, on a dedicated server? I'm thinking of going down this path for a job search site. The catch is that I think it would be wise to bite the bullet and go ahead with virtual machines on it and load up 4 of these. One set of two will be the PostgreSQL server and its manually-engaged failover twin. The other set of two will be the web/app server and its manually-engaged failover twin. I'm wanting to know if anyone has experience with this, and if they know what's the recommended free VM solution on Ubuntu Server.
Re: Ubuntu Server and Virtual Machines
Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:53 pm
by supermike
Canonical appears to be putting good support behind JeOS (pronounced "Juice") and KVM. Juice is really geared more for virtual appliance solutions, which isn't what I'm looking for. KVM is the robust solution, and Canonical and Debian support it more than Xen (unlike every other Linux vendor), but KVM is picky about processors and you need a post-2006 processor. We'll have that on the production server, but I won't have this opportunity on my staging server, which has a processor from 2003 unfortunately.
All and all, I realized that we're in a time crunch on this project and I don't need to go putzing with this right now. Instead, I should deploy standalone, and then start experimenting with various VM solutions until I find one that seems to handle a decent load, has other features I like, and is easy to manage. Sun VirtualBox is one of those choices, for instance, and I have good experience with it. I just don't know how well VirtualBox stands up to the performance and manageability of KVM.
So, for now, VM stuff is on hold and I'll revisit it later.