[AusNOG] Back of envelope II

Campbell, Alex Alex.Campbell at ogilvy.com.au
Fri Mar 6 14:44:23 EST 2009


Indeed.  I think VMWare's pricing people are stuck 5 years ago when SANs
were outrageously expensive, so anyone who could afford a SAN wouldn't
blink at dropping $20k USD on VMWare licenses.

Things have obviously changed.  I hope VMWare's pricing catches up soon,
as they're putting their most useful features out of reach of most
customers.


-----Original Message-----
From: Skeeve Stevens [mailto:skeeve at eintellego.net] 
Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 2:37 PM
To: Campbell, Alex; Nathan Gardiner
Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: RE: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II

Ouch

--
Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net
Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
--
NOC, NOC, who's there?

Disclaimer: Limits of Liability and Disclaimer: This message is for the
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Campbell, Alex [mailto:Alex.Campbell at ogilvy.com.au]
> Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 2:32 PM
> To: Skeeve Stevens; Nathan Gardiner
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: RE: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II
>
> VI Foundation (the $6k package below) doesn't achieve server
> redundancy,
> as it doesn't include VMotion, HA etc.
>
> To get VMotion you need VI Enterprise which is $19,595 USD for a 6 CPU
> Acceleration Kit.  I don't think that price includes
> support/maintenance
> which is mandatory.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Skeeve Stevens
> Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 2:21 PM
> To: Nathan Gardiner
> Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II
>
> I disagree.  There are some services/applications that lend themselves
> to clustering and many which do not unless a lot of expensive is
> involved.  Windows Servers, Citrix, Oracle and other DB servers,
> Exchange and so on are not easy to provide hardware redundancy without
> significant cost.
>
> I don't think the costs of VMware are that excessive.
>
>
http://store.vmware.com/DRHM/servlet/ControllerServlet?Action=DisplayPr
> o
> ductDetailsPage&SiteID=vmware&Locale=en_US&Env=BASE&productID=83617500
>
> VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit for 6 Processors (VI
> Foundation, vCenter Server Foundation) + Gold (12x5) 1 Year Support
> US$3624 / AU$6194
>
> Gives you everything you want.  Not free no, but very reasonably
priced
> for what you get.
>
> I so agree however, if the application is simple and can be dealt with
> by load balancer or reverse proxy, such as web hosting, smtp or other
> simple solutions, then that is the way to go.
>
> ...Skeeve
>
>
> --
>
> Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Nathan Gardiner [mailto:ngardiner at gmail.com]
> > Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 1:56 PM
> > To: Skeeve Stevens
> > Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
> > Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II
> >
> > VMWare ESX is an expensive way to achieve server redundancy, if
> that's
> > your only goal. SAN redundancy can be achieved through multipath on
> > linux with equivalent solutions on Windows. Network redundancy can
be
> > achieved through bonding or teaming of NIC adaptors.
> >
> > The equivalent of what you are achieving through virtualisation is
> > possible by deploying several hosts with the same function and using
> > content switches, or even OSPF/anycast, to allow a single node to be
> > taken down without (any/much) operational impact. Shared SAN storage
> > and clustered filesystems can allow several nodes (with the correct
> > application intelligence) to access the same data volumes.
> >
> > Virtualisation works well and reduces cost, but is not without
> > limitation. High network utilisation can saturate shared network
> > connections, high CPU can cause latency across the host, high SAN
> > utilisation can cause storage latency. High memory utilisation can
> > cause swapping, which in turn causes significant latency. You can
> > always scale VMWare hosts but there is a cost involved - the higher
> > you scale to deal with infrequent utilisation, the less of an
> > advantage you gain by virtualising (not to mention licensing costs
on
> > top).
> >
> >
> > Nathan
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 1:34 PM, Skeeve Stevens
> <skeeve at eintellego.net>
> > wrote:
> > > The ONLY solid way that I know to do good server redundancy is
with
> > Virtual Platforms that support SAN, Fibre Channel/iSCSI with diverse
> > heads.
> > >
> > > We manage multiple instances of VMware ESX/ESXi that have 2+ heads
> > backed into SAN's with both heads fed into Cisco switches - nearly
> > always 3560G/3750G-stacked configurations.
> > >
> > > Those have never gone down, even when upgrading the physical
> hardware
> > - VM's just migrate between heads.
> > >
> > > Some say VM's aren't appropriate for some applications... I would
> > debate that as even in a dedicated VM solution there is not many
apps
> > that wouldn't happily work with that given dedicated NIC, Storage,
> CPU
> > and RAM access.
> > >
> > > ...Skeeve
> > >
> > > --
> > > Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
> > > eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
> > > skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net
> > > Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
> > > Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
> > > --
> > > NOC, NOC, who's there?
> > >
> > > Disclaimer: Limits of Liability and Disclaimer: This message is
for
> > the named person's use only. It may contain sensitive and private
> > proprietary or legally privileged information. You must not,
directly
> > or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of
> > this message if you are not the intended recipient. eintellego Pty
> Ltd
> > and each legal entity in the Tefilah Pty Ltd group of companies
> reserve
> > the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks.
> > Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual
> sender,
> > except where the message states otherwise and the sender is
> authorised
> > to state them to be the views of any such entity. Any reference to
> > costs, fee quotations, contractual transactions and variations to
> > contract terms is subject to separate confirmation in writing signed
> by
> > an authorised representative of eintellego. Whilst all efforts are
> made
> > to safeguard inbound and outbound e-mails, we cannot guarantee that
> > attachments are virus-free or compatible with your systems and do
not
> > accept any liability in respect of viruses or computer problems
> > experienced.
> > >
> > >
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-
> > >> bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Michael Bethune
> > >> Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 12:14 PM
> > >> To: ausnog at ausnog.net
> > >> Subject: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II
> > >>
> > >> Thanks folks for all the responses.
> > >>
> > >> Is it possible to do auto fail over redundant switching and what
> if
> > >> anything
> > >> in the Cisco range would do it?
> > >>
> > >> I remember using a dual cisco catalyst, but you ended up with a
> pair
> > of
> > >> tails, 1 from each catalyst, with a heart beat connecting the two
> > >> catalysts
> > >> together. Has the state moved on to allow you to have transparent
> > (to
> > >> the
> > >> connected hosts) redundant switching?
> > >>
> > >> Michael.
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> AusNOG mailing list
> > >> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> > >> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
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> > >
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