[AusNOG] Back of envelope II

[Sean K. Finn]

There's Redhat's XEN, then there's Citrix's XEN-Server which are different animals.

Citrix's XEN-Server is now "free", they are presumably loss-leading.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/23/1851235&from=rss

-Sean.

-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Nathan Gardiner
Sent: Friday, 6 March 2009 1:49 PM
To: Campbell, Alex
Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Back of envelope II

Without having done any research at all on their pricing, it might
also be worthwhile looking at Citrix/XenSource. Doesn't have the same
market share but it does have some particular technology advantages,
such as the Linux paravirtualisation which can significantly improve
performance for Linux guests.

A bit of competition is always healthy..


Nathan

On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Campbell, Alex
<Alex.Campbell at ogilvy.com.au> wrote:
> 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
> 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
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> accept any liability in respect of viruses or computer problems
> experienced.
>
>
>> -----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.
>> > >>
>> > >> _______________________________________________
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>> > >> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
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