> In brief: when load balancing client network connections across > multiple instances of an application, is it better to run multiple > separate 1 virtual IFL linux guests, each with a separate copy of the > application, or a single, large N virtual IFL linux guest with several > copies of the application running inside it?
I'm sure others will chime in with more numbers-oriented answers, but I'd observe that there's also a cost of managing scalability that argues for the separate instance model. It's a lot simpler to scale up an environment that is in separate instances (in that adding additional capacity for client connections or monitoring targets is a question of adding more virtual machines based on a common template), and debugging is a lot simpler if there are problems because you can easily determine what instance of the application is causing the problem. It's a lot easier to train people to look at a problem where the configuration is the same in every virtual instance; you just have to know which instance. Trying to pack multiple instances into one guest makes that part much harder. There's probably a slight resource utilization advantage for smaller numbers of bigger, more complex, instances, but I can safely assert (I think) that the support cost probably outweighs it. Both in the short and long run, people are the expensive resource (as opposed to computer hardware), and anything that lets you work smarter and get better use out of the people is probably worth the difference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
