On 5/4/07, dave johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
While you're right that it *should* be ran on baremetal, the ability to run a single backup domain controller as a guest on an OF box would go a long way towards value-add for SMBs which would vault OF above Windows Storage Server R2 in value since WSSR2 is locked down to not run as a Domain Controller. Once could load Virtual Server 2005 R2 on it but it doesn't come ready to run out of the box and certainly doesn't run at the efficiency level of a Xen hypervisor on a VT-enabled processor.
I understand this option. I think though in that situation it is much better to run OF in a guest domain. Several reasons: 1. The host domain/hypervisor does not often need to be updated or rebooted. An active application domain will have constant (monthly say) package changes. For example I've got a Xen 2.0.3 dom0 host that has been running non-stop for almost two years. It just works, and they is hardly every a need to change it. The guest domains can be booted on demand, deleted and reimaged very quickly. 2. Manageability is lost. I've live increase the size of disk slice to a samba server within 1 min, by simply shutting it down, growing the logical volume, then restarting the domain. 3. Host domains are not designed performance wise to handle application loads. Running the virtual host on OF loses many of the advantage virtualisation provides. I'm not disagreeing with running a virtual host in OF, but I'm saying there are better ways to do this. Your rebuttle to Les' claim that VMWare is "actually working now" vs Xen is
more than warranted though. In fact, VMWare *always* worked, while it is Xen that recently moved into the "working now" category.
In fact XenEnterprise is a officially supported platform for Windows. Can't really get more working than that. Nicholas
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