On Thu, Sep 02, 2004, Christopher Chan wrote:
> Ralf mentioned in another email that a lot of OpenPKG platform tests are
> running on a VMWare GSX server. Are all the nightly builds and tests on the
> different OS platforms using the VMWare GSX server as well? How well has it
> worked and have you faced any problems with any of the OS platforms with this
> solution?
>
> We also use OpenPKG on different platforms and do builds and tests, and we are
> looking for a more optimal solution than a physical machine.
Until now we did only the non-automated builds/tests on VMWare GSX
server. For the semi-automated buildfarm until now we still used 21
physical machines and just for all manual tests the VMWare GSX server.
But we are now actually in the progress of replacing lots of outdated
physical machines (about 12) with multiple additional VMWare GSX servers
in order to reduce the resource requirements of the release engineering
processes.
We are currently using VMWare GSX 3.1 which allows us to run
FreeBSD/x86, Linux/x86 and (since recently) even Solaris/x86 pretty
well. On a HP DL380 G4 with 2x3GHz CPU and 3GB RAM under VMWare GSX 3.1
(cost is approx. EUR 6000+3000) you can usually run 4-6 virtual machines
which effectively remain to have a virtual 1GHz CPU and 512MB RAM (with
effective costs per machine of approx. EUR 1800). For servers in a
buildfarm this is sufficient. The only drawback is that you can only
virtualize x86 platforms. For the SPARC64, HPPA and IA64 platforms we
still have to use physical machines, of course.
When using VMWare do not just treat the price into account (for the
above EUR 1800 you would get a much more performing phyiscal PC), but
the other important factors: reduced rack space requirements, reduced
power consumption, less network uplinks, etc. on one side and especially
the flexibility on the other side. For instance, with virtual machines
you can easily shift around multiple OS installations, you can more
easily upgrade OS installations (always the same hardware and hence
drivers), you can revert back to snapshot states, you can easily upgrade
and downgrade the hardware (usually adding more RAM or diskspace), etc.
At least I personally would no longer want to work without my VMWare
Workstation and VMWare GSX Servers... ;-)
Ralf S. Engelschall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.engelschall.com
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