[Linux-cluster] Open Source VM Solutions?

[Nikolas Lam]

On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 10:21 -0600, isplist at logicore.net wrote:
> > "Citrix also reiterated its commitment to maintaining and growing
> > support for the independent Xen open source community which develops the
> > underlying virtualization engine used by many commercial products
> > throughout the industry, including those from XenSource."
> 
> So anyone using it or thinking about it would still consider it viable as an 
> open source project then?
> 
> Mike

We're using Xen guests as nodes in a cluster using Red Hat cluster
suite. Although we're not using the feature, it can automatically
migrate virtual machines (Domain U) among different physical hosts
(Domain 0) using cluster suite.

With respect to alternatives to Xen, I believe the strategy that Red Hat
and other linux vendors are taking is to use a wrapper library, libvirt,
which abstracts the management of virtualisation so you can use the same
management interface for different virtualisation systems. E.g. I think
currently Red Hat supports qemu and Xen virtualisation using libvirt,
and another up and coming form of virtualsation, KVM, will be supported
soon too. This approach will hopefully protect against e.g. the Xen
project dying as an decent open-source virtualisation platform. It will
be easier to transition to a different type of virtualisation.

Anyway, as far as clustering and high-availability virtualisation goes,
Xen-based virtualisation ready for use in RHEL and Centos 5, as long as
your willing to delve in and learn a bit of Xen and put up with a few
rough edges. A good way to learn would be to use RHEL5 client or Centos
on your PC and install the @virtualization group of packages. Oh, and
having some kind of automatic deployment/provisioning system such as
kickstart/red hat network satellite server, cobbler/koan makes things a
lot more fun.

Nik