Scalability & Failover

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I was wondering what options I have in these areas when dealing with Virtual Server 2005?

From my understanding VMWare has various options which allow guests to be failed over to another server in the event of problems [vmotion]. I believe it also has a new product which allows you to switch guests between ESX hosts based on memory usage etc.. to get the most out of your hardware. This can also be used to reduce power costs during slow periods moving all your guests to a reduced number of ESX hosts and powering down the rest.

All I seem to be able to find relating to Virtual Server 2005 is the ability to cluster guests. What I actually want is information on scaling over multiple VS 2005 hosts and failover options.

All replies welcome...

 

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Now you know why VMWare dumps on M$' virtualisation offering from a great height!

Seriously - there ARE clever things you can do with the M$ platform, but you can't (as far as I'm aware) use things like VMotion, DRS, Resource Pooling, Memory sharing etc to create a true virtual infrastructure. You may well be able to do some or all of the above when Viridian ships as part of SP1 for 2K8 server (realistically looking at about Q3/Q4 next year) but, until then, VMWare will always rule over M$

In fact, ESX plain flat out RULES, full stop. I've never been as enthusiastic about a technology as I am about virtualisation, and the things the VMWare dudes bolt on to ESX are astonishing - I'll never forget the first time VMotion and DRS were demonstrated to me - I almost fell off my chair!

 

You can put VS2k5 on a MSCS but lets be fair, the fail over process for a MSCS can take seconds to minutes, now its not just ex/sql thats out for a min, its every machine you have virtualized!
if your looking for that kind of availability and scalability, the MS platform is not the way to do it

VMWare is by far the leader in that field
and as Zeb and you have already touched on, you have a ton of features to make it a true grid like experience

vMotion = move machines between hosts with no interupption to the users, great for planned server maintenance or scheduled downtime! demo this with a streaming video and people wet themselves!

DRS (Dynamic Resource Scheduling) = dynamically balances VMs across all hosts dependent on load and affinity rules, great to make sure your heavy systems get a bit more space when they need it

HA = Automatically restart guests on another host if the host crashes, meaning downtime is as long as a server reboot!

New features in 3.5 (December release)

SRM integration (Site Recovery Manager) = Replicate via SAN across two sites, automatically bring servers up upon site failure, keep those machines tickin!

Power down features in DRS = slow periods result in machines being vMotioned to less hosts and empty hosts are then shut down! saving power, cooling, hardware life and making an efficient system even more efficient

+ fook loads more

Seriously, Viridian already dropped 'Live' migration (ala vMotion) out of the launch product, and only will have Quick migration, ala 5 - 30 second interruptions, absolutely no good from a TCP connection stand point unless you thump up your time outs to 30+ seconds, maybe ok for an AV server or a WSUS server *shrug*