[one-users] Tiny Local Business scenario for openNebula

Fri Oct 28 02:16:09 PDT 2011

HI,

Thanks for that reply Carlos, that is an interesting solution, and I
hadn't fully considered how a one-box OpenNebula system might be useful
in Diego's case.

Presumably then, if this were to be extended to a two-host cluster, the
front-end component could be run on either node and migrate from one to
the other with e.g. pacemaker.

I've read this post with interest: http://blog.opennebula.org/?p=1523
about setting up DBRD in active/standby mode and then using this to
export NFS and ATAoE, but I hadn't considered the possibility of using
the same two machines as the VM hosts. For a small business requiring an
HA solution, this might be a useful approach.

Is this a more common scenario than I am imagining, and is there
anything in particular to consider when designing such a system?

Kind regards,

Ben

On 27/10/11 11:33, Carlos Martín Sánchez wrote:
> Hi,
>
> OpenNebula can be used for the scenario you describe, even if you are
> not going to take advantage of its on-demand cloud features.
> It will provide a centralized view and management of your Images and
> VMs, what will surely help to administer and monitor your virtualized
> workstations.
>
> OpenNebula can use the same computer as the front-end and host, the
> only thing to keep in mind is that you need to use the shared storage
> transfer manager [1] (the front-end and the hosts are "sharing" the
> same storage).
>
> Knowing that all the VMs will be windows, you may want to configure
> remote desktop access to the guest OS instead of VNC.
>
> Regards.
>
> [1] http://opennebula.org/documentation:rel3.0:sfs
> --
> Carlos Martín, MSc
> Project Engineer
> OpenNebula - The Open Source Toolkit for Cloud Computing
> www.OpenNebula.org
> <http://www.opennebula.org/> | cmartin at opennebula.org
> <mailto:cmartin at opennebula.org>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 3:55 PM, Diego Jacobi <jacobidiego at gmail.com
> <mailto:jacobidiego at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Ben.
>     I appreciate your answer.
>
>     I was expecting to be able to install kvm, sshd, and openNebula on the
>     same hardware. As I would not need to provide many different
>     technologies.
>     I think that I would have maybe 4 VM at the same time, but the virtual
>     processor will be most of the time sleeping.
>
>     Will this be in some software related conflict ? Or your
>     recommendation is due to the load ?
>
>     It sounds that the method you describe, involves the same procedures
>     as installing openNebula.
>
>     Kind regards,
>     Diego
>
>
>
>     2011/10/26 Ben Tullis <bt at tiger-computing.co.uk
>     <mailto:bt at tiger-computing.co.uk>>:
>     > Hi Diego,
>     >
>     > I don't think that OpenNebula is likely to be the best tool for
>     the job
>     > in this case, as it is more geared towards on-demand cloud
>     computing.
>     >
>     > However, it does sound like you could really benefit from
>     virtualization
>     > in the office. The way I would approach your situation is as
>     follows.
>     >
>     > Make sure that the machine you're going to use as a server has
>     hardware
>     > virtualization support built in.
>     > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_VT#Processor
>     >
>     > Use disks in pairs of equal sizes, then install Linux and configure
>     > software RAID1 so that the system will be able to withstand a
>     failure in
>     > any disk.
>     > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mdadm
>     >
>     > Install a hypervisor to enable you to run many concurrent virtual
>     > machines. You might like to consider KVM, Xen and Virtualbox.
>     > http://www.linux-kvm.org
>     > http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/
>     > http://virtualbox.org
>     >
>     > You can then define virtual machines and install Windows onto
>     them, in
>     > order to make them available to your colleagues. You can use normal
>     > Windows system management techniques (such as sysprep) to deploy
>     > pre-configured Windows system images, thereby saving you time.
>     You could
>     > then use VNC to make these virtual machines available to your
>     staff, in
>     > the manner that you suggest.
>     >
>     > I'm currently looking at building an OpenNebula cluster to support a
>     > small-business requirement, but I can't really see that there is
>     any way
>     > of ensuring high-availability in any system with fewer than four
>     > physical servers in it. I think you'd be making things unnecessarily
>     > hard for yourself if you tried to do it all on one server.
>     >
>     > I hope that helps.
>     >
>     > Kind regards,
>     > Ben
>     >
>     > --
>     > |Ben Tullis
>     > |Tiger Computing Ltd
>     > |"Linux for Business"
>     > |
>     > |Tel: 033 0088 1511
>     > |Web: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
>     > |
>     > |Registered in England. Company number: 3389961
>     > |Registered address: Wyastone Business Park,
>     > |Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, NP25 3SR
>     >
>     >
>     >
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-- 
|Ben Tullis
|Tiger Computing Ltd
|"Linux for Business"
|
|Tel: 033 0088 1511
|Web: http://www.tiger-computing.co.uk
|
|Registered in England. Company number: 3389961
|Registered address: Wyastone Business Park,
|Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, NP25 3SR

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