5 ms·

Virtualization and over-subscription: breaking the 100% utilization barrier

23 points by tsmith 16y ago

jbz 16y ago
I can still remember the first time I put together a vmware virtualcenter server with a few servers running the hypervisor. It was the first time I encountered software that left me speechless since it felt like it was built with magic, at the time since I simply couldnt comprehend how this could be done. I ended up quitting the company I built it at because they didnt see the point of virtualization and werent going to implement it.
- amscanne 16y ago
  Indeed. Generally speaking, virtualization adoption hasn't set any speed records. But slow and steady wins the race, as they say. :)
patrickgzill 16y ago
Actually OpenVZ already has a lot of the things mentioned, although only for Linux VMs running on top of an OpenVZ-ified Linux kernel. Paging, ballooning, content-based sharing, CPU and RAM overcommit, all are there, provided you only use Linux VMs.
- tsmith 16y ago
  Good point - OpenVZ is quite good for userspace virtualization. One thing Copper (what this demo is running on - http://www.gridcentriclabs.com/copper http://www.gridcentriclabs.com/copper) can do that OpenVZ can't do is VM clone / page sharing across multiple physical servers. For example, if you wanted to clone thousands of desktops across a rack or two of servers.
tsmith 16y ago
Also of possible interest - things we've done with the current (1.1) version of our platform: Howto: Build and scale a Cassandra cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/08/howto-build-and-scale-cassandra-cluster.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/08/howto-build-and-scal... Howto: Build a Hadoop cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/howto-build-hadoop-cluster-in-five.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/howto-build-hadoop-c... Howto: Build a ten node memcached cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/how-to-build-10-core-memcached-cluster.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/how-to-build-10-core... You may notice an interesting trend :) [edit: formatting]

23 points by tsmith 16y ago

jbz 16y ago

I can still remember the first time I put together a vmware virtualcenter server with a few servers running the hypervisor. It was the first time I encountered software that left me speechless since it felt like it was built with magic, at the time since I simply couldnt comprehend how this could be done. I ended up quitting the company I built it at because they didnt see the point of virtualization and werent going to implement it.

amscanne 16y ago
Indeed. Generally speaking, virtualization adoption hasn't set any speed records. But slow and steady wins the race, as they say. :)

patrickgzill 16y ago

Actually OpenVZ already has a lot of the things mentioned, although only for Linux VMs running on top of an OpenVZ-ified Linux kernel. Paging, ballooning, content-based sharing, CPU and RAM overcommit, all are there, provided you only use Linux VMs.

tsmith 16y ago
Good point - OpenVZ is quite good for userspace virtualization. One thing Copper (what this demo is running on - http://www.gridcentriclabs.com/copper http://www.gridcentriclabs.com/copper) can do that OpenVZ can't do is VM clone / page sharing across multiple physical servers. For example, if you wanted to clone thousands of desktops across a rack or two of servers.

tsmith 16y ago

Also of possible interest - things we've done with the current (1.1) version of our platform: Howto: Build and scale a Cassandra cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/08/howto-build-and-scale-cassandra-cluster.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/08/howto-build-and-scal... Howto: Build a Hadoop cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/howto-build-hadoop-cluster-in-five.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/howto-build-hadoop-c... Howto: Build a ten node memcached cluster in five minutes - http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/how-to-build-10-core-memcached-cluster.html http://blog.gridcentriclabs.com/2010/07/how-to-build-10-core... You may notice an interesting trend :) [edit: formatting]