[Linux-cluster] VMware over GFS?

[Stuart Auchterlonie]

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 09:20:17AM -0600, lists at grounded.net wrote:
> > It sounds like what you are after is actually VMware ESX + Virtual
> > Infrastructure = $$$. That allows full migration of the VM's around, restarting on node
> > failure etc etc...
> > However this will use VMFS rather than GFS for the storage of the VM's
> 
> I have the free version of ESXi 3.5 I think it is. Is this the same thing you're talking about?
>  From what I've read, it looks like the only way of clustering or having fail over is using win as the VM servers which is why I started wondering about GFS.
> 

ESX is a bare metal install, so the VM's run under VMware directly.

You can run the linux cluster nodes as VM's within ESX, and use the
VMware infrastructure as a fencing mechanism (quite a few people do
this for their test clusters, we are one of them)

Were you get the biggest win with ESX is when you run multiple ESX
nodes together, with some shared storage and you get a VMware cluster.
This allows VM's to float across physical hardware to balance out the
load. I won't go into it any further, there's plenty of reading on
their website.


Stuart