[Linux-cluster] virtualization on top of Red Hat cluster

[Shawn Wells]

Geoffrey wrote:
> We would like to find out if there are other folks attempting to do 
> what we are trying to do.  We are having all kinds of problems.
>
> We are trying to set up an 8 node cluster and run a number of virtual 
> machines on top of this cluster.  The boxes are running Red Hat 5 and 
> we are using Xen.
>
> Before going into the actual issues we are running into, I thought we 
> should first find out if there are others who are doing this, or 
> attempting to do this.
Plenty.  A public one is Booz-Allen, 
http://customers.press.redhat.com/2008/06/25/booz-allen-hamilton-2008-red-hat-innovation-award-winner/

"The solution consisted of Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform, 
Red Hat Global File System (GFS) and Red Hat Cluster Suite, Red Hat 
Network Satellite and soon Red Hat Directory Server, JBoss Application 
Server, JBoss Enterprise Service Bus, JBoss Operations Network, and, 
most recently, Metamatrix. The deployed environment consist of a 
seven-node Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) grid (five Dell 2950s 
and two Dell 6850s all with maxed-out memory running Red Hat Enterprise 
Linux housing multiple Oracle RAC databases that performed data 
warehousing functions, online transaction processing (OLTP) functions 
and multi-language text indexing functions. There also is an eight-node 
(Dell 2950s with varying amounts of memory) services grid that acts as a 
clustered Xen host. The Xen machines on the services grid include a 
clustered JBoss application server, a Metamatrix node, and many other 
Xen machines that perform various mission-specific tasks. Both the 
database grid and the services grid can leverage the storage on the 
Fiber Channel fabric backed with multiple storage area networks (SANs)."

Their setup is pretty slick.


> This includes a separate virtual server for the following services: 
> squid, ldap, mail server, dns, samba, email and a handful of 
> Xservers/application servers.
>
> The specific hardware includes:
>
> 8 Dell 19150 nodes w/ rh5.2 xen
> Each node has 32GB of ram and 8 cores (xeon 2.66)
>
> EMC San CX-310
> 2 Brocade 5000 fibre switches
>
> Any feedback from anyone attempting or currently running a similar 
> solution (virtualization on top of cluster) would be greatly appreciated.
So, what's the exact problem?