PE2950 and Linux virtualization

[George Magklaras]

Can you be a little bit more specific on the envisaged virtualized 
workloads and the disk config (RAID levels, etc) of your 2950? I have a 
similar setup with Xen running both paravirtualized and fully 
virtualized hosts. The greatest concern for the latter are I/O intensive 
tasks (such as loaded RDBMS setups). Then I might be able to help you.

Scott R. Ehrlich wrote:
> What are people's experiences with CentOS 5.0 64-bit installed on dual 3 
> Ghz quad-core PE2950 systems with 32 GB RAM each, high-performance 
> computing (applications that tax both the CPUs and RAM), not currently 
> in a Beowolf cluster but could adapt to that, and doing so with VMWare 
> or other vitualization software vs activity being done directly in the OS?
> 
> How much of a performance hit, or gain (I'd presume hit), does 
> virtualization cause an application, resulting in what percentage poorer 
> or better (I'd presume poorer) performance vs dealing directly with the OS?
> 
> It would be nice to have a VM perform some work, and if a person's code 
> or application breaks, have it take down a VM while keeping a machine 
> up, and not affecting other people's work.
> 
> It may also depend on if an application or code is written directly 
> with/for the physical cpu/hardware vs more general use (VM).
> 
> Thanks for insights and experiences.
> 
> Scott
> 

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George Magklaras

Senior Computer Systems Engineer/UNIX Systems Administrator
EMBnet Technical Management Board
The Biotechnology Centre of Oslo,
University of Oslo
http://folk.uio.no/georgios

Tel: +47-22840535

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