The recent posts on vmware are interesting. I think this is a useful
product in the right circumstances from a commercial users point of
view. Complete system understanding is a pre-requisite however as I have
watched several sys admins racking their brains to make sure the single
CD/DVD slot on a machine is loading an application onto the correct
virtual server. I have also watched them take out all of their virtual
servers by making a fatal error on another OS. Implemented and managed
properly it is a great idea but with hardware getting so cheap it
sometimes just does not make sense. Sun, HP and others are all selling
sub €1000 64-bit servers now using AMD Opteron running Linux or Windows,
this physical hardware separation does provide a level of comfort.
An alternative to vmware (but not the same type of product really) is
Solaris10 x64. You can run multiple Solaris containers on the one piece
of hardware, each with their own root etc, i.e their own private
environment but still one instance of the OS is loaded. As long as the
app can use Solaris 10 x64 there is no limit to how many containers you
create, within the overall processing/mem/disk space of the h/w of
course. The best bit, Solaris 10 is free to download and use either
privately or commercially, Sun hardware not specifically required. Sun
also Support Linux apps on Solaris 10 x64 but it does require the Linux
OS. Sometime soon they are to release a Solaris 10x64 container for
Linux which runs the Linux application without the need for the Linux
OS. I'm still in the "this could get messy" camp on this and I can't see
many people doing this. Best bet for Solaris containers I think would be
a simple server with 2-5 mail/web applications all running on their own
Solaris 10 x64 container. Also, Sun have recently made pretty much all
of their s/w free to use commercially and pay for support if you want it
or don't if you don't.
Terry
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