[rt-users] Hardware Config

[Martin Maurer]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Peachey [mailto:mike.peachey at jennic.com]
> Sent: Dienstag, 10. Februar 2009 12:29
> To: Martin Maurer
> Cc: Tim Cutts; RT Users
> Subject: Re: [rt-users] Hardware Config
> 
> Martin Maurer wrote:
> >> I don't know about anyone else, but I am getting a little
> uncomfortable
> >> with your posts (to RT-Users and to the Wiki) being little more than
> an
> >> advert for proxmox rather than a real contribution to the community.
> >
> > Hi Mike,
> >
> <snip>
> As I said, I just thought it needed toning down a little.
> 
> 1. RT-Users
> The question was "Anyone use RT virtualised?".
> Your answer was "Yes, we do it in Proxmox, and by the way here are the
> reasons why proxmox is better than other virtualisation products" rather
> than "yes, we do it in Proxmox, here's some info about running RT in
> proxmox"

Hi Mike,

My personal experience here:

I did intense tests on RT and especially Postgres DB on: VMware (server 1.x, server 2.x, esx 3 and esx 3.5, citrix xen5, openvz, kvm)

The summary of all these test is IO performance, especially disk access and fsync/sec. I tested all on local storage (xeon server, fast hardware raid with fast cache enabled).
So if you run database intensive application a significant performance loss as soon as it goes to virtualized disks.

As OS virtualization does not use virtualized disks, it much better in this discipline.

Another important point I got: if you run more VM (with virtual disks) on the same host the IO performance goes faster down compared to a system where ONE Linux Kernel is doing the IO access.

Overview OS virtualization technologies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jail_(computer_security)

I highly recommend to go for a fast SAN if you use VMWare (also VMWare suggests this).

> 2. The wiki
> When proxmox was added to the installation instructions page, rather
> than adding an appropriate entry for proxmox in the specifics section
> (as it is now) or below, it was added at the very top in its own section
> so a paraphrased version of the page looked like this:
> Installation Instructions:
> 1. Proxmox
> 2. Source
> 3. Platform-Specific
> 
> I see no problem whatsoever in putting a link to proxmox installation
> instructions on that page, in fact it's THE place to put it, but I found
> making it the number one entry on the page in that way distasteful.

Sorry, looks like you got only the half story here. I was asked by Jesse from bestpractical to put this information on the wiki pages. As the wiki software and the navigation structure is very bad and I found  no info where to place it I wrote the info on top AND then I informed/asked bestpractial to review it and asked to move to the right place - and someone moved it to the right place within days. Looks that you misunderstood this.

> I by no means want to discourage people from using proxmox, I don't want
> to discourage you from recommending it to people as an option, I don't
> even wish to suggest your contributions to the community are anything
> less than angelic.
> 
> I just thought that the way you were advertising it was very overbearing
> and appeared intensely commercial.

I hope I cleared everything: but why are you talking about commercial interests here? The appliance is not commercial, its free and GPL.
Lets go back to RT issues, sorry for writing non RT stuff to this list but I just want to clear this.

Br, Martin