I have discussed why we require to prepare an image. It helps build up rapid deployment, saving time and effort for mass deployment across large array of hosts.
Xen Virtualization framework
I have been working on virtualization for the last few months, trying out many options to come up with a production standard open source framework. I am going to discuss the result of my effort to setup a working prototype of virtualization framework using Xen on Linux.
I have selected CentOS as Linux platform for its similarity with Redhat distro, the one that the most of today’s corporate use as server OS.
For rapid deployment, I have come up with certain self-imposed constraints to streamline processes, which is discussed as we go through. Presently, I have sub-divided the task into three groups.
1. Preparing for the template image
2. Preparing virtualization container
3. Deployment of virtual instance
In a production setup, it is often difficult to bring up a virtual instance (VM) from scratch, starting from re-image. It is, thus, a good idea to have a custom image as a starting point for deployment. Depending on business requirement, one can either have one generic image which may be customized after deployment or come up with several images, specific to each requirement.
So, preparation of VM images will dramatically reduce deployment time. I am going to discuss image preparation as an approach.
Next step is to prepare the system for containing virtual hosts. Physical system needs to have appropriate kernel and configuration depending on business requirement again. This step is important for setting the right kind of network arrangement, against the available facility in a data center.
The last step is deployment of image into the Xen container, the base host or Dom0 and configuration for further customization. I am going to discuss a few scripts for automating the task of rapid deployment.
Using DRBD
DRBD (Distributed Replicated Block Device) is a distributed storage system for the Linux platform. It is a way of sharing block devices over the network for building high availability clusters. You may share your question and experience in this post as comments. Thank you.
Hello, Systems!
Eucalyptus could be an open source candidate for building computing cloud as a part of capacity elastic and optimized systems landscape design.
