virtualize all the things... ?
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Hey. We use virtualization here, and heavily at that. But there are a couple of instances where I have some reservations about that and whether it is the best way to go. We do some serious data processing at night, and I'm not sure we get as good of disk IO on virtual disks as we might like. We also have occasional telephoney issues that I wonder whether they are related to the fact that the sip servers are virtual. So, my questions: is there ever a time when you do not want to virtualize a server? If so, under what circumstances? Specifically, do you virtualize your sip servers and heavy disk IO servers?
Thanks.
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@bj said in virtualize all the things... ?:
So, my questions: is there ever a time when you do not want to virtualize a server?
Sure, if you have that one super rare app that needs nano seconds of time, but it's pretty darned rare these days, to the point that most will never see it.
Specifically, do you virtualize your sip servers and heavy disk IO servers?
@JaredBusch and NTG are both running many FreePBX servers in Vultr - 100% virtualized setup using SIP.
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If you have heavy disk IO, then make sure the controllers are designed to handle that IO. This has nothing to do with not virtualizing and everything to do with not designing your system correctly to meet the needs it is supposed to serve.
A PBX will have issues just like any other server when the hardware is overloaded. Only with a PBX, your users can tell the difference more than "everything is slow" because they can hear issues.
Again though, this has nothing to do with virtualization itself. Instead it is with the implementation.
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@dashrender said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@JaredBusch and NTG are both running many FreePBX servers in Vultr - 100% virtualized setup using SIP.
Might I ask the situation that they need "many" FreePBX servers out of curiosity?
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@jmoore said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@dashrender said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@JaredBusch and NTG are both running many FreePBX servers in Vultr - 100% virtualized setup using SIP.
Might I ask the situation that they need "many" FreePBX servers out of curiosity?
client systems
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Oh ok thanks, got it
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IMO - if the systems built to the specification needed for what will be ran, then virtualisation cannot be a performance issue. If its a system you already have, without specification for a specific workload, then its possibly going to be a performance issue - only because it wasn't built to spec.
Another reason to not virtualise is old unsupported systems. Or, ones where you require vendor support (by the software makers) who will not support their stuff running on VMs. (In which case you should move away from them - but sometimes that's not possible).
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@jmoore said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@dashrender said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@JaredBusch and NTG are both running many FreePBX servers in Vultr - 100% virtualized setup using SIP.
Might I ask the situation that they need "many" FreePBX servers out of curiosity?
We are both PBX hosters. You'll notice NTG PBX ads running on the side bars, for example
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@dashrender said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@bj said in virtualize all the things... ?:
So, my questions: is there ever a time when you do not want to virtualize a server?
Sure, if you have that one super rare app that needs nano seconds of time, but it's pretty darned rare these days, to the point that most will never see it.
The only well known app in this space is low latency, automated trading systems for finance. This is the biggest banks and hedge funds doing this and basically no one else. Systems with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in just one or two hosts. People doing this are always doing special kernels and drives, very special tunings, special schedulers, NUMA pinning, CPU pinning, cache pinning, keeping system workloads before 10% total, never allowing a queue, disabling hyperthreading and so forth. It's enormous money and expertise. And even many of these have moved to VMware because they've been able to do most of this for a while now. And containers can often do this.
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@bj said in virtualize all the things... ?:
Specifically, do you virtualize your sip servers and heavy disk IO servers?
Definitely. If these are having issues, something else is wrong. At @NTG we've been 100% virtual for VoIP / SIP since 2005 at least.
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@bj said in virtualize all the things... ?:
So, my questions: is there ever a time when you do not want to virtualize a server?
Essentially, no. There are times, but they are so uncommon and special case that it is better, IMHO, to assume that they don't exist. Even at the world's biggest banks where they do this, it represents less than .001% of their workloads.
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The world's biggest disk IO and database systems are all virtual. It's only in the SMB space that having physical systems of this nature are even an inkling of an idea. The giant "billions and billions of daily transaction" systems are all virtual.
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@scottalanmiller
Since we always should be using virtualization, is there anything wrong with having only one VM that requires a lot of resources from the host? -
Facebook runs all physical, but that's an edge case.
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@black3dynamite said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@scottalanmiller
Since we always should be using virtualization, is there anything wrong with having only one VM that requires a lot of resources from the host?One to one is just fine. Nothing in the rule to "always virtualize" implies that we always consolidate. Totally different considerations.
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@marcinozga said in virtualize all the things... ?:
Facebook runs all physical, but that's an edge case.
Is that still true? That was news based on them using crappy Atom servers six or seven years ago. FB is arguably virtualizing in a macro way, though, they do cluster level virtualization. Same as we did on Wall St. for massive decision clusters.
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@scottalanmiller said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@marcinozga said in virtualize all the things... ?:
Facebook runs all physical, but that's an edge case.
Is that still true? That was news based on them using crappy Atom servers six or seven years ago. FB is arguably virtualizing in a macro way, though, they do cluster level virtualization. Same as we did on Wall St. for massive decision clusters.
I have no idea, but their reasoning was they didn't have underutilized servers so there was no point virtualizing.
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@marcinozga said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@scottalanmiller said in virtualize all the things... ?:
@marcinozga said in virtualize all the things... ?:
Facebook runs all physical, but that's an edge case.
Is that still true? That was news based on them using crappy Atom servers six or seven years ago. FB is arguably virtualizing in a macro way, though, they do cluster level virtualization. Same as we did on Wall St. for massive decision clusters.
I have no idea, but their reasoning was they didn't have underutilized servers so there was no point virtualizing.
Which is no logic at all as that's the reason not to consolidate and has nothing to do with virtualization. This suggests that a confused software guy was quoted and not someone from even the IT department. All it tells us is that the guy being quoted doesn't know what virtualization is and made up something to be a sound bite.
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What's your favorite open source virtualization platform for SMB?
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@bj said in virtualize all the things... ?:
What's your favorite open source virtualization platform for SMB?
Don't have one. Okay, okay, I do. I like Xen. Mostly because I've been on it since like 2003. I like PV conceptually. Xen has always treated me well.
KVM was a silly project and was designed to splinter the market, so I dislike it because of that. Today, Xen and KVM are sibling products of the Linux Foundation. In reality, KVM is the better choice most of the time.
