Ask Slashdot: What Type of Asset Would You Not Virtualize? 464
An anonymous reader writes "With IT and Data Center consolidation seemingly happening everywhere our small shop is about to receive a corporate mandate to follow suit and preferably accomplish this via virtualization. I've had success with virtualizing low load web servers and other assets but the larger project does intimidate me a little. So I'm wondering: Are there server types, applications and/or assets that I should be hesitant virtualizing today? Are there drawbacks that get glossed over in the rush to consolidate all assets?"
Busy databases (Score:5, Insightful)
To be serious for a moment... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about backups?
Consolidating and virtualizing your backup servers sounds like a recipe for trouble to me.
Dan Aris
Anything with strict timing constraints (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't virtualize anything requiring tight scheduling or a reliable clock, such as a software PBX system performing transcoding or conferencing.
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/Timekeeping-In-VirtualMachines.pdf
Re:Busy databases (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Busy databases (Score:4, Insightful)
You usually know you shouldn't mess with eth0 in that situation...but you do it anyway.
Re:Busy databases (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the systems I manage has a 1.3TB ms sql server database. It absolutely flies.
The same SAN also hosts a few 8-10TB oracle databases with no issues.
What idiot shares spindle sets on a VM DB setup? OS goes to the shared pool, each DB gets its own set of LUNs depending on performance needs. This isn't rocket surgery.