OStatic

By Randy Clark on May. 21, 2008

Is XenServer going to be running on bare-metal or are you using it mainly for managing your Virtual Servers on Linux? Have you looked at xVM from Sun, given that you are migrating SPARC apps?

If you are going for a paid version, any reason for not going with VMware, which works in full virtualization mode sans modifications.

By Paul Martin on May. 21, 2008

If you have several Xen domains, here is a great resource I came upon to help you think through backing them up. I maintain a small set of servers myself and the maintenance of this stuff is where I tend to spend most of my time. This article helps you think through how to best set up your system to back up your domains easily.

http://www.johnandcailin.com/blog/john/backing-your-xen-domains

By an anonymous user on May. 21, 2008

You're going to have a hard time of it. There's no official support for Solaris in Xen. That said, OpenSolaris users have reported that it works just fine (and that it doesn't work... hence the no official support). Right now, Xen only supports the following: (taken directly from the Xen site @ Citrix.com)

Microsoft Windows 64-bit:

* Windows Server 2003 Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter Edition SP2

Microsoft Windows 32-bit:

* Windows Server 2003 Web, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter SP0/ SP1/SP2/R2

* Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP0/SP1/SP2/R2

* Windows XP SP2

* Windows 2000 SP4

* Windows Vista

Linux 64-bit:

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1

* CentOS 5.0, 5.1

* Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1

Linux 32-bit:

* Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1

* CentOS 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 5.0, 5.1

* Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.0, 5.1

* Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9SP2, 9SP3, 10SP1

* Debian sarge (3.1), etch (4.0)

But... if you really want to do it, it can *theoretically* be done. Mind you, that one word, theoritically, means "Good Luck, it's not likely going to happen in ten languages. Without knowing for certain what applications are in use, I can't get too specific, but since you're talking about two entirely different processor architectures, you probably won't be able to just install-and-run on Solaris guests. Most likely you will need to acquire versions of the applications compiled for x86 servers, build your Xen boxes, create the Solaris x86 guests, install the x86 applications, and test like there's no tomorrow.

Again, if you want to delve into the risky waters:

http://wiki.tardis.ed.ac.uk/index.php/OpenSolaris_Xen_domU

http://www.kernel.sg/roller/eugene/entry/opensolaris_xen_paravirtualized...

But... the applications probably won't come over without converting to the x86 versions (if any).

By an anonymous user on May. 22, 2008

What operating system are you planning on using? The previous commenter has some good points on what you should look for!

If you go with RHEL 5 or OpenSUSE, you can directly use their offering. Better yet, you can go with Oracle's Unbreakable Linux and get the same code as RHEL at a much cheaper cost, should that be a big consideration.

By an anonymous user on May. 30, 2008

Yes - don't do it.