[clug] Picking a VM for Debian servers: KVM/Qemu, XEN or VirtualBox

[steve jenkin]

We'll be getting some new Xeon 5500/5600 servers soon and I need to
setup a robust VM system for the services running on some. Notably the
databases. Yes, we love MySQL and Postgres equally :-)

Necessary requirements are "off the shelf" in Debian, 'Live Migration'
and mature implementation. [I need to be able to move the production
DB's between servers on demand for operational reasons.]

Good/simple management interface is next - but these are in the server
room and probably firewalled (port filtered), so X-11 or VNC unlikely,
expect over SSH.

If we were running RedHat/Centos, then KVM is a natural...


I'd dearly like to run 'containers' alongside these VM's as well.
There are some references to Promox (?) and Opennode supporting KVM and
OpenVZ together. [and saw a sideways ref to recursive KVM]


Any war stories, comments for/against, preferences or quibbles?
Ie. What VM do you use, and why?

Did I miss an obvious Opensource VM system? I don't think VMware server
is quite what I want...

regards
steve

-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin