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SolusVM Admin Demo
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SolusVM Admin Demo

RaymiiRaymii Member
edited February 2013 in General

Is there a fully functional SolusVM admin demo? I'm wondering how the interface looks, behaves and works, but have no server to test the trial on. And I couldn't find a demo url of some kind on their website.

Comments

  • Get a KVM and put OpenVZ or Xen PV SolusVM trial on it :-)

  • You don't need to install the underlying virt just to test the admin CP (Although obviously you wont be able to manage nodes).

    But no, i don't think there is a demo.

  • @BronzeByte said: Get a KVM and put OpenVZ or Xen PV SolusVM trial on it :-)

    This.

    @Raymii if you want a temp KVM VPS, just PM me :)

  • RaymiiRaymii Member
    edited February 2013

    @Bronzebyte @GetKVM_Ash @George_Fusioned I have to do a rather large openstack deployment for one of my clients. The servers are quite nice, 250 of them with 384GB ram, 8x 1TB 15K SAS + 2 128GB SSD, 2x 10GB Intel nics (fiber, going into a rather nice Cisco with 24 fiber slots) and I think 2 Xeons from Dell. From hanging them in the 3 DC's to configuring the switches to chef-fing the setup and managing the thing. Purpose is a rather huge storage farm plus a dozen matlab boxes. MRI scans need to be processed somewhere...

    However, they really want openstack/chef.. But since SolusVM does almost the same in the sense of managing VM's and such, and it is lighter I also want to run some specs and performance tests comparing the two. So a hosted VPS for this purpose doesn't fit, thanks for the offer :)

  • PatrickPatrick Member
    edited February 2013

    They have a 15 day trial so you could install and try it out if you have something to test it on first?
    https://www.soluslabs.com/clients/cart.php?a=add&pid=2

  • @Raymii said: I have to do a rather large openstack deployment for one of my clients. The servers are quite nice, 250 of them with 384GB ram, 8x 1TB 15K SAS + 2 128GB SSD

    OpenStack doesn't work with local storage, only NAS

  • If you need a management interface for this kind of outlay, wouldn't OnApp make more sense for you? Fees would be pricey but it's meant to run based on SAN with failover in mind. Multiple clouds won't be a problem either.

  • @Raymii said: The servers are quite nice, 250 of them with 384GB ram, 8x 1TB 15K SAS + 2 128GB SSD, 2x 10GB Intel nics (fiber, going into a rather nice Cisco with 24 fiber slots) and I think 2 Xeons from Dell.

    All that hardware and no spare for you to play with?

  • OpenStack has many more functionalities besides VM creation and management, which, AFAIK, is SolusVM does mostly.

    If you're looking at openstack deployment, Dell CrowBar (http://content.dell.com/us/en/gen/d/cloud-computing/crowbar-software-framework) is a rather mature open source framework that does this. And I think I saw on github there's an Ansible playbook somewhere for a simple OpenStack deployment as well.

  • @hyao said: If you're looking at openstack deployment, Dell CrowBar (http://content.dell.com/us/en/gen/d/cloud-computing/crowbar-software-framework) is a rather mature open source framework that does this. And I think I saw on github there's an Ansible playbook somewhere for a simple OpenStack deployment as well.

    They already have the Dell OpenManage suite running, also for all the current DRAC's. This deployment will replace an older cluster of Dell Poweredge 1750's. And, they have a few ruby lads there so Chef has the preference.

    @mpkossen said: All that hardware and no spare for you to play with?

    Hospital, so governement money, so sadly no.

    @Kenshin said: If you need a management interface for this kind of outlay, wouldn't OnApp make more sense for you? Fees would be pricey but it's meant to run based on SAN with failover in mind. Multiple clouds won't be a problem either.

    The manager has a server somewhere using OnApp, he doesn't like the interface, so that is out of the picture. The guy is a stupid fscker which used to manage a windows NT4 cluster, but hey, he will pay my food for the next 3 months (and the next 3/6 afterwards when they realize the budget and time planning is way to short. But then I'll charge "Consultancy+ Rate".

    The plan is to create some sort of comparison between use cases with Openstack, SolusVM and just plain KVM. But, since it is upper management who will read it it'll need pictures and screenshots...

  • A pre-built SolusVM master image is available on the OVH control panel. You can install it (with the trial license) on the smallest Kimsufi to test the SolusVM admin panel.

    As @hyao already said, OpenStack has a broader scope and can also manage storage. On a project of this scale, I would rather use more advanced commercial cloud management solutions (my experience is on VmWare, and it would fit nicely), but I guess that no budget has been allocated for this.

  • If your project is going with OpenStack, you could try the Ubuntu jumpstart program:
    http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/solutions/jumpstart
    You can have your cloud in 5 days with only $9000!

    If they just need VMs, there's a project by google called Ganeti for "cluster virtual server management":
    http://code.google.com/p/ganeti/
    An intro: http://www.lancealbertson.com/2010/05/creating-a-scalable-virtualization-cluster-with-ganeti/

    It might actually do what SolusVM does mostly.

  • @Raymii said: The plan is to create some sort of comparison between use cases with Openstack, SolusVM and just plain KVM. But, since it is upper management who will read it it'll need pictures and screenshots...

    If they're worth your 3-6 months salary, then just buy a couple of dedicated servers and run SolusVM. License costs won't run you more than 10 bucks per server either way.

    But personally, I see OnApp as a perfect solution in the long run for a setup like this, but again I understand you're going to be managing this, so in a business sense running Openstack basically ties yourself to the project so tightly you probably be irreplaceable by the company which is a good thing for you, not so much for them.

  • The only thing the panels are going to do is spin up VM's at request. One VM will process one scan at a time. Did you know that an MRI produces almost 500GB of data? (I did not...), and there will be at max 6 VM's per server.

    I've got the entire machine setup in chef, from nil to production ready box. It takes at max 5 minutes to go from bare RHEL to ready for the raw files. The unused capacity will be turned off, either at VM level or at server level. Via DRAC (Dell IPMI) the hardware can be booted or shutdown as capacity requests, and the only thing solusvm, kvm or openstack would do is create the raw VM's.

    Now do note that there will be two daily batch runs to process other things, and that there are a few management VM's who are on all the time, and the "on site engineers" should also be able to create and remove VM's as the need arises. So, they waste a lot of the openstack features, that's why I might want to go for Solusvm.

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @Raymii - at that size, why not VMware?

    My employer has hundreds of VMware boxes and loves them. I'm not involved in the management of the fleet myself...just a consumer.

  • @raindog308 said: @Raymii - at that size, why not VMware?

    My employer has hundreds of VMware boxes and loves them. I'm not involved in the management of the fleet myself...just a consumer.

    Don't know exactly why, but it had something to do with cost and earlier bad experiences of the team with VMWare.

  • Ash_HawkridgeAsh_Hawkridge Member
    edited February 2013

    Virtualizor?

    It can do everything you need and is cheaper than SolusVM (It also requires no master, if that's cool with you). Plus automated network bridge configuration will save you some time when setting up the hypervisors.

    Cloudmin is another option which also offers automated network bridge configuration and is free of charge (With forum support only OFC).

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