Beginnning to think about VMware and SCO 5.0.5
- From: "Steve M. Fabac, Jr." <smfabac@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:48:45 -0500
I have not touched VMWare and don't know where to
start to investigate this issue. So I thought I'd
post it here where several users have implemented various
systems for their own use or client's to solicit recommendations
on suitable system configurations to replace the client's
current servers.
The client running SCO 5.0.5 Enterprise on two
servers, one is the live production and the other is
a "hot spare."
These are identical SuperMicro PIII 1.4Ghz machines with
512M RAM and a DPT 3754U2 RAID controller with 16M cache RAM,
and two 36G SCA 10K disks in RAID1.
Both machines are backed up each night to their own Sony
SDT-9000 DAT drive. And the application data directories and
user home directories are copied from the live server to the
backup server before the tape backup runs.
Charged with upgrading this hardware, it makes sense to plan
to migrate to a single CPU system board hosting a 2-3 GHz dual
or quad core Xeon CPU. I would then replace the full length
DPT RAID controllers with a current technology RAID controller
either SATA or SAS with suitable 76G to 146G hard drives in RAID1
Clearly, moving both live and backup systems to modern hardware
will require upgrading the SCO 5.0.5 OS to either 5.0.7 or
SCO Openserver 6.0 on both machines.
What's the current opinion on a solid system that will run either
5.0.7 or 6.0 and have drivers for a RAID controller?
An alternative strategy I'd like to offer the client is a configuration
using VMWare to Virtualize both the primary and backup 5.0.5
servers.
I've checked the VMWare web site and I see VMW products ranging
in price from $3624 to $21824 and I have no clue on how to
specify the product the client needs.
Please comment on the following:
1) One or two hardware platforms? The client desires to maintain
hardware redundancy so that if the primary box goes down, we can
switch operations to the secondary box.
2) Then should I use one platform to host the primary (live) 5.0.5
instance and a second VMWare platform hosting a running instance
of the current backup server? This continues to require we take
the time to copy the application data from the primary instance
to the backup instance so that the backup instance is ready to
go should the primary box fail.
3) Or, not bother to keep a backup 5.0.5 server running on the redundant
VMWare host but just migrate the live 5.0.5 image from the primary
VMWare host to the backup VMWare host as needed? Can that even be
done?
4) How do we back up the live 5.0.5 server? Continue to use a dedicated
SONY tape drive and BackupEdge running in the live 5.0.5 instance?
Or is backup performed at the VMWare level? Is that reliable?
5) where is the UPS communication and monitoring software installed?
under 5.0.5 or VMWare? Do we shutdown the 5.0.5 instance and then
shutdown VMWare and power off the UPS to preserve the UPS battery?
I'm sure that there are other questions that I have not thought of that
will have to be answered to design the optimal strategy for the client.
If you can answer any of the above questions or offer insights into
other important considerations, please post them.
--
Steve Fabac
S.M. Fabac & Associates
816/765-1670
.
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