Need Help!

[rdg1]

I have a rack with 12 servers. I have been told that I can install the ESX OS on 1 server and create a system that acts like 1 massive server after connecting the other 11 servers. Meaning that I would have access to all 24 combined CPUs and the 38GB total combined RAM memory that is on the 12 servers. Could I have 3 Windows OS sessions like (XP, WS2003, WS2008) dividing the resources of the 12 servers? The first server has 2 x 500GB SATA drives. The others have 200-500GB IDE drives in them. If yes, how would I start to plan the ESX install to accomplish this idea? Thanks Very Much!!

[K-MaC]

Hello Rdg, I think that you may have misinterpretted what VMware is able to accomplish. It will not combine the resources of multi servers into a 'Super Server'. What it will allow you to do is to consolidate your servers. Meaning that if you have multiple ftp servers and web servers you could install ESX or ESXi on one machine and then run them all from ONE server rather than 3. This of course depends on the resources of your servers and the loads associated with your servers.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

[rdg1]

Is there an existing technology that allows for combining CPUs and Memory to create a "Super Server"?

[malaysiavm]

you should look for HPC which is high performance computing that use for super computer concept

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_computing

Malaysia VMware Communities -

[mcowger]

eGenera does something close, you might check them out. Its not cheap

--Matt

[mike_laspina]

Hello,

This is not what ESX does.

ESX is a kernel execution environment that runs directly on the Intel based hardware platform. It is called a hypervisor. It partitions this underlying hardware out to execution threads of programs and interpolates interfaces on the actual devices so they behave like a specific hardware component. e.g. LSI controller etc.

It a allows you to pool all of the resources of multiple servers into a cluster however it does not sum the total resources to any one execution thread or threads.

[rdg1]

If I have multiple hosts, do the hosts share resources?

[K-MaC]

If you have multiple hosts the guests belonging to the host in question will share the resources of the host. As an example if you have 2 hosts and 10 guests you could put 5 guests on each host and those 5 guests would share the resources of the host that they are associated to.

Kevin

[rdg1]

What about Resource Pools within a VMWare Cluster?

[lholling]

You have several problems with your idea as mentioned by other people in this thread.

In order to do part of what you want all 12 of the servers would need ESX installed on them.

You also mention that you have IDE and SATA drives on the servers for ESX to work effectively across all servers they must use shared storage such as NFS, SAN or iSCSI.

Also your local hard drives (IDE is definitely NOT supported) are probably not on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) as it does not really support White Box servers.

In order to "share" the Virtual Machine (VMs) amongst all of your servers you need shared storage, Virtual Center and Virtual Center Agent / VMotion licenses. None of this can be done seamlessly using the free ESXi product.

Finally Resource Pools can only be used in a Enterprise VMware licensed environment where you MUST have shared storage.

Leonard...

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