KVM in Production - Build it yourself
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I'm running some KVM servers in production, but only to take advantage of their awesome ability to pass-through USB sticks... which Hyper-V is lacking. (some old-school licensing servers use them)
I'm using ReaR for backup, but after that last thread, I have some things to try to improve that (such as @stacksofplates script). But I'm going to do some testing first.
Also trying to test a big oVirt setup... should be able to get back to it this week, hopefully.
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@dashrender said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
So skipping the one and only provider that I can think of off hand (@ScaleLegion no hard feelings, it's you) who is running KVM in production that you've built yourself and have everything humming along?
My lab is working fine, but I'm finding the backup options a bit tedious, at least from the hypervisor level. The perl script I found works, but it requires setting it up / making any config changes in vi.
Which isn't horrible, just tedious
Just trying to get a feel.
more or less tedious than using something like an agent based backup solution
?Tedious as in, everything has to be adjusted by hand, in a CLI. Which isn't horrible, @scottalanmiller probably loves it.
I on the other hand would prefer a GUI on top to lackadaisical just get going.
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@tim_g I might setup ovirt and see how it works. .
Is it only supported in centos / redhat or can it be installed into Fedora?
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@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@tim_g I might setup ovirt and see how it works. .
Is it only supported in centos / redhat or can it be installed into Fedora?
The oVirt Engine has to be installed in CentOS, but your oVirt Nodes can be Fedora.
I'm looking in to self-hosted, with a Fedora oVirt Node, hosting a CentOS oVirt Engine on it as a VM.
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@tim_g said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@tim_g I might setup ovirt and see how it works. .
Is it only supported in centos / redhat or can it be installed into Fedora?
The oVirt Engine has to be installed in CentOS, but your oVirt Nodes can be Fedora.
I'm looking in to self-hosted, with a Fedora oVirt Node, hosting a CentOS oVirt Engine on it as a VM.
I'm to miht have to stop drinking tonight to figure what you said out. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@tim_g said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@tim_g I might setup ovirt and see how it works. .
Is it only supported in centos / redhat or can it be installed into Fedora?
The oVirt Engine has to be installed in CentOS, but your oVirt Nodes can be Fedora.
I'm looking in to self-hosted, with a Fedora oVirt Node, hosting a CentOS oVirt Engine on it as a VM.
I'm to miht have to stop drinking tonight to figure what you said out. . .
Normal oVirt Setup looks like this:
Host 1: oVirt engine
Host 2: oVirt NodeI think Tim is setting up oVirt engine as a VM on oVirt Node.
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@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
Tedious as in, everything has to be adjusted by hand, in a CLI. Which isn't horrible, @scottalanmiller probably loves it.
I on the other hand would prefer a GUI on top to lackadaisical just get going.
I have zero plans to do backup via scripts & CLI.
If the backup software has no GUI...I'm not interested. -
@tim_g said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
The oVirt Engine has to be installed in CentOS, but your oVirt Nodes can be Fedora.
I'm looking in to self-hosted, with a Fedora oVirt Node, hosting a CentOS oVirt Engine on it as a VM.
I might have to try that.
I had previously tried installing the oVirt engine in Fedora...that did not go very well. -
@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
Tedious as in, everything has to be adjusted by hand, in a CLI. Which isn't horrible, @scottalanmiller probably loves it.
I on the other hand would prefer a GUI on top to lackadaisical just get going.
I have zero plans to do backup via scripts & CLI.
If the backup software has no GUI...I'm not interested.That's a bit where I'm at with it. It seems like a solid system, but I need a better approach to backups and restores. As I've not found it yet.
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@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
I have zero plans to do backup via scripts & CLI.
If the backup software has no GUI...I'm not interested.That's a bit where I'm at with it. It seems like a solid system, but I need a better approach to backups and restores. As I've not found it yet.
Well, well @DustinB3403 let me introduce you to... (drum roll, please)...
KVM host based backup...https://storware.eu/en/storware-vprotect/ -
I have 12 KVM hosts in production. For the very few machines that have stateful data, I use either the backup options built into the software/service that's running to a mounted location, my script, or I use ReaR. The rest of the systems are stored in Git.
ReaR is cli but is really easy to automate.
I ran an oVirt all in one before and it was really slow. It was on my DL380 with 96GB RAM and dual quad core Xeons, so I don't think it was the box. Bare KVM is just fast and easy.
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@stacksofplates said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
I have 12 KVM hosts in production. For the very few machines that have stateful data, I use either the backup options built into the software/service that's running to a mounted location, my script, or I use ReaR. The rest of the systems are stored in Git.
This is not a workable solution for the average SMB right now.
Email is hosted for most place, but the internal infrastructure is not stateful in a normal SMB. Could it get there, or close? Certainly, but that is not reality.
The problem with using KVM in production is the lack of robust backup solutions like Veeam that handle hypervisor level backups with things like forever forward incrementals.
Making a new snapshot every day sucks donkey balls.
I have not looked into @stacksofplates script yet to see what he has done, but you get my point.
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Oops, I forgot to include the link in my previous post...
KVM host based backup...https://storware.eu/en/storware-vprotect/
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@stacksofplates said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
I have 12 KVM hosts in production. For the very few machines that have stateful data, I use either the backup options built into the software/service that's running to a mounted location, my script, or I use ReaR. The rest of the systems are stored in Git.
ReaR is cli but is really easy to automate.
I ran an oVirt all in one before and it was really slow. It was on my DL380 with 96GB RAM and dual quad core Xeons, so I don't think it was the box. Bare KVM is just fast and easy.
I'm with @JaredBusch on this one, no way this sounds user friendly or easy to use.
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@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
Oops, I forgot to include the link in my previous post...
KVM host based backup...https://storware.eu/en/storware-vprotect/
How much does it cost?
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@jaredbusch said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@stacksofplates said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
I have 12 KVM hosts in production. For the very few machines that have stateful data, I use either the backup options built into the software/service that's running to a mounted location, my script, or I use ReaR. The rest of the systems are stored in Git.
This is not a workable solution for the average SMB right now.
Email is hosted for most place, but the internal infrastructure is not stateful in a normal SMB. Could it get there, or close? Certainly, but that is not reality.
The problem with using KVM in production is the lack of robust backup solutions like Veeam that handle hypervisor level backups with things like forever forward incrementals.
Making a new snapshot every day sucks donkey balls.
I have not looked into @stacksofplates script yet to see what he has done, but you get my point.
The script does do an external snapshot and copy that. But ReaR does do incrementals which is why I use that more often.
I think if most SMBs looked outside of Windows they would find it's much easier to automate everything. Our DNS, DHCP, and workstation provisioning (kickstarts) is all done through Ansible. I did all of it, so I think it's a fair comparison to an SMB who has one person doing the work. I think those would be the big pieces of what small shops would need, and from there most everything else could be automated.
I agree 100% that most aren't that way now. I think it just takes a different mindset and different way of looking at it. I'm also not trying to get everyone to do this. I was just answering the question that was asked in the OP.
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@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
Oops, I forgot to include the link in my previous post...
KVM host based backup...https://storware.eu/en/storware-vprotect/
How much does it cost?
I think it was 600 Euro per host.
I'll have to dig up the price list. -
@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@stacksofplates said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
I have 12 KVM hosts in production. For the very few machines that have stateful data, I use either the backup options built into the software/service that's running to a mounted location, my script, or I use ReaR. The rest of the systems are stored in Git.
ReaR is cli but is really easy to automate.
I ran an oVirt all in one before and it was really slow. It was on my DL380 with 96GB RAM and dual quad core Xeons, so I don't think it was the box. Bare KVM is just fast and easy.
I'm with @JaredBusch on this one, no way this sounds user friendly or easy to use.
There isn't really any need for user friendly anything. It's just easy to use natively. I click one button it builds the server and adds the data it needs. It's really the easiest thing to do. Now I can have Jr. admins build machines exactly the same way every time without any changes. Everything is done through Tower. No more manually logging into boxes to make changes (unless you're trying to learn how something works but that's not in prod).
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@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@dustinb3403 said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
@fateknollogee said in KVM in Production - Build it yourself:
Oops, I forgot to include the link in my previous post...
KVM host based backup...https://storware.eu/en/storware-vprotect/
How much does it cost?
I think it was 600 Euro per host.
I'll have to dig up the price list.€ 600 per host (2 sockets), w Standard Support includes 1 year maintenance
€ 150 per year Standard Support - 8h response time, 8h/5 working days
€ xxx per year Premium Support - 4h response time, 24h/5 working days
€ 375 per year Titanium Support - 4h response time, 24h/7 working days -
Although I have no issues with KVM, I wouldn't personally use it in a production environment, at least there are more backup solutions for Xenserver and Hyper-V
Even though the backup script gets the job done, I wouldn't exactly call it practical.
