Comments on: The questionable benefits of terabyte-scale data warehouse virtualization http://www.dbms2.com/2009/02/23/the-questionable-benefits-of-terabyte-scale-data-warehouse-virtualization/ Choices in data management and analysis Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:52:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 By: Steve Wooledge http://www.dbms2.com/2009/02/23/the-questionable-benefits-of-terabyte-scale-data-warehouse-virtualization/#comment-111370 Steve Wooledge Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:44:12 +0000 http://www.dbms2.com/?p=700#comment-111370 We have seen virtualization work well (or is required) in a couple use-cases: [1] Internal testing: Aster Data has used virtualization to test/QA our DBMS on > 200 virtualized nodes. (note we have production customer with ~100 nodes) [2] Cloud computing: ShareThis runs a 3+ TB Aster nCluster system on Amazon Web Services, which is virtualized on their Amazon machine images (AMI's). You can listen to ShareThis talk about their ability to scale up/down with no downtime because of the way we handle data movement/admin complete online: https://asterdata.webex.com/asterdata/lsr.php?AT=pb&rID=29679512&rKey=98F898EA5CCA0BE8 note ShareThis also handles full and incremental backups online) We have seen virtualization work well (or is required) in a couple use-cases:

[1] Internal testing: Aster Data has used virtualization to test/QA our DBMS on > 200 virtualized nodes. (note we have production customer with ~100 nodes)

[2] Cloud computing: ShareThis runs a 3+ TB Aster nCluster system on Amazon Web Services, which is virtualized on their Amazon machine images (AMI’s). You can listen to ShareThis talk about their ability to scale up/down with no downtime because of the way we handle data movement/admin complete online: https://asterdata.webex.com/asterdata/lsr.php?AT=pb&rID=29679512&rKey=98F898EA5CCA0BE8
note ShareThis also handles full and incremental backups online)

]]> By: tzahi jakubovitz http://www.dbms2.com/2009/02/23/the-questionable-benefits-of-terabyte-scale-data-warehouse-virtualization/#comment-111369 tzahi jakubovitz Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:43:26 +0000 http://www.dbms2.com/?p=700#comment-111369 What you say is definitely valid. I would like to present a different view. The flexibility of virtual machines is very important. the fact you can develop on a virtual machine, and then just copy the virtual machine to the production server, duplicate it as many times as you need. Add machines without changing database configuration - this makes everything move faster. In a few months - we will have 6 core CPUs. So paying about 10% CPU overhead is not critical. I do not know if disks cannot be stressed by ESX. EMC claims that an ESX server is capable of 63,000 IOs per second. It reminds me of the C++ vs Java issues. You pay in CPU cycles for modern language. But the flexibility makes it worthwhile, and sometimes enables you to work smarter and build a faster solution. Sure - If you build the world's largest warehouse, VMware will probably not be a good choice. But most of us are building medium solutions, and flexibility is worth losing 10% CPU. What you say is definitely valid. I would like to present a different view.
The flexibility of virtual machines is very important. the fact you can develop on a virtual machine, and then just copy the virtual machine to the production server, duplicate it as many times as you need. Add machines without changing database configuration – this makes everything move faster.
In a few months – we will have 6 core CPUs. So paying about 10% CPU overhead is not critical.
I do not know if disks cannot be stressed by ESX. EMC claims that an ESX server is capable of 63,000 IOs per second.
It reminds me of the C++ vs Java issues. You pay in CPU cycles for modern language. But the flexibility makes it worthwhile, and sometimes enables you to work smarter and build a faster solution.
Sure – If you build the world’s largest warehouse, VMware will probably not be a good choice. But most of us are building medium solutions, and flexibility is worth losing 10% CPU.

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