Linux server consolidation shortcut

I've been saving one of those opinions for a rainy day and, based on news that Hewlett Packard will be integrating VMWare's ESX server into its ProLiant line of servers, that day is today. The news story is barely a paragraph long. But, in the spirit of not judging a book by its cover, it shines the spotlight on a much larger question that now deserves an answer; how to put an end to server sprawl and lower your costs through server consolidation.

If IBM could have its way, it would have you believe that one really good way of solving this problem is by running hundreds, if not thousands, of distinctly separate instances of Linux on an IBM mainframe. Indeed, this is now possible, and the story IBM tells is a compelling one. But the letter that I was saving for a rainy day points out one major caveat to IBM's idea. It only works if you have--or can find someone to run--an IBM mainframe. Similar to the challenge that Microsoft will have penetrating the data center with Windows, it turns out that good people are hard to find. Worse, when you find them, they're not cheap.

According to Renault's Matt Bunter, who is in charge of a small mainframe programming team, "I once thought that Linux on the mainframe was the solution to everyone's problems. However, I now think differently. IBM is the only manufacturer of the 64-bit hardware for OS390 and zOS. Not only are they owner of the OS, they're the only ones we can get OS390 training from, and it isn't cheap. The task of finding OS390-skilled people is extremely difficult. We have been searching for a year for an IMS/Sysprog and not one of the 30 applicants so far has been under 40 years old. Try and teach SNA, CHPID, Bus + Tag, control unit addresses, channel attachments, RMF, SMF, the different file systems, etc. to someone with Unix or Windows experience and watch their eyes cloud over. The stuff is just too dammed complicated. Nobody learns it, and you are left with IBM supplying your skills as well as hardware and software."

Bunter, who just doesn't see the mainframe path as being practical for businesses of any size, suggests that those wanting to explore the server consolidation path should consider solutions that use Intel-based servers. The competition drives the cost of the servers down, and they are much easier for mere mortals to understand. The solution Bunter likes is SW-Soft's Virtuozzo. In the world of Intel-based Linux server consolidation, SW-Soft is currently a dark horse in the race against VMWare,the company that HP is now working with.

VMWare, a company that I covered from Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo, has gained the sort of traction in the industry that small startups only dream of. If you were a company that made a product for enterprise-class Intel-based servers, then the list of server companies you'd want to have deals with is a pretty short one. VMWare's deal list mimics that short list. Not only does VMWare now have deals with HP, IBM, and NEC, but Dell is an investor in the company.

The company that "owns" this space is so confident, its PR department will send you a list of every research analyst known to the IT industry who is proficient in the area of server consolidation (hint: vendors never do this unless they're absolutely certain that they'll receive praise when the press calls). Instead of calling all those analysts, I just called SW-Soft to ask them if they thought they had a prayer's chance in hell of overcoming VMWare's momentum.

SW-Soft's Alex Plant thinks so. "For starters," says Plant, "we didn't get into this business until six months ago when we realized that customers of HSP Complete were using it as a server consolidation platform." HSP Complete targets companies that run large Linux hosting facilities. In addition to the bells and whistles (for example, accounting features) that matter to such companies, HSP Complete includes consolidation technology that allows Linux servers to run multiple and distinctly separate partitions of Linux on one Intel-based system.

According to Plant, the company decided to break out the partitioning code into a completely separate product--Virtuozzo--that targeted the server consolidation market.

SW-Soft Vice President Craig Oda claims Virtuozzo will beat VMWare in the long run because the architecture is technically superior. "We're different from VMWare in that we don't have separate software-based emulations--virtual machines--of the Intel system that each of the instances of Linux runs on. Instead, we've re-engineered the Linux Process Scheduler and the way applications are loaded so that we run on top of one copy of Linux and only require applications like Apache to be loaded into memory once. Using our architecture, it doesn't matter how many virtual Linux environments (as opposed to virtual machines) you run. Each runs with its own instance of that memory image of Apache, and none of the "systems" will interfere with the others. With VMWare, each instance of an application like Apache would have to be separately loaded within its virtual machine, therefore taking up much more memory." The result, according to Oda, is that Virtuozzo's resource-sharing capability makes it require far less overhead to consolidate servers and is therefore much more scalable as a solution.

But VMWare chief architect Ed Bugnion says that's bunk. According to Bugnion, VMWare includes a series of memory optimizations that allows read-only memory to be shared in the same way that SW-Soft claims it works for Virtuozzo. "It's not true that if you run separate machines, each running Apache, that the Apache binary is loaded twice in memory," Bugnion said. "Using our 'copy on write only' mechanism (implying second copies are only created when data is written), all of our virtual machines will transparently share the same binary as long as the resource is read only."

Bugnion is also quick to point out two other key advantages to ESX Server. First, since the virtual machines appear as distinctly separate systems on the network, they can be treated as such by solutions that require more than one system.

For example, an entire cluster of Windows or Linux servers can run within the confines of one box. That example raises the second advantage; it supports Windows as well as Linux. VMWare CEO Diane Green says the majority of the company's customers are more interested in consolidating Windows servers rather than Linux servers.

SW-Soft's Plant agrees that ESX Server's ability to support Windows is one area where VMWare has a distinct advantage. Because of the way VMWare sets up virtual machines (actually virtual Intel-based computers), the same computer could simultaneously be running side-by-side instances of Windows and Linux.

Whether or not SW-Soft's self-proclaimed technological advantage is enough for the company to catch VMWare in the homestretch remains to be seen. One thing is for sure. Officials at VMWare don't seem worried. The better news, if you ask me, is that this tiny cottage industry is perfectly positioned to address the woes of people like Renault's Matt Bunter looking for a low-cost server consolidation alternative to an IBM mainframe.

Are you looking for a low-cost server consolidation alternative to an IBM mainframe? Do these solutions sound worth considering? TalkBack below or e-mail me at david.berlind@cnet.com

David Berlind is Editorial Director of ZDNet's Tech Update.

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