PUBLIC MARKS with tags code & cluster

I have tried to run both Debian Etch and Ubuntu 8.04 Server on the cluster nodes, in Dom0. I started my tests with Debian, but I had some issues with slow samba performance in one VM that I couldn't fix so I decided to try Ubuntu Server, for the first time. Both installation went OK, the main difference was that I used mainly source code in Debian, but only packages in Ubuntu. I actually ran into more problems with Ubuntu due to some early bugs in the 8.04 release, will describe them below as I go along. And I have still to prove that running this setup in Ubuntu is stable.

Scalr is a fully redundant, self-curing and self-scaling hosting environment utilizing Amazon's EC2. It allows you to create server farms through a web-based interface using prebuilt AMI's for load balancers (pound or nginx), app servers (apache, others), databases (mysql master-slave, others), and a generic AMI to build on top of. The health of the farm is continuously monitored and maintained. When the Load Average on a type of node goes above a configurable threshold a new node is inserted into the farm to spread the load and the cluster is reconfigured. When a node crashes a new machine of that type is inserted into the farm to replace it. 4 AMI's are provided for load balancers, mysql databases, application servers, and a generic base image to customize. Scalr allows you to further customize each image, bundle the image and use that for future nodes that are inserted into the farm. You can make changes to one machine and use that for a specific type of node. New machines of this type will be brought online to meet current levels and the old machines are terminated one by one. The project is still very young, but we're hoping that by open sourcing it the AWS development community can turn this into a robust hosting platform and give users an alternative to the current fee based services available.

Ganeti is a virtual server management software tool built on top of Xen virtual machine monitor and other Open Source software. However, Ganeti requires pre-installed virtualization software on your servers in order to function. Once installed, the tool will take over the management part of the virtual instances (Xen DomU), e.g. disk creation management, operating system installation for these instances (in co-operation with OS-specific install scripts), and startup, shutdown, failover between physical systems. It has been designed to facilitate cluster management of virtual servers and to provide fast and simple recovery after physical failures using commodity hardware.