retep
07-19-2005, 08:19 AM
Some of you may have heard a bit lately about Xen (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/). Well, at least you will if you keep up with such things.
About Xen Xen permits VPS hosting. Its virtualization kicks in at a lower level than UML. Xen performance is excellent. In fact, no other VPS technology outperforms it. Xen is OpenSource. It is backed by 'big boys' from HP and Intel (and Microsoft iniitially, but we won't go there). It is stable. It is at a 2.0.6 revision right now with a 3.0 release coming up in the next few months.
Preparing For Our Xen Launch For the last couple of months we have been testing Xen for its functionality, security, stability and performance. Our tests went very well. We have also created scripts for managing the hosting side of things (and so it works in with our current control panel UI). And for a few weeks we were wrangling servers on the other side of the Pacific trying to get them to 'take' the xen kernel (those issues were resolved after a few hardware changes).
And Launching It As of last week we are now offering Xen VPS Hosting plans (http://rimuhosting.com/order/startorder.jsp). The Xen plans are launched under the MiroVPS tag. We expect most new orders to be Xen orders from now (we can still setup UML-based VPSs for people that need them).
Update: The Xen plans, though so far only available over the weekend have all but sold out two servers already (which is pretty good going). The guys at the data center are wondering what's going on with all our new servers coming in of late. Feedback from customers has been very positive.
Implications For TawaVPS/MataiVPS Customers: It is our medium term goal to convert all TawaVPS and MataiVPS plans to the MiroVPS technology and resources. We will do this as individual host server resources and time permits. The Xen hosts have been running smoothly to date, however we will not convert any UML hosts over to Xen until we have a good period of trouble free operation behind us. Any changes to your setup will be communicated well in advance.
Xen and UML are compatible in the sense that you can take a UML file system, make a couple of minor modifications to it (e.g. replace /dev/udb with /dev/sda in /etc/fstab) and run it as a Xen 'domain'. So it is our expectation that when we begin the migration there will be minimal - if any - disruption.
Moving to MiroVPS servers or Replacing a VPS with a new MiroVPS Server Some of you may be keen to use the Xen hosting right now, rather than waiting for the migration to commence.
If you are one of these people, then you may request we move your VPS to a MiroVPS host server. We will do this when new server resources permit. When we have the servers available you can use the custom support ticket type we have created for this task.
Because of the demand for the MiroVPS plans any move or new order is subject to the availability of host server space. New customers or someone needing an extra server will have priority over someone wishing to replace an existing server. The next priority will be given to existing customers feeling (or causing!) performance problems.
(As at 19 July we are waiting on new servers to arrive before accepting any moves or replacement VPS orders for MiroVPS plans. The new servers should arrive before 30 July).
Anyway, that's our news. We really enjoyed preparing this for deployment, and now look forward to continue providing great Linux hosting backed by our best support efforts for many years to come.
If you had any questions or comments you're welcome to leave them here or contact me via email.
About Xen Xen permits VPS hosting. Its virtualization kicks in at a lower level than UML. Xen performance is excellent. In fact, no other VPS technology outperforms it. Xen is OpenSource. It is backed by 'big boys' from HP and Intel (and Microsoft iniitially, but we won't go there). It is stable. It is at a 2.0.6 revision right now with a 3.0 release coming up in the next few months.
Preparing For Our Xen Launch For the last couple of months we have been testing Xen for its functionality, security, stability and performance. Our tests went very well. We have also created scripts for managing the hosting side of things (and so it works in with our current control panel UI). And for a few weeks we were wrangling servers on the other side of the Pacific trying to get them to 'take' the xen kernel (those issues were resolved after a few hardware changes).
And Launching It As of last week we are now offering Xen VPS Hosting plans (http://rimuhosting.com/order/startorder.jsp). The Xen plans are launched under the MiroVPS tag. We expect most new orders to be Xen orders from now (we can still setup UML-based VPSs for people that need them).
Update: The Xen plans, though so far only available over the weekend have all but sold out two servers already (which is pretty good going). The guys at the data center are wondering what's going on with all our new servers coming in of late. Feedback from customers has been very positive.
Implications For TawaVPS/MataiVPS Customers: It is our medium term goal to convert all TawaVPS and MataiVPS plans to the MiroVPS technology and resources. We will do this as individual host server resources and time permits. The Xen hosts have been running smoothly to date, however we will not convert any UML hosts over to Xen until we have a good period of trouble free operation behind us. Any changes to your setup will be communicated well in advance.
Xen and UML are compatible in the sense that you can take a UML file system, make a couple of minor modifications to it (e.g. replace /dev/udb with /dev/sda in /etc/fstab) and run it as a Xen 'domain'. So it is our expectation that when we begin the migration there will be minimal - if any - disruption.
Moving to MiroVPS servers or Replacing a VPS with a new MiroVPS Server Some of you may be keen to use the Xen hosting right now, rather than waiting for the migration to commence.
If you are one of these people, then you may request we move your VPS to a MiroVPS host server. We will do this when new server resources permit. When we have the servers available you can use the custom support ticket type we have created for this task.
Because of the demand for the MiroVPS plans any move or new order is subject to the availability of host server space. New customers or someone needing an extra server will have priority over someone wishing to replace an existing server. The next priority will be given to existing customers feeling (or causing!) performance problems.
(As at 19 July we are waiting on new servers to arrive before accepting any moves or replacement VPS orders for MiroVPS plans. The new servers should arrive before 30 July).
Anyway, that's our news. We really enjoyed preparing this for deployment, and now look forward to continue providing great Linux hosting backed by our best support efforts for many years to come.
If you had any questions or comments you're welcome to leave them here or contact me via email.