Re: [Xen-users] The death of XEN by Novell

[Pasi Kärkkäinen <pasik@xxxxxx>]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 09:51:52AM -0400, Venefax wrote:
> The Novell engineer showed me a technical document, which I did not write
> the number, on the Novell web site, where it said: windows SMP using the
> Novell driver crashes. On Monday I will talk to her and get the number.

Hmm.. so it's a bug in Novell's windows driver or? 

And yeah, would be nice to see that document. 

> Also all the responses to my post in the list confirm that. The point is:
> unless SMP works, the whole technology is useless, because what use would it
> have a single VCPU machine? That´s why I am jumping over to Hyper-V. The
> problem is that I don't know how good the emulation of Linux is under
> Hyper-V. Does the network work fast? I use a SIP Server on the Linux side,
> talking hundreds of times per second to SQL Server, so I need SMP 8 ways on
> both  ends. But my Linux softswiches also move megabytes of data in and out
> of the network, media, voice. It requires low latency. Maybe I need to
> forget about virtualizing Windows ands Linux together.
>

If you have two different server hardware now, just run paravirtualized
linux vm's on the other one, and windows vm's on the other one.. 
 
-- Pasi

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pasi Kärkkäinen [mailto:pasik@xxxxxx] 
> Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 9:42 AM
> To: Venefax
> Cc: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] The death of XEN by Novell
> 
> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 04:12:11PM +0300, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> > On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 12:28:45AM -0400, Venefax wrote:
> > > The Novell engineer showed me, and it has been confirmed in this list,
> that
> > > Windows with more than one virtual CPU crashes. An crashing it did. I
> woke
> > > up with angry calls from customers and when I logged in, all my 3
> Windows
> > > VM's (two windows 2008 Datacenter with 32 GB and 8 VCPU and one Windows
> 2003
> > > Enterprise with 16 GB and 8 VCPU's)  were in blue screen. The memory
> dump
> > > process was stuck I guess because since the hard drives use the Novell
> > > para-virtualized drivers, then at a blue-screen time you cannot collect
> any
> > > memory dump. But the fact is that the engineer showed me that advisory
> note
> > > in the Novell web site, saying I had been wasting my time, and now I am
> > > buying a second $15.000 box to relocate my three windows VM´s. This is
> joke.
> > >
> > 
> > Does Novell advertise their Xen in SLES supports Windows SMP? 
> >
> 
> http://www.novell.com/rc/docrepository/public/37/basedocument.2008-06-10.975
> 2681390/SUSE_Linux_Enterprise_10_SP2_Virtualization_Technology_Support_Techn
> ical_White_Paper_en.pdf
> 
> "Virtual machine limits per VM"
> 
> "Virtual CPUs, full virtualization (FV) 1-4"
> 
> "Novell support is currently limited to four virtual CPUs for fully
> virtualized VMs"
> 
> Where did you read Novell supports 8 vCPUs for Windows? 
> 
> With a quick look I didn't find anything about Novell supported maximum
> amount of
> memory.. 
> 
> -- Pasi
> 
>  
> > "Confirmed in this list" .. can you please send a link to such email? 
> > 
> > Is there a bugzilla entry about this bug in Novell's bug database or
> Xensource's
> > bugzilla? 
> > 
> > -- Pasi
> >  
> > > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: James Harper [mailto:james.harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> > > Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2008 12:08 AM
> > > To: Venefax; Mark Williamson; Antoine Benkemoun; Ky Srinivasan; Lynn
> > > Bendixsen
> > > Cc: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; stephen.spector@xxxxxxxxxx
> > > Subject: RE: [Xen-users] The death of XEN by Novell
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Subject: The death of XEN by Novell (case number 10406546031)
> > > > 
> > > > According to Novell, Xen has a flaw that in fact means it is useless.
> > > 
> > > Is this your interpretation of Novell's response or have Novell come out
> > > and said that "Our product is useless"? Are you able to paste the text
> > > of the support ticket or is it bound by some confidentiality agreement?
> > > 
> > > > I
> > > > have a single supported system with SLES SP2, where I have 3 Windows
> > > VM's
> > > > and 5 Linux VM's. In each of the Windows VM's I have 8 Virtual CPU's,
> > > > because I have a vital SQL Server installed where my company runs all
> > > its
> > > > business. The data comes precisely from the Linux virtual machines,
> > > and
> > > > having the database "right there" has proven extremely efficient. But
> > > all
> > > > my three Windows VM's crashed simultaneously yesterday and I lost two
> > > > hours of business.
> > > 
> > > Can you tell us more about the crash?
> > > 
> > > Was it really simultaneous (as best as you can tell) or did the domains
> > > just crash at about the same time?
> > > 
> > > What errors were in the logs (xm dmesg, dmesg, /var/log/xen/*)?
> > > 
> > > Did Dom0 crash as well?
> > > 
> > > The only time I've had more than one domain crash near-simultaneously
> > > was when the oom-killer decided that the qemu-dm processes weren't
> > > important and killed them to free up memory.
> > > 
> > > > I am using of course the right Novell drivers, etc.,
> > > > every piece of the puzzle in place. Novell already checked that. The
> > > > engineers showed me a technical note that says that having more than
> > > one
> > > > Virtual CPU in a Windows VM leads to crashes.
> > > 
> > > Can you post a link to that technical note? Is it ">1 CPU leads to
> > > crashes", or ">1 CPU may lead to crashes on this specific hardware under
> > > these specific conditions"? Is it a Novell specific problem or a more
> > > general problem? 
> > > 
> > > > But then we cannot have any
> > > > windows VM at all, hello!!! This means that the $35.000 box that I
> > > bought
> > > > is the wrong box, because now I need to remove my windows VM and
> > > create a
> > > > separate windows installation, and order more hardware, spend more
> > > money.
> > > > It means that XEN is useless, because if it only can virtualize Linux,
> > > > actually Virtuozzo (Open VZ) has a lot less overhead, far less. The
> > > beauty
> > > > of Xen is that it is supposed to virtualize Windows and Linux
> > > together.
> > > > Now, that dream is gone. In case somebody wants to look at my Novell
> > > case
> > > > number, it is 10406546031
> > > 
> > > Was this an invitation to internal Novell support personal or is it
> > > viewable by anyone?
> > > 
> > > Are you actually after assistance here or just sounding off? (that's a
> > > genuine question, imho everyone is allowed to spit the dummy once in a
> > > while.)
> > > 
> > > Also, Novell aren't the only suppliers of Xen solutions...
> > > 
> > > James
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> 

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