eWeek - April 2, 2007

SP2 and on CentOS 4. 2 (a pile the drivers to match the clone of RHEL 4 U2). kernel they’re running, rather

Also cross-platform- than limiting support to a friendly is Virtual Iron’s handful of options.

Management Console, a This sort of flexibility
fairly rich application that would have helped prevent
depends on Sun Microsys- one of the snags we encoun-
tems’ Java Web Start appli- tered during testing: We
cation technology. Using installed the x86-64 version
the console, we were able to of CentOS 4. 4, and, probably
manage our nodes equally because the VM we’d created
well from Windows and sported a single processor,
from Linux—something we the CentOS 4. 4 installer
found particularly refreshing installed the uniprocessor
after coming off our testing version of the Linux kernel. For Windows guests, Virtual Iron’s VS Tools take the form of an .exe
of VMware’s VI3 product, Virtual Iron’s VS Tools pack- installer with Virtual Iron-enhanced device drivers. For Linux, Virtual
_which _is _{disappointingly} _ages _come _in _SMP _(symmet-Iron provides binary packages containing drivers compiled to match
Windows-bound on both its ric multiprocessing) flavors ^supported ^kernels.management server and cli- only, and an SMP kernel During our tests, we Iron’s Management Console,
ent application sides. must be installed to install downloaded an rPath-based but the process is definitely
Virtual Iron can host pretty the tools properly. When we Media Wiki appliance in Vir- rougher around the edges
much any x86 or x86-64 oper- installed the SMP kernel for tual Iron format, dropped than that of VMware’s virtu-
ating system, but there’s a our system from its network the appliance’s virtual disk alization products. For one
significant set of functionality repository, however, the ver- into the appropriate folder in thing, it’s necessary to visit
that requires add-on software, sion we pulled down was our Virtual Iron management different parts of the console
called Virtual Server Tools, that different from the version server and assigned the disk to to configure a VM’s CPU and
Virtual Iron makes available that the VS Tools package a new VM. Without VS Tools RAM settings, its network
only for a handful of operating was expecting, so we had to support, however, the virtual adapters, and its virtual disks.
systems (the same Windows revert to the older kernel for appliance was significantly During our tests of VI3, we
and Linux versions that are on the tools to work. less useful. If pressed, we connected our VMware ESX
Virtual Iron’s list of supported We were surprised to find probably could have adapted servers to the FTP server on
management servers). that Virtual Iron does not the supported Red Hat kernel which we store, among other
VS Tools are required for offer its VS Tools for rPath to run our Media Wiki appli- things, operating system
Virtual Iron’s LiveMigrate Linux since Virtual Iron and ance, but we’d rather see Vir- installation images. We could
and LiveRecovery features, to rPath have a partnership in tual Iron take care of that. then attach these images to
^view ^performance ^{informa- which} ^rPath ^has ^added ^{Vir- VMs} ^we’d ^created ^as ^virtualtion on guest instances from tual Iron as a build option for VM creation CD or DVD drives, install
the management console, and software appliances created it wasn’t too tough to cre- from those images, and then
to shut down or reboot guest with the rBuilder platform. ate new VMs using Virtual access their contents once our
machines gracefully from the machines were installed.
management console (as in With Virtual Iron, the
not simply pulling their vir- VM creation interface
tual plugs). sports a handy drop-down
For Windows guests, these menu of available instal-
tools take the form of an .exe lation images, but these
installer with Virtual Iron- images had to reside in a
enhanced device drivers. For particular folder on our
Linux, Virtual Iron provides management server to
binary packages containing show up on the list. This
drivers compiled to match would have meant copying
supported kernels. images from our standard
We’d like to see Virtual Iron FTP store to that particular
^adopt ^a ^less ^rigid ^approach We were surprised to find that Virtual Iron does not offer its VS Tools ^server.
to ^delivering ^these ^tools ^for for rPath Linux, since Virtual Iron and rPath have a partnership in ^We ^ended ^up ^{dumping
Linux.} ^VMware, ^for ^example, which rPath has added Virtual Iron as a build option for software ^the ^Windows ^Server ²⁰⁰³allows administrators to com- appliances created with the rBuilder platform. [CONTINUED ON PAGE 34]