Server Virtualization: Server Virtualization

Server Virtualization

Hey there, well I have about 16 servers, they are all dedicated. I run a clustering environment, someone suggested beefing up the servers, which I am doing, but also they mentioned server virtualization. What are the advantages of server virtualization?

What exactly is server virtualization, can someone please explain this to me? Thanks!

All my servers are Apache.

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Hi,

Is your goal to have several web sites (apache instances, let say) on a single server or to have several OSes on a single server ?

If first case (which I understood from your question), you should be talking of "virtual hosts". It means the possibility to have several website (ie, domain names) pointing to the same apache instance.
It's quite easy to set it up, please find some examples below. Basically, you say "if someone access my IP by entering the URL some.name.com, then redirect him to this particular website, meaning, directory structure. If someother.name.com, then this different directory structure)

To set it up, you'll have to manage your DNS zones correctly, especially if several www.something.com points to the same IP. Be careful, www.something.com might point to a different IP from something.com. And many www.differenthostnames.com might all point to the same IP. Then Virtual Hosts sorts the requests

Be careful about overload problems. If you have tons of users, merging everythin to one a single server might be a problem

Check this: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/

If I'm totally wrong - and you are talking about virualizing OSes, tell me :)

<VirtualHost 172.16.0.1:443>
        ServerName onesite.somewhere.com
        ServerAlias onesite
        DocumentRoot /srv/www/root_of_onesitesomewhere
 
        # to have separated log files
        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error-onesitesomewhere.log
 
</VirtualHost>
 
# bonus : a redirection to rewrite url http to https
<VirtualHost *>
        ServerName onesite.somewhere.com
        ServerAlias onesite
        Redirect / https://onesite.somewhere.com/
</VirtualHost>

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Server Virtualization

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