[DRBD-user] DRBD, Xen, HVM and live migration

Felix Frank ff at mpexnet.de
Fri Sep 23 12:29:08 CEST 2011

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


Hi,

On 09/23/2011 11:09 AM, Bart Coninckx wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> What would be a good strategy these days to accomplish this on a two
> node system (no external storage)?

A simple LVM -> DRBD -> Guest Partitions approach has worked fine for me.

> Do I need to complexity of a clustered filesystem?

Where would that come into play? Are you thinking of using disk image
files for your guests? That sounds icky.

> Could I throw LVM snapshots for backup somewhere in the mix too?

Absolutely. But then, you can just sever the replication link and end up
with a "free" unchanging image on the Secondary.
Don't let your primary crash at that time, though - snapshots should add
more safety.

> I looked at http://www.drbd.org/users-guide/s-xen-configure-domu.html ,
> but this seems to exclude HVM guests.

I think it's a good option to have Xen use the DRBDs as plain block
devices, i.e., Xen doesn't need to be aware of DRBD.
I believe I read on this list that live migration is quite possible so
long as both nodes become primary on time.

HTH,
Felix



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