Which server for a new KVM guest?

To find out, answer these questions then look at the table below:

• Does the guest have to be at a particular site, or on a particular subnet?
• Does the guest have to be fast? The fastest machine is jubilee .
• Does it need to be very reliable? If so choose a "fully supported" server; choose SAN storage (so the VM can be resurrected if the server dies); and use a server which supports migration (so the VM can keep running through planned server downtime).
• Is it a temporary or test machine? If so use circle , or use local disk storage rather than SAN (see the individual server pages for details).

Notes on Storage Locations

1. A guest's disk space is created in one of the host's storage pools.
2. Some storage pools are on SAN space and some are on the host's local disk space.
3. SAN will normally be a little faster than local disk.
4. If the host suffers sudden hardware failure, SAN storage can be mounted on another host. Local disk storage can't.
5. However, local disk isn't used by multiple servers, so it may have more predictable performance.

Notes On Migration

1. Hot migration seems to work well but for us it's experimental as yet (June 2012).
2. A migrating host will have a perceived downtime of 2 or 3 seconds.
3. The MPU will do the migration for you, please don't do it yourself.
4. We're working on cold migration.