How to organize your VMs

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]



Hi,

Up until now my main production server has been a "bare metal" installation of
CentOS 7.9 hosting a variety of stuff.

* DNS server with BIND for eight domains

* IMAP mail server with Postfix and Dovecot for these domains, with about two
dozen mail accounts

* Webmail with Roundcube for all the mail accounts

* Various WordPress-based websites and blogs

* Several instances of the management software Dolibarr

* The learning platform GEPI for our local school

* One instance of OwnCloud for half a dozen users

The hardware has no problems to deal with all that performance-wise. But
managing all this in one big bulk has become a bit of a problem, since the
LAMP-based PHP applications (WordPress, Dolibarr, GEPI, OwnCloud) increasingly
cultivate their idiosyncrasies, so this feels more and more like herding cats.

My main goal in migrating all this stuff preogressively to a series of neat VMs
hosted on a KVM hypervisor is clarity and ease of maintenance.

Now I wonder what could be a smart subdivision of all these VMs. After a bit of
brainstorming, here's what I can come up with.

1. It would make sense to regroup all the applications, e. g. one VM for all
the Dolibarr hostings, and then a different VM for WordPress, and a third VM
for OwnCloud.

2. It's tempting to have a lot of small VMs for clarity's sake. On the other
hand, it's maybe better to have one single VM for all the mail stuff.

3. Should I put all the Roundcube instances in a separate VM? Or does that go
with the Postfix/Dovecot mail VM?

4. DNS is a bit of a special case, a bit of a catch 22. I would be tempted to
setup an extra (bare-metal) machine for just handling this. Since BIND provides
the DNS information about the hypervisor and the backup server themselves this
becomes a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation.

5. Even if it's tempting to multiply VMs, let's not forget that I have to keep
an eye on hardware resources, not to forget I have to pay for every extra IPv4
address.

I'd be curious to have your input, since I'm fairly new to this sort of approach.

Cheers,

Niki

-- 
Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables
7, place de l'église - 30730 Montpezat
Site : https://www.microlinux.fr
Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr
Mail : info@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tél. : 04 66 63 10 32
Mob. : 06 51 80 12 12
_______________________________________________
CentOS mailing list
CentOS@xxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos




[Index of Archives]     [CentOS]     [CentOS Announce]     [CentOS Development]     [CentOS ARM Devel]     [CentOS Docs]     [CentOS Virtualization]     [Carrier Grade Linux]     [Linux Media]     [Asterisk]     [DCCP]     [Netdev]     [Xorg]     [Linux USB]


  Powered by Linux