Administering virtual machines with MLN
The simplest virtualization scenarios are very easy to manage. In the real world, though, virtualization does not always simplify system administration. In fact, many of the most powerful uses of virtualization result in additional administrative tasks and challenges. For example, large data centers use virtualization to consolidate several servers onto the same physical hardware, thereby minimizing space, cost, and power requirements.
These virtual machines (VMs) can migrate between servers to achieve higher uptimes and flexible load balancing. However, managing such a complex virtual infrastructure is at least as challenging as administering the equivalent number of separate server systems, and it requires very different skills.
Many high-end commercial virtualization products come with sophisticated VM management features. If you are wondering whether the free software community offers an equivalent application, the open source MLN VM administration tool might be just what you need. MLN, which stands for "Manage Large Networks," lets you build sophisticated, dynamic, virtual infrastructures with the use of freely available virtualization platforms. The versatile MLN currently supports the widely used VMware Server [1] and Xen [2] packages, as well as User-Mode Linux [3].
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