Like many people I am considering creating 'private cloud' using either OpenStack or VMware.
VMware vMotion has a nice feature which allows Live Migration of VMs even without shared storage. I have tried this feature in a lab environment and it works well. This feature is not without it's downsides but it is appealing for sites which need a simple VM environment and don't want to spring for the complexity and expense of shared storage. Shared storage can easily add $50-100K to the cost of a Virtual/Cloud infrastructure. More information on this feature at:
- ESXi and vCenter Server 5.1 Documentation > vCenter Server and Host Management > Migrating Virtual Machines in the vSphere Web Client
- Techtarget: shared nothing live migration.
Does OpenStack using KVM offer a similar feature? Can OpenStack do live migration without shared storage? KVM is the default hypervisor for OpenStack and we'd prefer to stick with the default unless there is a compelling reason to use something else.