From: "Geo" 

"Robert Comer"  wrote in message
news:4380a981{at}w3.nls.net...

> Yeah, so in your scenario about you get rooted, it's all lost, in mine,
say
> I have 15 virtual servers, each serving 400 sites, one gets rooted, I only
> lose 1/15'th of my sites.

It doesn't work that way, first you won't be hosting 100's of sites per
virtual server because of the load, 600 sites on a fast dual cpu machine
with no virtual copies of the OS running is pushing it, with virtual
servers you would be isolating each customer to their own virtual machine
so maybe you could do 30, no way could you do 30 each of those doing 20
sites, not going to happen.

Now to the rooted issue. I guess if one virtual server is running PHP and
gets rooted then it might just affect that one site, otoh if it's a patch
issue and it got rooted because of the OS or something all the virtual
servers have in common then they probably all get rooted. It is safer but
only partially safer in that you could allow folks to run executable
extensions of their choice without really increasing the risk to the other
hosted sites.

> Yep, and that's actually a benefit, no servers administrator has access to
> any of the other servers, total isolation, in your scheme, and admin is an
> admin, he has it all, and it's true, you need a lot of RAM and disk too,
but
> the advantages outweigh they disadvantages for a LOT of companies out
here.
> I could even have the DB and mail servers as a 16th and 17th VM, and keep
> them just as secure as if they were on separate hardware.

The hosting business is very competitive, you can't afford lots of anything
unless people are willing to pay for it. Nobody running windows is doing
virtual servers this way. Mostly when you rent a full server it's a
physical machine, you even get access to a remote power switch.

> You'd really be shocked at how many, the big guys have been using it for
> years, and now its filtering down into the middle and smaller tiers.
(think
> more than just websites, but db, app servers, printer/fileshare servers
too)
> Even the hardware companies are making it easier with VT and Pacifica.

show me someone doing windows virtual servers. All the one's I've seen
where you get admin access to the machine are really physical machines.

Geo.

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