Thread: How to set up VPS hosting for my students

Greetings all.

I need some help. I teach at a university in the web design degree program. I have been tasked with setting up a VPS environment for our students to use so they can learn to set up web servers etc. I figured that I'd approach it the same way I would if I were setting up an actual VPS hosting business since we're also tossing around the idea of continuing the service for students when they graduate for a nominal fee. That being said I'm not quite sure where to start. There are so many tools that I've seen that it's a bit overwhelming. I think I like the management capabilities and scalability of a VMWare environment but the container system of openvz / virtuozzo looks great as well. Is there a way to combine the two? What type of hardware would be required for such a venture other than the servers themselves? Since I'm completely new to this type of thing I'd like to hear your thoughts as to what would be the ideal setup. I definitely need a system that's easy to manage and scale when the need arises. Also, does each VPS need to have its own public IP address or is there another way to handle it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

use centos and hypervm. it's easly to install. you can search at google howto install hypervm

From a High Schoolers view,

OpenVZ is better running in the long run, except it does not give the ability to edit Kernal properties, and mess with other systems configurations.

VMWare/XEN is nicer if you need your students to modify the Kernal and configurations as it is a full OS. It would give your students better understanding of a real Operating System and resources.

Get a dedicated server of your choice, and then just order vePortal (http://www.veportal.com) or SolusVM (http://www.solusvm.com) to manage the VPS on it, which both run on top of OpenVZ. Those two programs are gaining rapid ground on Virtuozzo, and are only $10/month...pennies compared to the expense of Virtuozzo (which is based off OpenVZ anyways...).
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Originally Posted by BurstNET

Get a dedicated server of your choice, and then just order vePortal (http://www.veportal.com) or SolusVM (http://www.solusvm.com) to manage the VPS on it, which both run on top of OpenVZ. Those two programs are gaining rapid ground on Virtuozzo, and are only $10/month...pennies compared to the expense of Virtuozzo (which is based off OpenVZ anyways...).
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Couldn't agree with you more.

tbh, if just for education purpose, opensource cp is more then enough. hypervm in this case.

Doesn't hypervm limit to 5 vm's?

Originally Posted by doomed999

Doesn't hypervm limit to 5 vm's?

None since it went open source...

Thanks for the input guys. @BurstNET, those solutions sound interesting. Do they both have the ability to manage across different nodes?

Originally Posted by Flavius

Thanks for the input guys. @BurstNET, those solutions sound interesting. Do they both have the ability to manage across different nodes?

Not sure on SolusVM, but vePortal offers veCommander, which is a multi-node management/control tool.
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Originally Posted by Flavius

Do they both have the ability to manage across different nodes?

SolusVM will allow you to control all your host nodes from one central location (the master).

Use Xen platform, install clearos (built-in cp) or centos with webmin.
With that kind of configuration, you easily get lots of linux resources to do server side managements.
Try gigenetcloud or vpsfarm, credit base and count by hour.

You might also want to look at XenServer as well. The free edition works out quite well.

Man up, use a command line no software fees and very fast provisioning

Man up? Wow. :-) Actually I wouldn't mind it so much but I may not be the only person administrating it and CLI does up the learning curve.

What about the IP addressing for VPS's? Would I need to buy a block of addresses or is there another way to go about it?