VirtualBox Deployment and System Architecture

[RolandC]

I need some advice on how to meet these challenges. It might be that this needs to be posted on a different forum.

Where am I?
I am running a Mac network of a server, 2 Mac-minis, 2 laptops and Airpot Extreme WiFi. The laptops need to access the private network over Apple’s VPN, called Back-to-my-Mac.

The server is hosted on Mavericks on a Mac-mini with Server 3.0.1. Server is up basically 24/7 but is way under used. On the other hand, it must be responsive to local and web access from clients.

The whole installation system supports a wide range of computing tasks including: desktop publishing with InDeign, film-making with Final Cut Pro, application development with FileMaker, game development with Unity3D and C++ SDKs, business and project management configuration and archiving. General office services need to be available to all work areas with the ability to exchange files when needed.. Website development and wiki sites are on the horizon.

I have some simple objectives, but the solutions are not obvious (to me).

Objective 1:
To provide separate VM’s for Mavericks Server and distributed computing (DC) with BOINC. This will allow better utilisation of the server but protect each VM from the other, and in the case of the DC, VM will provide checkpointing. This will require guesting the Mavericks server on VBox hosted by Mavericks.

Objective 2:
The work areas have different tool sets, different data types and very different storage requirements.

It would be useful to be able to create multiple VMs that can be called up and used on whichever physical machine is available. Hopefully this would allow efficient sharing of hardware and storage across workspaces, robustness for continued availability during system maintenance while protecting each workspace from interference (deliberate or in error) from the others.

This requires not only guesting Mavericks (and Mountain Lion) on Mavericks host, but multiple VMs, with presumably a performance and storage overhead cost. That might be prohibitive. It also calls for VMs to float about from one client computer to another (subject of course to memory limits and network transfer speeds). I’m guessing that this is beyond the present state of the art, or at least beyond my ability to set it up and run it (30yrs as a Mac user and more in software development and management).

I notice that there is little on the forums or websites about VB and Mac, even though Macs have been supported on VB ‘experimentally' for some time. Is this because no one uses VB and Macs together, or is it because VB and Macs are trouble-free? In particular there are only a couple of posts about Mavericks and the recent release of VB (18 Dec 2013).

Question 1: Is this because the app versions are new and have not thrown up any problems, or is trying to guest Mavericks on Mavericks is an, impractical idea?

Question 2: Is what I am trying to do silly or fundamentally flawed and I need to think of something else?

Question 3: If it is basically practical, How would you advise me to proceed?

[noteirak]

Question 1: Is this because the app versions are new and have not thrown up any problems, or is trying to guest Mavericks on Mavericks is an, impractical idea?

Mac/OSX are not as spread as Windows/LInux so you'll definitly have less feedback in general. But from what I can gather, it is not less stable. Mavericks is still young, so the support will always be inferior to older versions.
I have no experience with OSX & Virtualbox, so I cannot personally answer more than this. Hopefully someone with that experience will jump in here.

Question 2: Is what I am trying to do silly or fundamentally flawed and I need to think of something else?

What you are doing is in line with basic dedicated host Virtualization. You are already aware of the main issue : there will be overhead for each VM you add. You don't mention you hardware power, but from what you describe, you definitly don't want to overallocate ressources. Maybe you'll want to do a mix between VMs and physical?

For the VM floating, Virtualbox supports it, under the label "Teleporting". The requirement is that both host have access to the same storage backend.

My only point is that you want to setup something quite complex wiht multi-hosts, and there are not tools (yet) to work in that kind of environment with Virtualbox. You'll need to build your own front-end to manage all this.

Question 3: If it is basically practical, How would you advise me to proceed?

You need to asses your exact need, see if your hardware is enough. I would definitly go with a Proof of Concept first.