You make an excellent point, Martijn ... (and I suspect this is what
Bill was pointing out ...)

Virtualization on top of virtualization is inherently not the best idea.

I guess I'm looking for flexibility in the sense of being able to spin
up additional VMs at my leisure. In which case #2 could be suitable in
the right environment.

... in which case SLAs would be tantamount to success ...

So ... that said, any recommendations?  :)


On 1/19/21 6:32 PM, Martijn Schmidt wrote:
> For #1, are you trying to do "Cloud-ception" e.g. running your own
> proxmox virtualization on top of an already virtual machine, so that
> you're basically two layers deep?
>
> For #2, of course you need to be able to survive a hardware failure
> (using RAID1 or some flavour of DRBD for example) but having to think
> about such things is the "trade-off" of having access to the bare-metal
> layer.. it does have advantages, for example if you want to install your
> own virtualization layer without any involvement from the hosting
> provider. You'd usually have agreements with the hosting provider about
> how/when hardware replacements would be done.
>
> Best regards,
> Martijn
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* NANOG <nanog-bounces+martijnschmidt=i3d.net@nanog.org> on behalf
> of Bryan Holloway <bryan@shout.net>
> *Sent:* 19 January 2021 18:18
> *To:* William Herrin <bill@herrin.us>
> *Cc:* NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Hosting recommendations ... ?
> Perhaps I'm missing something, but in your #1 example "Cloud", what
> prevents me from running a Proxmox ISO (which is more or less Debian)
> vs. a "standard" Debian install on the provider's virtual server?
>
> If I can, I've succeeded. That is the sort of hosting provider I'm
> looking for, if they exist.
>
> #2 would be suitable, but it seems to be that if leased bare-metal dies,
> it will be some time for ETR. Less desirable, but I'm open to ideas.
>
> #3 I do now. Trying to move away from that.
>
>
> On 1/19/21 5:44 PM, William Herrin wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 8:31 AM Bryan Holloway <bryan@shout.net> wrote:
>>> I would like to stop personally dealing with bare-metal. That's what I'm
>>> doing now.
>>
>> Hi Bryan,
>>
>> Cloud = you get virtual servers with virtual storage, generally
>> adjustable to meet your needs. You manage the operating systems and
>> storage within the virtual environment. You DO NOT manage the host
>> operating systems or hypervisors.
>>
>> Bare metal = you lease physical equipment. You manage all software on
>> the equipment including any hypervisors needed to run virtual servers.
>> You DO NOT deal with hardware break/fix, that problem belongs to the
>> service provider.
>>
>> Colocation = You lease space in a data center. You provide physical
>> equipment in your custom configuration.
>>
>> With this terminology, at least one of your requirements is unmeetable
>> for contradicting the others. So I ask again for clarification: which
>> of these do you seek?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Bill Herrin
>>