Virtualizing the render farm
So far I haven’t had much luck transforming my render farm to a fully virtualized environment for easier management of the render nodes’ software config.
I’ve tried Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology at first as it seemed like the easiest path, but I couldn’t have achieved what I’ve wanted from the setup:
- Startup of the render nodes
- Have all the render nodes boot up to a centralized virtual OS
- Render tasks
- Shutdown
I’ve even tried the SCVMM, but it was way too complex and complicated so I didn’t actually spend too much time fiddling with it.
I’m currently looking at my #2 option (mainly due to added cost and software layers), VMWare. Especially the VMWare View and vSphere products.
So, no virtualization tips from me right now, all is still one big work in progress, but I’ll be posting updates as soon as I have them.
+1 for vSphere. It rocks but costs.
Comment by Mike Owen — June 23, 2011 @ 07:37
Hmm, yeah, I know VMWare products rock, but they’re really pricey in such scenarios.
I don’t really have that kind of a budget for the virtualization of my render farm.
Comment by loocas — June 23, 2011 @ 09:28
We’re experimenting with vmware view with mixed success,
its working well for renderfarm type tasks. deployment and building is pretty nice, you can change the install and recompose it to push out changes to multiple users in the pool.
They’re trying to use it to replace some desktops for the lighter users, and it seems to be slightly finicky about win7 at times, mostly in the deployment stages and initial logins, i’m not sure if its our setup here, but the IT dude sitting a couple desks away has been bitching to vmware support about getting it stable in windows7 for weeks.. server 2008 seems to be a lot more stable
Messed around trying to use it as an interactive session with 3dsmax (for some of the “sometime artists” here, with modern hardware gives the feeling of running on a ~5year old workstation probably due to only opengl working as a viewport setup.
That said, the Revit users love it, but then, they’re coming from 32bit desktops and getting a taste of 64bit via the vmware.
Comment by dbuck — July 12, 2011 @ 15:33
What is your server config for 3ds max host?
Comment by shetu — June 11, 2012 @ 18:56
any news about the idea?
I tray to make the same and asked myself if it would work with VHD?
thanks
manuel
Comment by Manuel — October 18, 2012 @ 12:13
Well, unfortunately, Manuel, I haven’t been able to get this up and running. Windows just wasn’t cooperative enough to enable me to run a fully configured VHD on hardware after boot. Maybe you’ll have more luck with XEN, as I’ve heard, but I’m no Linux/Unix expert, so, my advice would be, go for Amazon EC2.
Comment by loocas — November 27, 2012 @ 22:56