[xen-tools] [OT?] xen as a base

[Anton Melser]

Hi there, This is probably a bit OT but here we go
As mentioned, I am hoping to put in place a sort of system for the
servers we host. Basically, people have a choice - debian or centos. I
wanted to install straight off a base debian and then just use
xen-tools to install either debian or centos.
Is this a reasonable way to go? My idea was to ease the installation
process for the "real" network admins at my company, and to make the
servers we have more "flexible". I thought, hey, if I can just have
virtual machines that we could move around at will then that would
give us a real maintenance advantage. With xen-shell it would mean we
could give clients access if necessary... (most just use it for sftp,
though some not). If we need to group servers together then it becomes
pretty trivial...
For the moment most customers have dedicated machines, but even so I
think xen is attractive.
So, my question, before I spend ages getting expert on the subject, is
"what are the really annoying/limiting factors when using a guest as
opposed to a bare metal install?". Are there lots of gotchas when
running a centos guest on a debian host? Is this going to end up being
*more* work than just maintaining bare metal installs?
Thanks for any ideas you have!
Cheers
Anton