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It seems frequently assumed that architecting and deploying Highly Available (HA) solutions requires Application Server and/or Operating System clustering. When it comes to SOA and Integration solutions this is frequently a wrong assumption. Load Balanced (LB) and Highly Available HA) SOA and Integration solutions may not require that degree of complexity and sophistication. Testing  LB and HA solutions requires infrastructure consisting of multiple hosts and the ability to “crash” hosts at will. With virtualization technologies available now it is far easier to use multiple virtual machines then to use physical machines. It is also easier and potentially less destructive to “crash” virtual machines then it is to do so with physical machines.

This note walks through the process of building a Base OpenSolaris-based VMware Virtual Appliance, based on the JeOS Prototype. It will be used as the underlying infrastructure in future Notes discussing building GlassFish ESB, Java MQ, MySQL and other appliances used in LB and HA testing. The major advantage of this infrastructure is that, as well as being fully functional, if is free (as in free beer).

At the end of the Note we will have a basic VMware Appliance, running the minimal, headless OpenSolaris Operating System (based on June 2009 JeOS Prototype), configured to use NAT networking, and ready to use as the basis of GlassFish ESB and other infrastructure. To accomplish this we will download the JeOS Prototype, configure machine name and NAT networking and test network connectivity. We will also discuss the steps required to clone this appliance.

The complete walkthrough is available as 01_Preparing_baisc_JeOS_appliance_v1.0.0.3.pdf at https://blogs.czapski.id.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/01_Preparing_baisc_JeOS_appliance_v1.0.0.3.pdf.