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Xen Hacker Interviewed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the under-the-hood dept.

Drawoc Suomynona writes "The Xen virtual monitor is a new generation virtualization software that enable running multiple OSes at the same time with unprecedented level of performances. Manuel Bouyer was recently interviewed about his work porting Xen to the NetBSD operating system. The interview touches on why some consider Xen to be so good, how hard it is to integrate such a software package into an OS, and more."

4 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Migration by Stoned4Life · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Xen also offers virtual machine migration, where you freeze a Xen guest, move it to another machine and resume it there ... This also means that a similar environment for the guest has to exist on the remote system."

    And if a similar environment is not available when it is moved, what happens to the state of the user? Would the hardware in use when the state is saved have to be exactly alike on the target machine?

    Also, is the information retained on the backup until the full migration is completed and then deleted, or is deleting the backup during the migration optional, leaving a "frozen" and "restorable" state on the server? Is that a security risk if the workstation is compromised?

    --
    Stoned4Life
    gen = new Random
    1. Re:Migration by kscguru · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Xen doesn't do graphics cards (at this point, everyone - even VMware - virtualizes graphics cards). Network cards, you only get via a virtualized Xen network adapter with Xen drivers, so those will remain the same. Nobody does passthrough hardware - nobody.

      You will find processor differences though. Move from AMD to Intel, or drop SSE extensions or some such, and things will break.

      --

      A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire

  2. Now THIS is cool by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Xen virtual machines can be "live migrated" between physical hosts without stopping them. During this procedure, the memory of the virtual machine is iteratively copied to the destination without stopping its execution. A very brief stoppage of around 60-300 ms is required to perform final synchronisation before the virtual machine begins executing at its final destination, providing an illusion of seamless migration. Similar technology is used to suspend running virtual machines to disk and switch to another virtual machine, and resume the first virtual machine at a later date.

    (Quote from Wikipedia)

    Reminds of when I was watching the old Max Headroom show, and Max would shuffle himself off of one monitor onto a display on a portable "processing unit" and somebody would pick him up and carry him away.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  3. Re:VMWare Player... by thehunger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're right. Any you'll be glad to know that VMware has decided to provide a updated and FREE version of its GSX Server. This will allow you to CREATE virtual machines as well as run several VMs timultaneously. Also it can do SMP and 64-bit emulation, so you'll be able to install a 64-bit multi-processor version of an OS on your current 32-bit single processor computer...

      It's called VMware Server and is in beta now.

    However, it's not -entirely- free: VMware will charge for support, and there's no guarantee that updates and patches will be available for non-paying customers.