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An Overview of Virtualization Technologies
PCM2 writes "Virtualization is all the rage these days. All the major Linux players are getting into the game with support for Xen, while Sun has Solaris Containers, Microsoft has Virtual PC, and VMware arguably leads the whole market with its high end tools. Even AMD and Intel are jumping onto the bandwagon. InfoWorld is running a special report on virtualization that gives an overview of all these options and more. Is it just a trend, or will server virtualization be the way to go in the near future?"
Is it just a trend, or will server virtualization be the way to go in the near future?
What happened to the CowboyNeal option?
Virtualization is one of the best things since sliced bread and I believe it's here to stay. First of all, it spells an end to multi-booting. I have erased my secondary OSs and I run them in VMs under my main system. A performance hit does definitely occur by I am willing to pay such price for the greater ease of use. Secondly, just think of the possibility to move server images from a physical server to another one, literally freezing it here and awakening it over there - InstaScaleOut(tm) must be a server admin's wet dream.
Of course, as with all abstraction layers, it introduces complexity and takes a toll in the form of performance - but we all know absraction layers have been increasing all the time since the beginning of time.
Global warming is a cube.
With the growing evidence of the human brain's ability to rewire itself and route around failures on the fly, and the effective virtualisation of perception (why do I appear to see a three dimensional picture of the world when I have only 2 curved arrays of photosensors?) we are probably just following a well trodden evolutionary path.
Pining for the fjords
Virtual technology is great you know. I'm using a virtual PC running on a virtual PC which is simulated on the first virtual PC. This is realy a nice solution:
1)Upgrade: simply change a few values in the config and presto! 50Thz processor!
2)No power consuption what-so-ever! I even get a net gain as I run a virtual powerplant.
3)No clumsy hardware on my desk. Just type at the virtual keyboard in mid-air! The virtual monitor can project from anywhere. Heck, they even follow you to the bathroom.
4)No virus, malware or spyware thread! All thanks to the virtual virus scanner.
5)Store up to infinite TB data on the UberDVD drive.
6)Comes with free pron, MP3, warez and Movie server. Complete with anti-MPAA and anti-RIAA card.
Soon to be released: The virtual Car(tm). Just hold up your hands like your holding a steering wheel and make motor sound to get anywhere in the world in just minutes!
Virtual technology. It's everything you ever dreamed of, and more!
They completely forget to mention User Mode Linux, which is a well established and stable linux only offering, and many of the VPS (virtual private server) hosts you see advertised are running on UML.
It seems that as Xen makes progress, UML is getting ignored.
What kind of article is that?
They talk about VMWare, Intel/AMD, the future Solaris on E10000, other things... but where is IBM?
They can do Virtualization for at least 3 years with their Regatta technology (P670, P690 (Power 4 technology), P530, P550, P560, P570, P575, P590, P595 (Power 5 technology)) and their OS AIX 5L.
they are able to give a few percentage of a cpu to virtual server, with their Virtual IO server, they also are able to virtualize network and disks. They can do workload management between virtual servers. Add/remove disks/cpu/memory in real time.
etc...
So for a complete discussion an overview of the virtualization in the industry, IBM is now a big player, and they are now surpassing SOLARIS & HP in the "closed" unix world.
So for me this overview is not complete and should not have passed the "draft" version until someone was looking at the actual and running alternatives.
L.G.
Now guess who said that, and when. :-)
Robert P. Goldberg said that, in 1974.
The fun thing about this is, it's still a very accurate statement. Other than in 1974, though, it doesn't solely apply to mainframes, but, as someone wrote in an earlier post, to everyday computers: desktop systems. I think that's great, and the above quote is more true than ever. Working on Mac OS X and having a Parallels session up and running where some Java application (for example) is tested in a Windows or what environment... lovely.
Yes, I'm a virtualisation enthusiast, if you haven't guessed so already. ;-)
If you stat average CPU consumption over the servers of any big size datacenter chances are you will be very surprised by the results.
...
I did this for a company with over 2000 unix servers and averages were : only 20% of the hosts would use more than 30% of the CPU
It's a known fact that for most of the projects the hardware is super sized over what's really needed, and this is one of the main advantage of virtualization : it is seen as a cost reduction process.
With that aggravating beauty, Lulu Walls.
IBM is so far advanced it's not even funny.
Intel and Xen even based their virtualization stuff on old papers from IBM documentation and whitepapers.
You want to know how hardcore IBM is?
THEY INVENTED VIRTUAL MEMORY. And no I am not talking about a swap file on your harddrive, you windows wennie. I am talking about the ability every PC has to abstract memory.. It's IBM's gift to the PC that made modern computing possible.
You aren't convinced of IBM's monsterious power?
They have it setup so that when you buy a OpenPOWER machine for running Linux you can get a optional firmware hypervisor to manage multiple operating systems. And it's pretty cheap also.. For the same price as a low end Sun Opteron box you can get a low end IBM POWER5 box.
But it's not just that... Get this:
IF you buy a Xeon cpu on a add-on card you can set up the machine to RUN WINDOWS.
That's right. Run windows with a fucking x86 cpu on a PCI CARD.. Sharing the same memory and harddrives as Linux running on POWER5. On the same machine. At the same time. With NO slowdown.
Still not convinced?
How about this, for a show of IBM's utter superiority in this feild:
We are running a 2000 era IBM Mainframe with a late 1970's operating system on a 1990's operating system with 1980's era tape drives for legacy reasons.
IT'S A THIRTY-ONE BIT (no NOT 32 bits. 31bits.) OPERATING SYSTEM ON A #$%#$% 64 BIT MACHINE. It's not even like going from x86 to x86-64. They are entirely different computer archatectures. AND it runs at near bare hardware speeds. It's incredable. AND we can run Linux next to it. At the same time. And not just one Linux install, but very literally hundreds of them if we felt like it.
It's completely nuts. They got shit that makes Vmware look like Dosbox. Microsoft's 'Virtual Server' isn't even on the radar; it's completely laughable in comparision.
That and it has the worst possible user interface imaginable. Think about the worst thing you've ever seen. Some DOS 2.x nightmare. Now add a OS/2 GUI and make it WORSE. Now imagine it worse then that. Now your getting close. That and we pay out the ass for the pleasure of using it. Ok, now make it slightly worse. That's about right.