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Oracle 'Losing Patience' with XenSource, VMware
HiTech writes "eWeek has an article looking at Oracle's frustration with both XenSource and VMware over their reluctance to work together. The goal is to develop a single interface for virtualization solutions in the Linux kernel. Oracle's comments follow those by Linux kernel maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman at Oscon last week that XenSource and VMware were butting heads instead of working together to come up with a joint solution. Brian Byun, VMware's vice president of products and alliances, admits the company had been approached by a neutral third party for offline mediation to establish how best to make this happen. But Simon Crosby, the CTO for XenSource, rules out any mediation, saying he believes the two companies are committed to solving the real technical issues."
Perfect software? Thats a joke right? Check out their bugs that seem to never close:i ?query_format=specific&order=relevance+desc&bug_st atus=__open__&product=Xen&content=
8 92;fp;2;fpid;1r ces.html
http://bugzilla.xensource.com/bugzilla/buglist.cg
XenSource certainly wanted to give a warm fuzzy to Microsoft, and bend over and take anything MS would give them:
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php/id;1690892
http://www.xensource.com/partners/microsoft_resou
XenSource will not work with VMware on standards, since XenSource is in the backpocket of Microsoft. Easy as that.
XenSource is not Open Source. It is out for money and nothing more, like all Corporations
I think the problem was that Xen source was pushing a design that was exclusive to Xen, no other hypervisor could use it's option. VMware, Microsoft, wouldn't be able to use it, it would be custom just to Xen. I guess that you maybe think that the kernel should have 50 or so different hypervisor product specific interface is a better solution than a generalized hypervisor.
+ for+Linux/2100-7344_3-6061019.html
In addition to the topic links here's another.
http://news.com.com/VMware-friendly+change+likely
XenSource doesn't have a business to protect?s p )
That'll be why Frank Artale is the vice president of business development at XenSource.
That'll also be why Microsoft and XenSource have joined forces to aid server virtualization, will it?
(FTA - http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1990366,00.a
The Reg is leading with a story putting meat on the bones of the contention in the article that Xen is *not ready for prime-time*.
It will be interesting to see who's chumming, who's fishing and who's cutting bait when this boat comes in. Is it possible VMWare is trolling Oracle for an offer, playing hardball like this?
illegitimii non ingravare
VMWare wants a closed source interface, Xen wants an open source interface--what's to discuss, really? I'd love to see them hash it out on the LKML as proposed (and watch VMWare get flamed)... :)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I don't think that is the position of the granparent. I believe it is more on the line of "If you aren't open, then don't pretend to be open. Opening up the minimum of resources, just to appear in the headlines is not fooling anyone".
I don't like this atitude of labeling stuff as evil and good. This tends to misrepresent almost everithing, google is good, sure what about all those secrets and the censorship in china (I actualy don't think that this is google's fault but many people think it is). MS is evil to root, but many people use their software and like it (it's not for me, but who am I to say what's best for everyone?). And so it goes, up to the infamous Bush's "axis of evil" that aparently if you classify to this group then it's okay if you are arrested and sent to Cuba to be tortured.
Come on people there are shades of gray, and even shades of yellow, green, blue and other colors. There are many sides, many ways to see the same fact, and many time what seems pure black from one of those sides can be clear as whater in other point of view.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Honestly, XenSource seems to be taking much more of a "my way or the highway" approach, which is bizarre since their data center market penetration is about nil. Well, in a couple of years, when Microsoft discards them like a used kleenex, they'll hopefully learn. I hope it doesn't take that long.
Simon can complain all he wants, but we've had profound difficulties making their virtualization scheme work. It looks so tasty on paper, and yet Xen-modified kernels are unstable and feeble.
The VMWare pressure, however, doesn't help. EMC/VMWare has a killer cadre of coders. They're very good and well paid, and can shift quickly to keep ahead of the market. Yes, it's largely NOT free open source software. Ok, it's free in some cases, but not OSS.
Am I asking them not to beat up on Xen? Yes. It still needs to cook before it's going to be ready for prime time use. Until then, it's premature.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
One that was set on HARDWARE instead, a virtualization support at processor level?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't both Intel and AMD has develloped something (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderpool) that will make it possible to run unmodified guest OSes under the same supervisor? If so, why bother with a common interface to the Linux Kernel, if this interface won't be necessary?
It would be much better if they focused on supporting each other VM image format, so one could migrate a live Xen Domain to a VMWare server and vice-versa.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
The Xen hypervisor interface already is a virtual abstraction. If vmware wants to implement new things, they can provide feature additions to the interface without making an incompatible interface. What vmware wants is like overriding the vfs layer with another vfs layer so that they can port their own filesystem to it easily, and they want it included in the kernel as the method other fs players have to use.
vmware has set back virtualization. Morton admitted himself that he didn't know how it all worked.
VMware went to OLS and presented a paper demonstrating a VMI interface that runs either Xen or VMware at the same speed as the Xen interface. Xen has never tried to run on a VMware hypervisor, but XenSource went and signed a deal to run on the (future) Windows hypervisor. My opinion is that Xen is a bunch of hypocrites: they complain about how VMware isn't open, then go sign a deal with the least open company of all. Of course, I'm biased.
Xen wants VMware to adopt the Xen hypervisor interface. This is impossible. The Xen interface is too tightly coupled to the Xen hypervisor; it's missing pieces that are necessary to run the VMware hypervisor at reasonable performance. VMware doesn't really care which interface actually proliferates (as in, there will be a layer of interface glue regardless), so long as the interface is good enough. Xen's interface is not good enough. As of two weeks ago, Xen and VMI were the only two interfaces out there.
Greg K-H's gripe with VMware is that the kernel module isn't open source. Yes and no (I don't want to argue - the code is open but not GPLed), the point is that he's spending more time complaining about Xen and VMware than it would take to actually mediate the problem. (Which, thankfully, someone else is doing instead, with paravirt_ops).
Finally: I saw more pot-shots about being unable to benchmark VMware in the original article. That changed several months ago, benchmarks are now allowed by EULA. Certain companies ought to stop spreading FUD...
A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire