Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Samsung and VMWare Bringing Virtualization to Android

Posted by Unknown on from the it's-all-turtles-man dept.

jbrodkin writes with an interesting article in Ars Technica about virtualization and phones. From the article: "VMware's mission to bring virtualization to the mobile market gained a major supporter last week when Samsung pledged to use VMware software to build business-friendly smartphones and tablets. The project known as Horizon Mobile will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android, in much the same way virtualization works on servers and desktops. The user essentially has two completely separate phones running on one device, and can switch from the personal one to the corporate one by clicking a 'work phone' icon." There are others pushing alternative approaches to virtualization on mobile devices.

135 comments

  1. VMs on a mobile device? by pak9rabid · · Score: 0

    Surely there's a more efficient way to have 2 separate phone environments running on the same handset.

    1. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by onefriedrice · · Score: 1

      Surely there's a more efficient way to have 2 separate phone environments running on the same handset.

      Yep. Just as there's a more efficient way to have two separate operating environments running on the same personal computer or server.

      --
      This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
    2. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      There is, using jails or chroots or openvz containers. How much separation you want dictates what method you choose.

    3. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by James+Carnley · · Score: 1

      You can run Windows apps with jails and chroots? Do the WINE guys know about this?

    4. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Of course not. He said two separate operating system environments, not can you run windows in it.

      You would not be able to run it on this either, unless you have some arm compiled windows.

    5. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by hansraj · · Score: 1

      Except that in the context of this discussion the OS running in the virtual environment is the same kind as the host OS.

    6. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by James+Carnley · · Score: 1

      Windows 8 is ARM compiled.

      It just seems that a lot of these comments are seeing the forest for the trees.

      It would be silly to not invent and develop VirtualBox when chroots and jails "run things in an isolated manner". That's only a small use case. We want to run other OSes while inside our favorite environment.

    7. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Link to the download for that, or it is useless. Windows has supposedly been compiled for arm before and nothing came of it.

      No one is missing anything kiddo. I just stated that there are faster ways to get this sort of separation if you were willing to run on OS multiple times.

    8. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Considering it is a 'linux' device I would say so...

      Just have 2 'users'. 2 desktops...

    9. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummm, have you ever heard of this OS called windows mobile 7? It's windows. It runs on ARM. You can buy it right now.

    10. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      Its not "windows" it does not support the same APIs as windows. Its kernel is perhaps similar, but the userland is nothing like it.

    11. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      **sigh**

      Dual-SIM, anyone?

    12. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by janap · · Score: 1

      Its not "windows" it does not support the same APIs as windows. Its kernel is perhaps similar, but the userland is nothing like it.

      "nothing like it" as in "Android is nothing like Slackware"?

    13. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      the wince underneath is similar in api in some ways.

      Too bad windows phone is just an app on top of that with a vm to run user installed programs. it's like going back to dos with a launcher. and people are calling it revolutionary. well fuck yeah it's a de-evolution.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    14. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Xest · · Score: 1

      Efficient? Maybe.

      Secure and solid solution? Probably not.

      This solution gives much better guarantee of security of the work VM to not be compromised by the home VM and so forth, and is also arguably a very clean and neat solution. You only need to carry one piece of hardware, but still effectively have two phones- one for work, one for home.

    15. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by lgw · · Score: 1

      Surely there's a more efficient way to have 2 separate phone environments running on the same handset.

      It seems like a reasonable way to keep my "personal phone" and my "work phone" separate, despite being the same phone.

      Hypervisor-style virtualizaiton is pretty darn efficient (most instructions just run normally on the CPU, no inefficiency at all there), until you switch between machines. If you're running one "phone" or the other at any given time, it shouldn't be an issue, really.

      As I see this is solves one key problem: my employer wants to wipe my phone if I leave. I don't want any of my personal info affected. If the phone being wiped is virtual, I'm OK with that.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    16. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Angostura · · Score: 1

      Why not simply have two separate accounts, rather than duplicating the entire OS?

    17. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by lgw · · Score: 1

      What's the cost you worry about in "duplicating the entire OS" - the size on the SD card? That still matters a bit today, but like any other storage it's getting cheaper fast. The size in memory? I know the the VMware server products actually de-dup memory pages in common between running guests (no clue about the phone version).

      Seperate virtual machines can be separately snapshotted, rolled back, wiped, etc - I can trust them to lead separate lives.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    18. Re:VMs on a mobile device? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its not "windows" it does not support the same APIs as windows. Its kernel is perhaps similar, but the userland is nothing like it.

      But it is windows, just not the desktop windows, and in the context of mobile OSes - which is what we're talking about - one is more inclined to assume windows to mean the phone variant than the desktop variant.

  2. Now you have my attention by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

    While I'd be more interested from an end user and developer perspective, I like the idea of having a phone that will do both Android, WP7, and possibly even something like regular android, rooted android, (with multiple versions of android) and WP7 all at once.

    1. Re:Now you have my attention by CPTreese · · Score: 1

      While I'd be more interested from an end user and developer perspective, I like the idea of having a phone that will do both Android, WP7, and possibly even something like regular android, rooted android, (with multiple versions of android) and WP7 all at once.

      While you're at it, can you throw in a flux capacitor as well?

      --
      If there is no God then free will is an illusion.
    2. Re:Now you have my attention by Baloroth · · Score: 1

      Yo dawg, I heard you like smartphones...

      --
      "None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
    3. Re:Now you have my attention by Sir_Sri · · Score: 1

      For personal use, having both WP7 and Android would give the best app coverage i'd want without giving apple another cent. As a developer, being able to test multiple OS's on 1 device would be really nice.

    4. Re:Now you have my attention by DemonGenius · · Score: 1

      One thing that I would find handy is support for smartphone OSes in standard VMWare. Combine that with a laptop with a capacitive multitouch screen and you have the optimal workstation for smartphone development.

    5. Re:Now you have my attention by bjwest · · Score: 1

      I think it would be a bit clunky to use a VM just to expand your app choices. Now if they could do a mobile WINE type doodad, THAT would be something I could go for app choice expansion.

      The VM is a good idea to keep the work and personal environments separate, but so would a duel boot type situation. That's what people (should) do with their laptops to separate their work from personal environments.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
  3. Hmm by drolli · · Score: 1

    Or android and bada at the same time.

    1. Re:Hmm by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 1

      That's sort of like wanting to eat ice cream and dog turds at the same time. Just skip the turds altogether.

    2. Re:Hmm by gblfxt · · Score: 1

      yo dog, i heard you liked android.....

  4. Sayonara Battery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok. This means the battery will just die faster. Talk about "Power User".

  5. Practical use? by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

    Perhaps if I was a Droid developer I might have a use for this. But for the average user, why not stick with profiles instead? No need to complicate the PDA anymore than it already is IMHO.

    --
    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Practical use? by Marc+Madness · · Score: 2, Insightful
      From TFA:

      With VMware’s Horizon Mobile, malicious software downloaded on the phone’s personal environment shouldn’t affect the virtual “work phone.” And IT shops can manage the virtual phones in much the same way as they manage virtual desktops, provisioning phones with standardized templates and pushing out application updates over-the-air, reviewing the health of the phone from a dashboard, setting policies restricting what the phone may be used for, and remotely locking or wiping the work portion of the phone.

      This is probably more appealing to your employer's IT department than the phone user, but it does seem to have a practical use. However, this probably isn't fully implemented yet, so whether or not it actually achieves this functional requirement is purely speculation at the moment.

    2. Re:Practical use? by jeffmeden · · Score: 1

      So you don't know anyone that carries two phones? Must not have many friends... It's simple, with this your company can finally give you a single phone that is simultaneously usable for work emails that you can't compromise with Angry Birds 8 or some other fart app, and that you can use for Angry Birds 8 and that fart app you just had to have. Not to mention the ability to charge in/punish out of the "correct" mode, such as taking personal phone call costs out of your paycheck.

      Expect to see handset sales fall in half if this takes off; all of a sudden there will be no point in carrying two phones around.

    3. Re:Practical use? by ruiner13 · · Score: 1

      It would sure seem to make for some nicely hard to detect root kits. Your trojan can spin up a VM where it will be harder to detect as a rogue process inside the main OS. Have fun with that!

      --

      today is spelling optional day.

    4. Re:Practical use? by egranlund · · Score: 2

      Ever heard of Blackberry Balance? Same thing, less complicated.

    5. Re:Practical use? by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      So you don't know anyone that carries two phones?

      Uhh, no. Is that common? Most the companies I've worked for expect me to pay my own bill. Other let me itemized the bill each month as an expense.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    6. Re:Practical use? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You obviously never speak to your "friends". The reason people carry two phones is because their employer pays for work calls on their work phone and they'll get fired if they use it for personal calls all the time. Putting two operating systems on the phone does nothing to solve this issue. It requires two SIM cards. Dual SIM phones are available but they are awkward and most of them only allow you to use one SIMm at a time, and why bother when even the cheapest contract comes with a free phone?

    7. Re:Practical use? by gknoy · · Score: 1

      If there were a phone build specifically for it, I imagine you could easily use the Work SIM for one profile, and your Personal Plan SIM for the other -- so the work plan never gets billed for your calls to who-knows-where, and therefore shouldn't care what you do with it.

    8. Re:Practical use? by kangsterizer · · Score: 1

      that would be if virtualization was actually as good of a protection as physical phones, which it isnt

    9. Re:Practical use? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Many employers have specific requirements to use Andoid in the workplace. I know that I don't sync my mail/calendar/etc for this reason (they only support a handful of phones, and I'm not going to spend my own money buying a phone to meet somebody else's specs). Virtualization might meed the needs of both parties.

      Of course, most of the corporate requirements are still silly. They want you to have a phone that somebody can steal, but they can't read the data off of it. Unless that phone requires a strong boot-up password that is used to encrypt the drive that you have to re-enter on every unlock that isn't really possible. I've yet to see a phone that actually implements security that isn't fairly trivially breakable (by pulling the battery and directly reading data off the flash chips).

    10. Re:Practical use? by ajs · · Score: 1

      Billing isn't the issue. Typically, you see the two-phone thing in sales, IT and highly regulated environments. For example, if you work for a drug company, you must not allow users to store any corporate data on a hand-held device unless the company has complete control over it. This isn't the company's call, it's the FDA's. Why? Because that data is subject to retention policies that are related to drug testing rules, and you have to be able to guarantee that you can produce the information again on demand.

      So, imagine the poor user who just wants to be able to control their own phone. They don't want to go through 2 layers of authentication just to tell Pandora to switch to a different station, but if they disable that authentication, their work email and contacts will all delete themselves.

      Instead, you have isolated environments with something like this article's topic, and you toggle between them for work and personal use. Nice and easy, and IT doesn't get to tell you how to manage your personal phone.

    11. Re:Practical use? by ajs · · Score: 1

      that would be if virtualization was actually as good of a protection as physical phones, which it isnt

      Can you cite a source? I'm pretty sure I've never seen that comparison performed in the wild.

    12. Re:Practical use? by ajs · · Score: 1

      It would sure seem to make for some nicely hard to detect root kits. Your trojan can spin up a VM where it will be harder to detect as a rogue process inside the main OS. Have fun with that!

      It would be pretty hard to do this. You would have to find a way to control the virtualization layer from within a guest OS. That's been the holy grail of defeating desktop virtualization security for a long time, and while there are occasional bugs discovered, I'm not aware of anything that's been exploitable enough and pervasive enough (e.g. unpatched versions) that there's been an active exploit in the wild.

      I admit, I haven't followed the topic for a while, so fill me in if there are examples of such.

    13. Re:Practical use? by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      Of course, most of the corporate requirements are still silly. They want you to have a phone that somebody can steal, but they can't read the data off of it. Unless that phone requires a strong boot-up password that is used to encrypt the drive that you have to re-enter on every unlock that isn't really possible. I've yet to see a phone that actually implements security that isn't fairly trivially breakable (by pulling the battery and directly reading data off the flash chips).

      So you haven't seen an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or a WM7 phone using the built in security?

    14. Re:Practical use? by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I've yet to see a phone that actually implements security that isn't fairly trivially breakable (by pulling the battery and directly reading data off the flash chips).

      Id like to see you try that on a blackberry with memory encryption in place.

    15. Re:Practical use? by kangsterizer · · Score: 1

      there is no need for any kind of source, physical separation will always be stronger than software separation.
      now then again I suspect you're looking for stuff such as blue pill, and zillion other talks about how one broke into virtualization system X Z or Y and that's not "wild" at all, simply put visualization is complex and there's many potential bugs and design error everywhere (like in many other areas).

      also, visualization is generally not though with security in mind as number one priority, which doesn't especially help when you use it, well, for security

    16. Re:Practical use? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Of course, most of the corporate requirements are still silly. They want you to have a phone that somebody can steal, but they can't read the data off of it. Unless that phone requires a strong boot-up password that is used to encrypt the drive that you have to re-enter on every unlock that isn't really possible. I've yet to see a phone that actually implements security that isn't fairly trivially breakable (by pulling the battery and directly reading data off the flash chips).

      So you haven't seen an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or a WM7 phone using the built in security?

      And is the security on any of those phones implemented such that the data can't be simply read off the flash chips, which was my whole point? Every smartphone OS out there implements EAS/etc in some fashion - but every implementation I've seen is fairly straightforward to break with physical access to the device. This is just the illusion of security, which is typically all corporate IT cares about.

    17. Re:Practical use? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Now you're talking, but most phones aren't that secure. And of course if you start running phones in VMs all bets are off. In fact, unless IT has the phone in their hands when they provision it they don't really know that the phone isn't virtualized in the first place, or that it really has those protections.

    18. Re:Practical use? by Karlt1 · · Score: 1

      And is the security on any of those phones implemented such that the data can't be simply read off the flash chips

      No, you cant't just read the data off the device with physical access - If you use the built in encryption.

      http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB16088

      Apple encryption
      http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4175

      At least for the iPhone, and I am almost sure it works the same way for the BlackBerry, data is encrypted using a hardware key stored on the device. Wiping the device remotely involves erasing the key.

    19. Re:Practical use? by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      In that case the data is as secure as whatever memory unit stores the key. That is probably fairly secure, but of course it can never be completely secure (unless it requires a user to enter a reasonably complex encryption key on boot and uses protection against low-entropy attacks - not just a passcode).

  6. Battery life sucks by CSHARP123 · · Score: 0

    Battery life sucks on Android phones. I say work on battery improvements. I hope with Moto in the basket, Google provides a better experience with Android phones than Samsungs and HTCs.

    1. Re:Battery life sucks by EvilJoker · · Score: 1

      It will be several years before anything Google does could have any bearing on Moto devices- the 2 aren't planned to join for about 6 months, and even then it would have no bearing on anything currently in the pipeline. I can safely say that Google's influence will not be felt in the market for at least 2 years. For comparison, 2 years ago, Eclair had not yet launced. There are a lot of changes that can happen in that time.

      As for battery life, I find them to be on par with other smart phones (which is much worse than most dumb phones)

    2. Re:Battery life sucks by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 1

      My 1.5 year old N79 lasts more than 3 days

      A friends new Xperia mini pro lasts about 18 hours with the same usage pattern

      similar patterns b/w Nokia s60 and android phones most of the time

    3. Re:Battery life sucks by ajs · · Score: 1

      And if the market forced battery life to be a priority, then we'd get the same battery life we had on slower devices, but the big drains are high-contrast, high-resolution screens and fast processors; both of which continue to be the driving market forces.

    4. Re:Battery life sucks by Xest · · Score: 1

      Battery life sucks on all smart phones. The battery life of the iPhone 4 and Windows 7 phones is no better than the equally priced high end Android phones.

      Sure some of the truly budged Android phones have noticably less battery life, but like for like, smartphone battery life is pretty shit in general.

    5. Re:Battery life sucks by lgw · · Score: 1

      My high-priced andoid phone lasts for many days if I use it only as a phone and music player (which I do when I travel). It's the radios that drain the battery - an hour of wifi seems to drain the battery as much as a day without.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    6. Re:Battery life sucks by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 1

      when a lot of the extra power is going to just display animations in menus, for me atleast thats a waste of battery power.

      s60 had minimal animation in menus,etc. Android has quite a bit more
      That could be a contibuting factor to battery life as well

    7. Re:Battery life sucks by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      my 2 yr old e71 lasts a good 5 days with lotsa calls, texts, and a decent mix of 3.5g+wlan browsing.
      but a 1yr old nokia 5800 lasts only ~36hours with similar usage. i think the major factor is not the os, it is the huge screens that touch phones have.

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    8. Re:Battery life sucks by petman · · Score: 1

      What 'same usage pattern'? The N79 doesn't have a touch screen.

      --
      Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
    9. Re:Battery life sucks by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 1

      same usage pattern as in
      about 2 hours of calls, 30 - 40 mins of gaming, an hour of web browsing, few photos, 50 or so SMS,etc..

    10. Re:Battery life sucks by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 1

      Your E71 probably also has a HUGE battery compared to the 5800

      I dont remember the exact capacitiy, but the E71 battery has almost double the volume of the 5800 batery IIRC

    11. Re:Battery life sucks by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but the point is, it's still not a touch on the likes of my old Nokia 7650 which still had bluetooth, a colour screen, a camera, could run games like Doom and so forth which used to last about 8 days without charge, and still had bluetooth etc.

      That's really the problem, even if you get a smartphone to last 3 days it's still relatively shit compared to what we've had over the last decade.

      It is of course partly the price of progress, but there you have it. I can see why smartphone battery life pisses people off. Batterys haven't improved anywhere near as quickly as the rest of the technology has.

  7. that's nice by TheMan28 · · Score: 1

    thank you very much

    --

    Homepage

  8. Windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was hoping for an easy way to run windows in a virtualized tablet app for games and productivity apps with this article....

    1. Re:Windows by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Sure, but you'll probably need to plug it into the wall, and attach a keyboard, and a larger monitor...

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
  9. Ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your personal phone can still be declared "discoverable" in a lawsuit and you will still have to surrender it.

    IMHO -- NEVER user personal property for the benefit of "the man".

  10. A great idea, if they pull it off! by nightfire-unique · · Score: 1

    To all the naysayers in here, consider:

    Today's phones don't have the hardware to pull this off effectively. But, tomorrow's phones will arrive. They might include hardware hypervisor support (perhaps they already do) like modern x86 processors, dramatically increasing virtualization efficiency. Today's phones ship with 512-1GiB RAM, but you'll have trouble finding a (leading edge) phone with so little in 5 years.

    But what is the advantage?

    Simple. Security.

    Imagine being able to snapshot your phone to try a new piece of software. Turns out to be malware? Hoses your phone or leaves traces of itself behind after uninstall? Revert the snapshot.

    Want to be able to give your wife (or friend) your phone, but don't want to shut down your business applications? Flip VMs to a "public" phone. Your address book is hidden away, your meeting announcements are invisible, your email is safe. You can even let them install software in the other VM with a much lower risk (after taking a snapshot, of course), and suspend the instance when they're done.

    Entire VMs could be encrypted and provisioned by your IT staff, to meet the needs of policy. Those irritating 5-minute auto-screen-locks? Now it's only a problem on your "work" phone. At the end of the day, flip back to your personal device, and you're good to go - all the while your email continues to download in the background.

    Company decides to remote-wipe? There goes the VM. But only the VM. You're still as mobile as you ever were.

    How about instance cloning? Buy a new phone, transfer your virtualized instance over, and you're back in business.

    I think the possibilities for phone virtualization would be endless!

    --
    A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
    1. Re:A great idea, if they pull it off! by spyked · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up. Virtualization isn't the latest-hardware-resource-hogging-thing like some other pieces of software, it's been here since the 60s. There already are projects for paravirtualization-oriented (micro)kernels on embedded architectures (namely ARM), many of them based on the L4 family. They aren't exactly made for the mobile market yet, but with the proper hardware support these could really rock on OS-level power management and security.

    2. Re:A great idea, if they pull it off! by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      Any fuckers who want to patent this better watch out. I wrote about this years ago right here on Slashdot, somewhere...

      I know I'm by no means the smartest kid in class, but this should have been obvious once phones started equaling computers in capabilities.

    3. Re:A great idea, if they pull it off! by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Entire VMs could be encrypted and provisioned by your IT staff, to meet the needs of policy. Those irritating 5-minute auto-screen-locks? Now it's only a problem on your "work" phone. At the end of the day, flip back to your personal device, and you're good to go - all the while your email continues to download in the background.

      Company decides to remote-wipe? There goes the VM. But only the VM. You're still as mobile as you ever were.

      Yup, and one snapshot restore later that wiped phone is back and running with nobody the wiser (once you block net access at the VM level). Oh, and the encryption key is stored on the drive or in the virtualized TPM (that you can trivially query from outside the VM) if it doesn't require a password to boot. Then again, it is virtualization, so it must be good for corporate IT, right? :)

      Today's phones don't have the hardware to pull this off effectively. But, tomorrow's phones will arrive.

      Well, today's phone have more power than the fanciest workstations that existed 15 years ago, and yet they struggle to run word processors/etc. I have yet to see a word processor for Android that is feature-equivalent to Word for Windows v2, and yet that ran on 20MHz PCs and consumed probably half a megabyte of RAM with a few MB of installed files. It is hard to find notepad apps for android that work in those constraints.

      So, no doubt by the time every phone is dual-core we'll just have twice as many threads drawing rounded corners as we do today. :)

    4. Re:A great idea, if they pull it off! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or just use an iPhone.

    5. Re:A great idea, if they pull it off! by farble1670 · · Score: 1

      Today's phones don't have the hardware to pull this off effectively. But, tomorrow's phones will arrive.

      define "tomorrow".

      what evidence is there that mobile devices will ever, in the foreseeable future anyway, have the excess battery power to run a VM? the problem is that as batteries get better, they invent new hardware to consume the battery. batteries for the most part are always just barely good enough to run the hardware, and hardware and the software it runs are limited by the battery.

  11. speed by Osgeld · · Score: 1

    VM's are not speed daemons, neither are phones is this really worth the effort because no one at samsung has figured out that you can have different sessions without having to boot 2 os's

    1. Re:speed by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      VM's are not speed daemons

      That is true if you're counting I/O, where the extra abstraction layer adds overhead (but which is diminishing with every hardware generation).

      In terms of actual CPU computation ability, there's no difference between running on bare-metal and in a VM.

      Yes this is worth the effort, because Android wasn't built to be multi-user (which is where I assume you're trying to take this argument). Putting in a hardware level hypervisor would be easier, in some respects, than re-engineering Android. Nevermind it makes the surety of a remote-kill more palatable to IT security types.

    2. Re:speed by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      I must be running the wrong VM, whenever I run an OS in vm ware its noticeably slower than real metal, Its perfectly useable but its no faster than the PC I had 2 PC's ago

    3. Re:speed by nabsltd · · Score: 1

      You're both right.

      There is obviously some performance loss with a VM, as anything that it tries to do that is privileged will result in a fault that the hypervisor has to deal with.

      But, if the hypervisor has extra knowledge of the underlying OS (which is the only code that should be doing privileged things...user space doesn't do that), some of the performance loss can be mitigated. You can also have hardware that works better with virtualization, like the latest Intel chips allowing individual PCIe paths to be virtualized or passed directly to the VM.

    4. Re:speed by lgw · · Score: 1

      Are you doing a lot of I/O? 3D graphics? Old CPUs?

      Normal user-mode code does run just as fast on a VM as native, there's nothing special happening in a virtualized environment until the kernel starts messing with hardware (I/O, page tables, etc, the stuff that needs to be virtual). OTOH, switching between running VMs is expensive - there's definitely overhead if you're actively using 2 or more at the same time (but that seems unlikely on a phone).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  12. Chroot/Jail by TerminaMorte · · Score: 1

    Why run several instances of a kernel with all the overhead of a VM when you should just do chroot/jails? Especially with such limited CPU and RAM, just seems like a bad idea.

    1. Re:Chroot/Jail by James+Carnley · · Score: 1

      I don't think you can use Android to run WP7 using chroots and jails.

    2. Re:Chroot/Jail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      because it's vmware. nobody excels at poorly-engineered platform hacks like vmware does.

    3. Re:Chroot/Jail by h4rr4r · · Score: 1

      No one wants WP7.
      What we do want is to run mulitple full android OS at the same time.

    4. Re:Chroot/Jail by TerminaMorte · · Score: 1

      How is that not able to run multiple full android OSes at the same time? Unless for some reason you want to have Android 2.2 and 2.3 running at the same time. Which seems pretty useless.

    5. Re:Chroot/Jail by billcopc · · Score: 1

      I don't think anyone in their right mind will want to run WP7 anyway. Certainly not if they have something slightly less shit like a late-model Android.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    6. Re:Chroot/Jail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because none of the companies screwing around with embedded Linux have the slightest fucking clue how to use it properly.

    7. Re:Chroot/Jail by James+Carnley · · Score: 1

      Then virtualize iOS then, I can't predict what OS you will need.

      The fact is that there are useful applications and environments out there that someone will need to use since Android doesn't have an equivalent. It's the same reason we have virtual machines today.

    8. Re:Chroot/Jail by TerminaMorte · · Score: 1

      Quote: "will let Android phones use virtual machine technology to run a second instance of Android"

      We're are not talking about virtualizing different operating systems on android here, just Android under Android. Sheesh, read the description of the article at least if you don't read the article.

    9. Re:Chroot/Jail by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Speak for yourself. A company I just finished a contract for is doing just fine with embedded linux.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    10. Re:Chroot/Jail by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Because Jails are not a feature of Linux unless I am mistaken (and I might be), and because chroots arent meant to be for security; they can be bypassed.

    11. Re:Chroot/Jail by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      Why run several instances of a kernel with all the overhead of a VM when you should just do chroot/jails?

      Especially with such limited CPU and RAM, just seems like a bad idea.

      galaxy s2 has 1 gb ram and 1.2ghz dual core cpu. graphics processing is separate. is this limited?

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
    12. Re:Chroot/Jail by mobby_6kl · · Score: 1

      Well yes, that's what Samsung will be offering now. But if you can put 2 and 2 together, it's pretty clear that the next step would be having 2 (or more) different operating systems. Even if we stick to corporate environment justification, it's entirely possible that the IT department will only support WF7, but not Android, which the employee wants to use personally, or vice versa.

    13. Re:Chroot/Jail by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1

      There are multiple container-based environments on Linux similar to FreeBSD with jails. Currently popular ones are Linux VServer, OpenVZ and LXC. Each and every of them is inifinitely superior to virtualization as long as you run Linux under it.

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    14. Re:Chroot/Jail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think anyone in their right mind will want to run WP7 anyway.

      Why not?

    15. Re:Chroot/Jail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one wants WP7.

      it seems like a perfectly good operating system so discounting it based on current sales doesn't seem like an intelligent thing to do, if it had some major failings worse than those of the other main platforms then sure, but it doesn't seem to.

  13. Java VM by scorp1us · · Score: 1

    I thought Android was already all about a Java VM. So... just start another Java instance?

    But it seems silly to do all that just to swap out your profile data.

    --
    Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
    1. Re:Java VM by petman · · Score: 1

      No. Android runs dalvik code, not Java.

      --
      Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
    2. Re:Java VM by scorp1us · · Score: 1

      Same thing. It's a hardware independent VM, no?

      --
      Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
  14. Separate Numbers Re:Practical use? by Marc_Hawke · · Score: 1

    Is this meant to fake out two phones, or just a mega-profile? Phones are all about service plans. If you have a 'virtual' phone does that require it's own service plan?

    Does the same phone number ring both phones? (If it does how do you know if you should pick up with the Business profile or the Private profile.)

    Do you need 2 SIM cards? (Not even sure how that would work.)

    Sounds like it's just a mega-profile, and in that case it sounds like overkill.

    --
    --Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
    1. Re:Separate Numbers Re:Practical use? by Jeng · · Score: 1

      Do you need 2 SIM cards? (Not even sure how that would work.)

      It would work something like this.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_SIM

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    2. Re:Separate Numbers Re:Practical use? by khoonirobo · · Score: 1

      You are wondering about Dual_SIM. Just google for a "Quad SIM phone".

  15. HA HA !! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is a yoke !! It's dead before it gets in throught the out door, just like Bonham !!

  16. One useful application by Megahard · · Score: 1

    If you have 2 phones on one device, use one to call the other, to get out of meetings or awkward conversations.

    --
    I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
    1. Re:One useful application by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or cause an infinite loop and watch the phone explode!

    2. Re:One useful application by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some phones do actually have a feature to fake an incoming call.

  17. Linux has Xen, KVM, and LXC, so why VMware? by datajerk · · Score: 1

    Android is based on Linux and Linux already has Xen, KVM, and LXC for virtualization. What would VMware add to the mix other than cost?

    Xen and KVM can be a bit heavy handed, but LXC is lightweight and may be best suited for mobile virtualization (assuming that you only want to run instances of the host OS--a limitation of containers).

    KVM is based on qemu and I already know that works with ARM--the processor of choice for smart mobile devices.

    So, I do not see a need for VMware.

    As for VM need: Given all the viruses and other nasties targeting Android, it'd be nice to have VM snapshotting (or any snapshotting) capability so that I can roll back. Or perhaps push my VM to "the cloud" and fire up on a replacement device or a friends phone with fully charged battery--assuming that I do not need to download 32 GB of data. I guess my state could be in the cloud, but my data in a different cloud. Given the impressive Javasciprt-based emulators I could get my VM from a browser. Anyway, there are possibilities. I do like the idea of a personal VM and a work VM and a VM for my wife when she borrows my phone.

    1. Re:Linux has Xen, KVM, and LXC, so why VMware? by GPLHost-Thomas · · Score: 1

      It's even worth than what you are saying. Samsung is the biggest initiator of Xen running on the ARM platform. If I'm not mistaking, they even are the host for the next Xen summit in Seoul in a month or 2. And that, it seems nobody spotted it here at slashdot, but if the news is correct, does that mean that Samsung is giving-up on Xen, and it's ARM port? I hope not! If so, that would be quite a bad move with lots of consequences for the Xen project. Maybe Samsung got tired of investing so much research and development in Xen? It'd really be interesting to know what's going on here.

  18. Re:virtualbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe they don't be like Apple and higher a full building full of top IP lawyers. I'm not saying Apple is bad or wrong for doing so, just that maybe Google is trying a different approach of using licensed code, rather then extending open source.

  19. Inefficiencies by Superken7 · · Score: 1

    Many people have addressed how this must be very inefficient. Well, I think if properly designed this shouldn't be much of an overhead. It depends if you really want to have both OSs running at the same time (lots of overhead) but you probably don't want to do that, or can work around it (most process certainly won't need to be running at the same time).

    Also, hardware virtualization and hypervisors that allow paravirtualization might make it pretty efficient. Xen comes to my mind.

  20. Give Me IOS Running In A VM by I'm+just+joshin · · Score: 1

    Personally, I'd love to be able to have IOS running as a separate VM. Then I could run the 3-4 IOS apps I like that just don't have a good Android equivalent.

    Or worse case, run Android as a VM in IOS.

    -J

  21. Wiping phones etc by phorm · · Score: 4, Informative

    One of the big issues in IT departments is that many people want to use their "personal phone X" as their work phone. I can somewhat understand this, as having two phones on my own belt-holster is quite irritating.

    The big issue becomes, when a company's important data may be linked to the phone, who manages/owns the phone. If you have a corporate blackberry and an employee is terminated or loses the phone, you can wipe the phone via BES etc. It that phone is not necessarily a corporate phone, then you're going to have a pretty ticked off user (and possibly a lawsuit) if you wipe his/her personal stuff along with the phone. Also, what if the user jailbreaks the phone, etc

    If personal/corporate space are separate, then your work space can be safely wipe the work VM. Similarly, an individual VM may have an entirely different privacy/security setting, jailbroken personal VM (and unbroken work VM) etc etc

    My main concern would be performance. VM's nowadays are pretty efficient, but phones run on batteries and any overhead isn't cutting into what's already a fairly thin line.

    1. Re:Wiping phones etc by ajs · · Score: 1

      Exactly correct. Could someone please mod parent up?

    2. Re:Wiping phones etc by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      One of the big issues in IT departments is that many people want to use their "personal phone X" as their work phone. I can somewhat understand this, as having two phones on my own belt-holster is quite irritating.

      Irritating, but practical from not just your security standpoint, but from a "who owns the data" standpoint.

      Going back to the personal VM on company phone - who owns that VM? You? Or the company, who paid for the phone? If you send a text message from the personal VM to your personal SIM, using the company phone, does the company get the right to see it?

      If you want, the first situation is sending a personal email from your work PC. The second, it's like plugging your own laptop into the company network (some companies aren't locked down, or provide a public VLAN) and using their network resources but your equipment.

      It's great that it keeps the user from screwing up the secure corporate part, but it doesn't appear to resolve the issue of data ownership. Which... brings us back to carrying two phones around so the company has no right to your personal phone and its data.

    3. Re:Wiping phones etc by exomondo · · Score: 1

      I can somewhat understand this, as having two phones on my own belt-holster is quite irritating.

      Ah the belt-holster, the modern-day pocket protector.

  22. That screaming you hear by flappinbooger · · Score: 1

    Is my battery.

    --
    Flappinbooger isn't my real name
    1. Re:That screaming you hear by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      One nice thing that you can commonly do with virtual machines is to suspend them.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  23. Funny Name by The+Slowest+Zombie · · Score: 1

    "Horizon Wireless" virtualization? You could condense those terms even more. Horization Wireless? No... hmm.... I've got it! Verizon Wi- oh wait.

  24. more bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So we see the beginnings of the bloat that infected desktop software beginning to infest the smartphone space.

    VMs are not lightweight, even with HW virtualization support.

  25. IDEA! by trum4n · · Score: 1

    Lets make them run ONE OS WELL first, then worry about running two?

  26. I heard you like... by the11thplague · · Score: 1

    I heard you like Android, so I put a VM on your Android so you can run Android while you run Android!

    1. Re:I heard you like... by empty+mind · · Score: 1

      We need to go deeper

      --
      "I'm selling these fine leather jackets"
  27. I thought it was LG & VMWare... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    almost a year ago...

    http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/vmware-to-run-virtual-os-on-lg-android-cellphones-2010127/

  28. Here's the thing by interval1066 · · Score: 1

    I'm thinking the virtualization folks are waking up to the fact that the world is going mobile, like everyone else.

    --
    Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  29. Plain stupidity pays these days by Nikademus · · Score: 1

    I find it really funny how companies succeed in making people think they may need this kind of crap.

    --
    I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
    1. Re:Plain stupidity pays these days by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

      Just because you do not have a use for it, does not mean others might find some utility in it. I can see it being tremendously useful in development, just like PC based virtualization.

      --
      There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    2. Re:Plain stupidity pays these days by Nikademus · · Score: 1

      no, it's not useful for development either, you cannot develop a kernel for it as it's not the real hardware, and android SDK has an emulator already, which is faster than running it on a phone with whatever virtualization.
      The only possible use I see is sandboxing, but again, it's overkill...

      --
      I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
  30. Virtual Blackberry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think RIM should take the lead on this and abandon hardware and virtualize blackberry. All their money can be made in BES/BIS and Virtual instances of Blackberry. The user can have an iPhone, Android, or WP7 device and still have their blackberry universe as well.

    If I were RIM I would have started down this path about 18months ago. Then again. I am not RIM.

    1. Re:Virtual Blackberry by chmodman · · Score: 1

      Yes, I agree! I need a blackberry only to connect to the enterprise server for work email, if there was an iphone app that ran a blackberry VM, perhaps I could finally abandon my BB. If anyone has ever tried to browse the web on a BB bold, you can feel my pain. iOS is superior in every way to BB OS.

    2. Re:Virtual Blackberry by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      hell, anybody who has browsed the web on any fucking device has felt the bb browser lacking. even dumbphones have better browsers nowadays (opera, bolt, etc).

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  31. Multi-Crash© Ready by The+Other+White+Meat · · Score: 1

    This is fantastic. I can have one instance in the middle of booting, another instance in the middle of crashing, and a third that's frozen waiting for the other two to give it some CPU time...

    (I love my Samsung Galaxy, but the constant freezing/lockups are getting old...)

    --

    --- Generation X: The first generation to have SIG lines inferior to their parents... ---
    1. Re:Multi-Crash© Ready by perryizgr8 · · Score: 1

      you're not holding it right!

      --
      Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
  32. Keep the data off the phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What is this obsession with having corporate data on a phone? Connectivity is almost ubiquitous, why not just use the phone as a thin client and run server-driven, mobile optimised applications for your corporate stuff?

    Citrix is looking into this with Project GoldenGate. You get the best of both worlds: A very secure phone with no risk of data loss, and a flexible personal phone so you can install as many fart apps as you like.

  33. Stopgap until ubiquitous networking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is merely one solution in a spectrum, admitted reasonable in light of current network conditions for mobile phones (3G penetration and available tower density).

    NTT DoCoMo and Intel are investigating the other end of the spectrum, which is having something akin to a cross between a heterogeneous cluster and a thin client model. Have the phone android OS interact with 1 or more cloud hosted android instances (which may or may not be exclusive to you), passing UI ops/sensor data/other data from the device to the instance, and sending back UI drawing elements and such to the device. This offloads heavier things and can potentially seal some things to the cloud instance, while maintaining a minimum viable OS should it become network disabled. Since both are android, getting the UI's to link is much easier. This also allows the logical partitioning between work and personal actions. The end goal for some people would be expanding the pseudo-cluster integration to chrome OS netbooks and desktops as well (approaching OnLive territory here, mixed with hosted applications in the cloud, and streaming video).

    Google could do the backend android instance for cellphones thing right now and kick both Microsoft and Apple in the nuts, while simultaneously breaking into a whole new unified computing model that VMware could very quickly be shut out of. The only places at the table that would be left would be Citrix with Xen, for companies who absolutely want to host their own backend android instances, and Amazon AWS/EC2 for instances that can't/won't be hosted by Google directly.

  34. Yo dawg ! by wye43 · · Score: 1

    I hear you like bloat, so we've put bloat inside bloat so you can wait while you wait!

  35. Virtualize to a computer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd like to see where I can sync the VM between my phone and a server. I end up in places many times where I don't have connectivity for my phone or simply can't take it. It would be nice to instead go to a website with a virtual representation of my phone i could use. That way I don't have to have every service of my phone abstracted into multiple interfaces, (one for my phone, one for my work desktop w/ browser-only access, one an application I can install on my home computer, etc). Oh, and when I'm ready for a new phone? Just transfer the VM over.