Larry Ploetz wrote:
RPN01 wrote:
The downside of this in a virtual environment is that you are repeatedly
implementing the same operating system code in memory for each unique
image,
when in fact, this code could have been shared by several individual
applications, were they to share a single Linux image. It would be more
efficient to place several applications within a single Linux image,
within
reason, to exploit the shared copy of the operating system.
Not a complete answer to this problem, but http://linux-vserver.org
allows you to run what seem to users/applications/etc as their own box,
without duplicating the kernel, the /usr file system, etc., as long as
they all want the same kernel version. They even can each have their own
IP address/NIC, and their own process 1 they can kill if they want. The
Server people liken it to a super chroot environment. I wish I had the
time to try it out...
It does require a kernel modification.
--
Interesting subject matter Larry.
In the System z world we have an excellent virtualization platform in z/VM,
but it does not really allow optimal sharing on Linux resources.
Rather than swap z/VM for something like Xen, System z may benefit from
the addition of Linux OS virtualization as you suggest with VServer.
However I would draw your attention to OpenVZ which already offers the
ability to take OS checkpoints and even migration - something we are still
waiting for in z/VM.
Take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system-level_virtualization
or
http:www.openvz.org
OpenVZ is developed around RHEL5 (CentOS) so the "mindset" is
definitely "Enterprise".
If OpenVZ or other Linux OS Level Virtualization were available then
rather than 100s of small z/VM Guests one could use 10s of much larger
z/VM Guests. Each such Guest could focus on different Linux kernel levels,
or perhaps other common shared resources, or just for the purpose of
isolating
s group of users with common resources for security reasons.
Bottom line, I know Xen is all the rage, but for System z with z/VM then
VServer or OpenVZ offers a brighter future...
mark
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