Hi, Xen's architecture makes it different from other propriatory virtualization systems: Xen's paravirtualized approach means that the interface between the hypervisor and the guest operating systems has been designed specifically with performance and security in mind, which means we get great performance while maintaining secure isolation. The new CPU virtualization extensions from Intel and AMD are great for us, because it means we get to run "legacy" unmodified OSes without having to resort to binary rewritting tricks and emulation. We try to keep the hypervisor part of Xen (that which runs at the highest privilege) as small as possible so as to enhance security and reliability. The other thing about Xen is that its cross-platform. The 3.0 release has support for x86, x86_64 and IA64, with a Power port nearing completion too. Basically, Xen is designed to get the best out of modern hardware.
You can see Xen and other videos of Fosdem at http://www.fosdem.org/2007/media/video Thanks, Narender Rao
