About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Attachment view

From: Matthew Nuzum (matt.followers_at_gmail.com)
Date: Thu 23 Jun 2005 - 23:33:30 BST


I have a hard time imagining Xen running on typical computers. Xen seems to
be a virtualization platform that allows running (among others) linux as a
virtual OS. You boot it before you boot an OS.

Vserver takes an all-ready-running OS and lets you run another OS inside of
it. I can't explain why, but it just doesn't seem apples-to-apples to
compare Vserver and Xen.

I also have this aversion to Xen because it feels too commercial. Its almost
like a "sanctioned" commercial software company that has been given
permission to put an open-source stub of its software into Linux so that it
can make money. Kind of like Zend's relationship with PHP. (not to imply
that the relationship isn't beneficial to the FOSS community)

We'll see what practical application comes from Xen but I suspect it will be
a niche product (different niche from Vserver) and invariably will require
the outlay of money to get the full benefit of it.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum <matt_at_followers.net>
www.followers.net - Makers of "Elite Content Management System"
View samples of Elite CMS in action by visiting
http://www.followers.net/portfolio/

> -----Original Message----- > From: Mike Tierney [mailto:miket_at_marketview.co.nz] > Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 4:40 PM > To: vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org; matt_at_followers.net > Subject: RE: [Vserver] solaris containers/zones > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: vserver-bounces_at_list.linux-vserver.org [mailto:vserver- > > bounces_at_list.linux-vserver.org] On Behalf Of Matthew Nuzum > > Sent: Friday, 24 June 2005 5:36 a.m. > > To: vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org > > Subject: RE: [Vserver] solaris containers/zones > > > > > > I just thought you might like a glimpse of one other way someone is > > doing > > > this > > > > sort of thing. > > > > > > hmm, you sure you know what linux-vserver 2.6/vs2.0 can do? > > > I guess I don't... I'm running out of hardware to experiment with, so I > > haven't been playing with the new stuff too much. > > VMware Workstation (virtual machine software) will let you have as many > different distributions of Linux (or *BSD or Solaris 10) running as you > have > disk space for. It has both Windows and Linux versions. It costs money to > buy the software but you can download an Evaluation Copy. It also lets you > clone your virtual machines as well, or even "snapshot" them while they > are > running. Great tool for messing about with stuff and/or cross-platform > development. > > > You know, if a distro wanted to get some media attention, they could put > > some effort behind the vserver project and roll it into their distro as > an > > optional module with a nice config tool. > > As much as I like Vservers (we use them on 2 of our Production servers!!) > it > looks like the Xen project (open source virtual machine software) IS > getting > LOTS of media coverage and attention/resources from vendors (Novell, IBM, > Sun, HP, Redhat, etc). Apparently the current version (v2) isn't that > great > but the next version (due out in August) sounds like a huge leap forward. > Even though its virtual machines rather than virtual servers, they claim > way > less overhead than other Virtual Machine software (like the VMware server > products). > > Check out http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/15/xen_goes_three > > Then do a few googles and you find lots of other interesting stuff, like > IBM > sinking research people into making a security enchanced version (XenSE), > etc. > > > Of course, I don't know if vserver can be built as an optional module, > > I've only built it into a vanilla kernel, but still... they could raise > a > lot > > of hype and woo some enterprise (aka paying customer) market share, I > think. > > Xen RPM's are available for some distro's now and the two big Enterprise > players (Redhat and SuSE) are incorporating it into their next major > release. It's also going into the mainstream 2.6 kernel "soon". > > Anyway, I like Vservers. I use Vservers. However owing to the "luck of the > draw" it looks like Xen is getting lots and LOTS of attention. > > Having said that, I'd not run a Production server on it yet! So I'll be > sticking with Vservers for another 10 months at least. > > Then again, if the Solaris people got their Linux emulation stuff (Janus?) > working properly, you could also run your Linux servers inside Solaris > Containers!

_______________________________________________ Vserver mailing list Vserver_at_list.linux-vserver.org http://list.linux-vserver.org/mailman/listinfo/vserver


About this list Date view Thread view Subject view Author view Attachment view
[Next/Previous Months] [Main vserver Project Homepage] [Howto Subscribe/Unsubscribe] [Paul Sladen's vserver stuff]
Generated on Thu 23 Jun 2005 - 23:34:04 BST by hypermail 2.1.3