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[Xen-devel] Re: [RFC, PATCH 0/24] VMI i386 Linux virtualization interfac

To: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Xen-devel] Re: [RFC, PATCH 0/24] VMI i386 Linux virtualization interface proposal
From: Joshua LeVasseur <jtl@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:38:45 +0100
Cc: Zachary Amsden <zach@xxxxxxxxxx>, Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxx>, Xen-devel <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Pratap Subrahmanyam <pratap@xxxxxxxxxx>, Wim Coekaerts <wim.coekaerts@xxxxxxxxxx>, Chris Wright <chrisw@xxxxxxxx>, Jack Lo <jlo@xxxxxxxxxx>, Dan Hecht <dhecht@xxxxxxxxxx>, Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxxxx>, Christopher Li <chrisl@xxxxxxxxxx>, Virtualization Mailing List <virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxx>, Leendert van Doorn <leendert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Anne Holler <anne@xxxxxxxxxx>, Jyothy Reddy <jreddy@xxxxxxxxxx>, Kip Macy <kmacy@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Ky Srinivasan <ksrinivasan@xxxxxxxxxx>, Dan Arai <arai@xxxxxxxxxx>, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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On Mar 15, 2006, at 11:25 , Christoph Hellwig wrote:

On Mon, Mar 13, 2006 at 10:22:15AM -0800, Zachary Amsden wrote:
Why can't vmware use the Xen interface instead?


We could. But it is our opinion that the Xen interface is unnecessarily complicated, without a clean separation between the layer of interaction with the hypervisor and the kernel proper. The interface we propose we
believe is more powerful, and more conducive to performance
optimizations while providing significant advantages - most
specifically, a single binary image that is properly virtualizable on
multiple hypervisors and capable of running on native hardware.

I agree with Zach here, the Xen hypervisor <-> kernel interface is
not very nice.  This proposal seems like a step forward althogh it'll
probably need to go through a few iterations.  Without and actually
useable opensource hypevisor reference implementation it's totally
unacceptable, though.



As part of our pre-virtualization work, we developed a virtualization solution similar to VMI. We support Xen v2 and v3 with high performance. We added support for the first generation of VMI to our project, and are currently adding support for the latest VMI patch. Our work is open source. We'll announce when we finish the VMI updates.

We also experimented with other architectures and found the approach highly suitable, such as for Itanium.

Joshua



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