RE: [Xen-users] Xen in Linux distributions

[Jeff Sturm <jeff.sturm@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-users-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bart Coninckx
> Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 10:50 AM
> To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen in Linux distributions
> 
> RedHat's trategy is clear: phase out Xen and phase in KVM. Centos will
follow
> obviously. Haw fast this process will take place is nothing to worry
about if
> you ask me. Unless you are not ready to change at any point of course.

Indeed.  I've been actively using Xen for the past 3 years, and hearing
about its "imminent death" for about 2.5 years.  We are currently using
CentOS but not all of its virtualization features.  In particular I
haven't embraced libvirt because it seems like a pointless layer on top
of the "xm" commands we know so well.  Bootstrapping a new CentOS image
as a domU involves a few silly hurdles but even that is no big deal.

I'm not going to evangelize any virtualization package to anyone.  That
said, I'll mention what I liked about Xen.  Xen changes the philosophy
of how we look at operating systems.  No longer does the OS kernel need
to control all hardware or have a full set of hardware device drivers.
That lowers the difficulty of implementing a new kernel, such as MiniOS,
because it does not need to be concerned with hardware details.  The
hardware has been abstracted by the hypervisor.  And this opens the door
to new experiments in memory management, process scheduling, etc.

HVM feels like a step backwards, but necessary for support of Windows
etc.  Full hardware virtualization simply isn't interesting to me
because it won't change the OS--it is designed rather to make the
virtualized OS look and behave exactly like the bare metal OS.

With that said, KVM may become the best hardware virtualization package
out there and compete head-to-head with the likes of VMWare, but it
still won't have what Xen has today.

-Jeff



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