VMworld is clearly the largest dedicated virtualization conference, and yet from an Open Source perspective it is slightly disappointing because the VMware ecosystem naturally attracts proprietary software vendors, and also some of the more interesting activities in Open Source are through multi-vendor foundations which do not have the same marketing budgets as vendors themselves.
Nevertheless, there are a number of key Open Source players, and some interesting smaller players, represented at VMworld.
During the Virtual Thoughts podcast on 6/29/2010, the analysts discussed various hardware aspects of virtualization trying to determine if the hypervisor was to move into the hardware? and if so how much of it? as well as whose hypervisor? and lastly such a move part of any business model?
Virtual Thoughts is a monthly podcast that looks at the entire scope of virtualization to discuss new trends and thoughts within the virtualization and cloud communities.
This weeks podcast started with a discussion of TPM/TXT and the boost it gives to virtualization security. Since TPM/TXT is based in the hardware and provides a measured launch of an operating system, the next logical discussion was on whether or not the hypervisor would be placed into the hardware?
Virtual Thoughts Podcast the Rebirth, Join us Tuesday 29th June @ 7:00pm (BST), 2:00pm (EST), 11:00am (PST)
As of Service Pack 1, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SLES) supports KVM for SUSE guests. This post follows on from our previous post regarding the demise of Xen in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and perhaps suggests the beginning of the end for Xen-based virtualization in Linux, but the story is far from clear. A complex set of agreements with Microsoft mean that Novell is bound to preferentially support Windows guests, and it may be a while before KVM support is adequate, although Novell has a project called Alacrity to help get it there. In the meanwhile Novell may get split up into pieces by a private equity house and SLES find itself a new owner.
In a slightly strange “didn’t they already have Xen in the kernel” kind of way, Novell has certified Suse Linux Enterprise Server as a “perfect guest” running on Citrix XenServer, allowing joint support of the combined solution. The deal is asymmetric (it wouldn’t really make sense to run XenServer on SLES) but it reflects an open approach characteristic of the way Novell operates, in embracing the reality that customers will want to use one of a number of possible hypervisors, and that Novell has to get along with everyone. In return Novell is starting to push it’s PlateSpin Recon product through the Citrix channel.
I have been doing some support work for an SMB that uses VMware Server where their VMs initially started as XenServer VMs, but due to networking and some other issues where converted to VMware VMs using V2V technology. However, these suddenly stopped working properly after an upgrade to VMware Server 2.
