Researchers boot one million Linux kernels as virtual machines
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Linux kernel, Virtualization, botnets, HPC, Sandia, Thunderbird supercomputing cluster, Security
In a feat of Linux strength, computer scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, Calif., announced that they had run more than a million Linux kernels as virtual machines. Previously, researchers had only been able to run up to 20,000 kernels concurrently. The scientists used virtual machine (VM) technology and its Thunderbird supercomputing cluster for the demonstration.
The aim of the project is to model malicious botnets, which are often difficult to analyze because they are geographically spread all over the world, explains Sandia’s Ron Minnich. The more kernels that can be run at once, said Minnich, the more effective cyber security professionals can be in combating the global botnet problem. “Eventually, we would like to be able to emulate the computer network of a small nation, or even one as large as the United States, in order to virtualize and monitor a cyber attack,” he said.
Running a high volume of VMs on one supercomputer — at a similar scale as a botnet — would allow researchers to see how botnets work and explore ways to stop them in their tracks. “We can get control at a level we never had before,” said Minnich.
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