Question

Questions on Academic Course in Operating System Virtualization

Virtualization, Virtualization how-tos, Virtualization school

Hi.
I will be teaching an academic course in Operating System Virtualization in the spring term of 2008, and I would appreciate any community input or feedback on my plans for the course. Listed below is my projected topical syllabus; the course is a lab course, meeting once a week with a 1 hour and 40 minute lecture and a 1 hour and 40 minute lab. I intend to cover the entire range of OS virtualization products and methods. Here are my questions I would appreciate community feedback on regarding my projected syllabus:

Is there anything I have missed that you believe should be the topic of a two academic-hour lecture?
Is the emphasis/focus balanced and correct? If not, how would you shift it?
(Please note that as this is an operating system virtualization course, I will only do one lecture covering both storage and application virtualization.)
Do you have any other suggestions for me based on this syllabus?

Topic 1: Introduction to Virtualization
Topic 2: Business Benefits of Virtualization
Topic 3: Virtualization Application Overview
Topic 4: Hypervisors
Topic 5: Virtual Machines
Topic 6: Paravirtualization
Topic 7: Virtual Appliances
Topic 8: Server Virtualization
Topic 9: Deploying Server Virtualization
Topic 10: Desktop Virtualization
Topic 11: Storage & Application Virtualization
Topic 12: Data Center Management with Virtualization
Topic 13: Business Benefits
Topic 14: Security Implications of Virtualization
Topic 15: Project Presentations

In preparation for this course, I have had a student research group investigate existing OS virtualization products and technologies; at the same time this group has been supporting virtualization decisions being made by Argonne National Lab in DuPage County, Illinois. Here is what we have covered:
SWSoft - all products
VMWare - all products
OpenVZ
UserMode Linx
Kidaro
Citrix XenSource - all products
Virtual Iron
Xen
Parallels Desktop
VServer
Pano Logic
Microsoft - Virtual Server, Virtual PC, Server 2008
Sun Solaris Containers
QEMU
KVM
MojoPac

We will be releasing a whitepaper discussing the results of our research and I will post that information when it goes up. Here are my questions for the community on this effort:

In your opinion, have we made any glaring omissions in this list?
Is there any other virtualization product or technology we should cover?

Finally, I have an appeal for the community:
Is there anything you would be willing or interested in doing to support the efforts of Illinois Institute of Technology to make this course the best possible experience for our students?

Thanks for your kind consideration of this request.

--Ray

Ray Trygstad, MSSM / 630.682.6032
Director of Information Technology, Center for Professional Development
Assistant Director for Information Technology, IIT Rice Campus
Lecturer in Information Technology & Management
Illinois Institute of Technology
www.rice.iit.edu/adit/

Hi Ray,

I am currently creating a video training course covering VMware ESX Server. I already have available courses covering VMware Workstation & Server, and Microsoft Virtual PC & Server.

So, coming from a fellow virtualization instructor, I feel that you have a VERY GOOD list there. You may have to go into SAN storage to explain how some of these virtualization features will work (like VMotion).

As far as what I can do to help, I can offer the following resources:
1. My website / HappyRouter.com - a few virtualization videos and a forum on virtualization where your students could ask questions
2. List of virtualization articles, mostly by me at Petri
3. TechTarget's SearchVMware.com & SearchVirtualization.com

If there is anything else I can do, let me know.

Thanks,
David Davis
My VMware Server & Workstation video
My VMware ESX Video
ITKE Cisco Blog