Virtualization

VMWare Kernel Isn’t Linux … Mostly

A pretty common misconception is that VMWare is based on Linux. That isn’t “officially” true. While there have been some rumors otherwise the official word from VMWare is that ESX (their bare-metal product) boots the system on a small “micro-kernel” they call the VMKernel. According to everything that I can find VMWare runs their OS off of their own manufactured product and use Linux to interact with or manage their product.

With ESXi they have stripped out large chunks of that the managing OS that is Linux and are working on beefing up their own OS. The idea is a good one but if you were to strip out all off the management of the product would you still have a product? One of the things that makes ESX great is it’s ability to be easily managed. If you take that away what are you left with?

So I would say that VMWare isn’t based on Linux … mostly.

Links
One person stepping through the architecture
http://it20.info/blogs/main/archive/2007/06/17/25.aspx

VMWare forum discussing the topic
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/93870

Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMware_ESX_Server

Enhanced VMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support

EVC – The KB article on EVC (1003212) has been updated to be more comprehensive.

The KB article on EVC processor support has been updated with more information on the specific models of processors that are supported. You can find the info here.

Microsoft Supports Other HyperVisors

Microsoft has changed their licensing so that they are more “friendly” to competing hypervisor products. This also extends to their support of their products on other hyper-v platforms which currently are Xen, VMWare and Novell’s virtualization product.

While they are supporting several additional virtualization platforms they are not extending this level of support to all of their products. For a complete list and the press release see the links below.

Links
List of Supported Products
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957006

Microsoft Press Release
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/aug08/08-19EasyPathPR.mspx

Microsoft Support Article
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=897615

Microsoft-HyperV versus VMWare Workstation

How does the performance of Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology stand up against some of the more entrenched companies? Well, a not-so-scientific study was done recently to answer this very question. While I admit that this isn’t a “study” the results are interesting.

Here is a link to the actual article.

VMWare Releases Enhanced Vmotion

The ability to VMotion between dissimilar processor types has been a limitation for VMWare’s ESX server. Just recently they released an announcement that they will be releasing an update to their product which will allow VMotion between certain types of dissimilar processor types.

VMWare’s Release

VMWare Converter for System Backups

While there are several ways to image a desktop or server there are only a few that can go from the backup file to a running state without being converted or restored using a simlar method as the backup. VMWare converter is a free tool that allows you to take running OS’s and “convert” them to virtual versions of themselves.

While it may be a bit unorthodox using VMWare converter to backup your systems before a major change can really save you some time. The nice thing about using VMWare converter is that apart from being free it will give you a running OS as soon as it is done if you need recover from a failure.

VMWare ESXi - Now Free

The tech world is abuzz with the news the VMWare will make their ESXi product free. The previously 500.00′ish product will be free to the general public by the end of the month.

For more information you can use these links:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/server_virtualization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209400823
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/VMwares-ESXi-Hypervisor-for-Free/

Are you ready for Microsoft Hyper-V

Virtualization is popular these days for obvious reasons. Who wants to purchase more hardware then they need? Microsoft’s offering into the virtualization market is their Hyper-V solution. They have recently released the “Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 3.1 for Hyper-V”. An article from Technet on the topic can be found here.

Xen Server Hardware Compatibility List

In a previous post i mentioned that with VMWare ESX server you will want to make sure that the hardware that you purchase will support the VMWare kernel properly. Here is the same compatibility list but for Citrix’s newly acquired Xen Server.

Xen HCL

VMWare Hardware Compatibility List

When looking at virtualization it is important to make sure that the hardware that you are going to use will work properly. If it doesn’t then all of the servers/desktops that rely on that hardware will crash or act erratically.

VMWare’s hardware compatibility list found here will allow you to make certain that there wont be any hardware related issues with compatibility.