xen discuss - Oct 2008 - Clarification on current Sun virtualisation products?

Hi all,

I''ve had a look round and i''m still a bit confused as to what
is
available for virtualisation from Sun. I appreciate that xVM server
and Ops Centre are commercial products, but there appears to be talk
about it being open source too. Is it safe to assume that it will be
in Open Solaris too?

Could anyone/people please confirm what is available right now, both
commercial and free/opensource and what is in the pipeline with some
timescales? I''m having some issues with ESXi that is making me look at
alternatives, but as above, it''s a bit confusing. (too many Sun
websites to be honest).

Many thanks!

Wow, so it''s not just me who is in the dark?


2008/10/22 gm_sjo <saqmaster@gmail.com>:
> Hi all,
>
> I''ve had a look round and i''m still a bit confused as to
what is
> available for virtualisation from Sun. I appreciate that xVM server
> and Ops Centre are commercial products, but there appears to be talk
> about it being open source too. Is it safe to assume that it will be
> in Open Solaris too?
>
> Could anyone/people please confirm what is available right now, both
> commercial and free/opensource and what is in the pipeline with some
> timescales? I''m having some issues with ESXi that is making me
look at
> alternatives, but as above, it''s a bit confusing. (too many Sun
> websites to be honest).
>
> Many thanks!
>

This list is populated with engineers who work on one of the
virtualisation solutions from Sun (the xVM Hypervisor). We can talk
about the implementation of that solution in some detail, but if you
want "high level picture" and pricing information then you''re
almost
certainly not at the right place.

If you have an existing relationship with Sun then I''d encourage you
to ask these questions of your sales or account representative - they
should be able to get someone in front of you to talk about it in more
detail. If you don''t have an existing relationship then we can arrange
to start something up (we should talk about that off list).

All of that said...
> I''ve had a look round and i''m still a bit confused as to
what is
> available for virtualisation from Sun. I appreciate that xVM server
> and Ops Centre are commercial products, but there appears to be talk
> about it being open source too. Is it safe to assume that it will be
> in Open Solaris too?
OpenSolaris includes the xVM Hypervisor. This comprises:
  - a hypervisor derived from the work of the Xen open
    source project,
  - a port of OpenSolaris to run on that hypervisor,
  - a suite of command line tools for managing the
    hypervisor (creating guest VMs, etc.).

All of the above components are open source.

xVM Server takes this core capability and augments it to produce a
virtualisation appliance. The appliance removes some ''general''
OpenSolaris functionality (printing might be an example) and adds a
browser based management interface.

xVM Ops Centre provides a management tool for many xVM Server
instances (and/or physical systems).

The additions to OpenSolaris which result in xVM Server and xVM Ops
Centre are intended to be made open source, but this process is not
yet complete. You can learn more about this at http://xvmserver.org.

Sun offers (or will offer when the relevant product is released)
support for OpenSolaris, xVM Server and xVM Ops Centre on a commercial
basis.

Sun has three virtualization systems. xVM Server (XEN), xVM Virtualbox and
zones. All of them are open source and free. They are preparing xVM Server as a
standalone product. It will have a nice web gui ala vmware 2.

Hope that helps:)
--
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Will xVM server use ZFS as a must ?
--
This message posted from opensolaris.org

> Sun has three virtualization systems. xVM Server (XEN), xVM Virtualbox and
> zones. All of them are open source and free. They are preparing xVM Server
> as a standalone product. It will have a nice web gui ala vmware 2.
If you mention zones, you need to mention LDOMs.

If anyone has a good feature matrix for these four technologies,
please post it here.  I remember seeing something in a Sun marketing
presentation...


Regards -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab@bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgröße: 45
Geschäftsführer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 03:35:18AM -0700, Boris Derzhavets
wrote:
> Will xVM server use ZFS as a must ?
xVM Server uses ZFS for local filesystems, yes. You can also use NFS
and CIFS to store guest filesystem images, snapshots, etc.

Volker A. Brandt wrote:
>> Sun has three virtualization systems. xVM Server (XEN), xVM Virtualbox
and
>> zones. All of them are open source and free. They are preparing xVM
Server
>> as a standalone product. It will have a nice web gui ala vmware 2.
> 
> If you mention zones, you need to mention LDOMs.
if you mention {Xen|xVM} (x86), you need to mention LDOMs (Sparc).

Michael
-- 
Michael Schuster     http://blogs.sun.com/recursion
Recursion, n.: see ''Recursion''

> >> Sun has three virtualization systems. xVM Server (XEN), xVM
Virtualbox and
> >> zones. All of them are open source and free. They are preparing
xVM Server
> >> as a standalone product. It will have a nice web gui ala vmware 2.
> >
> > If you mention zones, you need to mention LDOMs.
>
> if you mention {Xen|xVM} (x86), you need to mention LDOMs (Sparc).
I think we are having a virtual discussion.  :-)


Name            Sparc   x86   Method      OS Kernel	Guest Flavor

xVM      	  -      X    software(1) many 		various
VirtualBox        -	 X    software	  many 		various
Zones		  X	 X    software	  one 		Solaris/branded
LDOMs		  X	 -    hardware	  many 		Solaris(2)

(1) with CPU assistance for "full" virtualisation
(2) experimental Linux/BSD (?) support


How is that?


Virtually yours -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab@bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgröße: 45
Geschäftsführer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

Volker A. Brandt wrote:
> Name            Sparc   x86   Method      OS Kernel	Guest Flavor
>
> xVM      	  -      X    software(1) many 		various
> VirtualBox        -	 X    software	  many 		various
> Zones		  X	 X    software	  one 		Solaris/branded
> LDOMs		  X	 -    hardware	  many 		Solaris(2)
>
> (1) with CPU assistance for "full" virtualisation
> (2) experimental Linux/BSD (?) support
>
>
>   
The forgot the hardware based solutions for non SPARC-Tx machines:

Domains (M5000, M8000, M9000, etc)           
                                                 Sparc only,    
hardware,    many,   Solaris 10

Domains (E10K, SF12K, SF15K, SF20K, v1280, V4800, etc)
                                                  Sparc only,   
hardware,     many,   Solaris, Linux (?, never tested)



r

Bernd

-- 
Bernd Schemmer, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
http://home.arcor.de/bnsmb/index.html

M s temprano que tarde el mundo cambiar .
                        Fidel Castro

> The forgot the hardware based solutions for non SPARC-Tx machines:
I absolutely agree.


Wasn''t there a Sparc CPU emulator in software somewhere?  :-)


Regards -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab@bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgröße: 45
Geschäftsführer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

Volker A. Brandt wrote:
>> The forgot the hardware based solutions for non SPARC-Tx machines:
>>     
>
> I absolutely agree.
>
>
> Wasn''t there a Sparc CPU emulator in software somewhere?  :-)
>
>
>
>   
I only know Qemu but as far as I know it''s not really usable yet


Bernd




-- 
Bernd Schemmer, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
http://home.arcor.de/bnsmb/index.html

M s temprano que tarde el mundo cambiar .
                        Fidel Castro

Hey guys,

I thought this was a really good summary, so I thought I''d turn it  
into a blog post:

http://www.laptopsolaris.com/2008/10/26/summarizing-virtualization-technologies-from-sun/

Any corrections, extensions, updates, let me know.

MC

On 24 Oct 2008, at 20:18, Bernd Schemmer wrote:
> Volker A. Brandt wrote:
>> Name            Sparc   x86   Method      OS Kernel	Guest Flavor
>>
>> xVM      	  -      X    software(1) many 		various
>> VirtualBox        -	 X    software	  many 		various
>> Zones		  X	 X    software	  one 		Solaris/branded
>> LDOMs		  X	 -    hardware	  many 		Solaris(2)
>>
>> (1) with CPU assistance for "full" virtualisation
>> (2) experimental Linux/BSD (?) support
>>
>>
>>
> The forgot the hardware based solutions for non SPARC-Tx machines:
>
> Domains (M5000, M8000, M9000, etc)
>                                                 Sparc only,
> hardware,    many,   Solaris 10
>
> Domains (E10K, SF12K, SF15K, SF20K, v1280, V4800, etc)
>                                                  Sparc only,
> hardware,     many,   Solaris, Linux (?, never tested)
>
>
>
> r
>
> Bernd
>
> -- 
> Bernd Schemmer, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
> http://home.arcor.de/bnsmb/index.html
>
> M s temprano que tarde el mundo cambiar .
>                        Fidel Castro
>
> _______________________________________________
> xen-discuss mailing list
> xen-discuss@opensolaris.org
>
--
Martin ''MC'' Brown, mc@mcslp.com and mc.brown@sun.com
Technical Writer, Database Group, Sun Microsystems
Everything MCslp: http://planet.mcslp.com

2008/10/26 Martin MC Brown <dev@mcslp.com>:
> Hey guys,
>
> I thought this was a really good summary, so I thought I''d turn it
> into a blog post:
>
>
http://www.laptopsolaris.com/2008/10/26/summarizing-virtualization-technologies-from-sun/
>
404 for me..

Whoops - small config error, try again!

MC

On 26 Oct 2008, at 11:46, gm_sjo wrote:
> 2008/10/26 Martin MC Brown <dev@mcslp.com>:
>> Hey guys,
>>
>> I thought this was a really good summary, so I thought I''d
turn it
>> into a blog post:
>>
>>
http://www.laptopsolaris.com/2008/10/26/summarizing-virtualization-technologies-from-sun/
>>
>
> 404 for me..
>
--
Martin ''MC'' Brown, mc@mcslp.com and mc.brown@sun.com
Technical Writer, Database Group, Sun Microsystems
Everything MCslp: http://planet.mcslp.com

Why do you write that ZFS is necessary to run xVM server?

I host domU disk files on UFS ....

Cheers
--
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Hi Martin!

>
http://www.laptopsolaris.com/2008/10/26/summarizing-virtualization-technologies-from-sun/
Looks good!  I''ve bookmarked your blog...
> Any corrections, extensions, updates, let me know.
Will do.


Regards -- Volker
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Volker A. Brandt                  Consulting and Support for Sun Solaris
Brandt & Brandt Computer GmbH                   WWW: http://www.bb-c.de/
Am Wiesenpfad 6, 53340 Meckenheim                     Email: vab@bb-c.de
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Bonn, HRB 10513              Schuhgröße: 45
Geschäftsführer: Rainer J. H. Brandt und Volker A. Brandt

Hi all,

On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 16:55, Etienne V. Depasquale <edepa@ieee.org>
wrote:
> Why do you write that ZFS is necessary to run xVM server?
>
> I host domU disk files on UFS ....
I think he refers to the xVM Server product that Sun will release
soon, not the free bits available in OpenSolaris.


Regards.

-- 
Pablo Méndez Hernández