Open Source Virtualization for Sun UltraSPARC T1

OpenVZ Virtualization Software Available for Sun UltraSPARC T1 Processor

HERNDON, Va., January 2, 2007 -- The OpenVZ project (www.openvz.org
<http://www.openvz.org/> ) today announced its open source virtualization
software is available for servers using Sun's breakthrough UltraSPARC(r) T1
CoolThreads(TM) processor. The operating system-level server virtualization
software technology helps increase server utilization rates.

"Now, users of servers powered by Sun's UltraSPARC T1 processor can benefit
from our open source virtualization software," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager
of the OpenVZ project. "We need to acknowledge Jonathan Kinney from the user
community for requesting the port to UltraSPARC T1 and making available a
Sun Fire(TM) server, which made it possible to get the work done."

"We're already in production with OpenVZ and believe this project is very
promising," said Jonathan Kinney, data systems specialist, Advantagecom
Networks, Inc., in Walla Walla, Washington. "At this point, we have already
set up several Debian-based virtual environments and they all have worked
perfectly."

Kir Kolyshkin said porting OpenVZ software to the the UltraSPARC T1
processor was a simple procedure since 95 percent of the code is
platform-independent. OpenVZ is easily portable across different
architectures and the project currently supports servers using x86, x86_64,
IA64 and Power 64-bit processors.

"Initially, I was very pleased to hear that the platform independence was
not compromised with the OpenVZ patch to the kernel source," said Kinney.
"Seeing how quickly the software was ported for SPARC has certainly made me
a believer."

OpenVZ is operating system-level server virtualization software technology,
built on Linux, which creates multiple isolated, secure virtual environments
on a single physical server - enabling greater server utilization and
superior availability with fewer performance penalties. The virtual servers
ensure that applications do not conflict and can be re-booted independently.

With the power of Sun's UltraSPARC T1 processor, hardware is often under
utilized. With virtualization technology, the server can effectively be
split into many small ones, each running its tasks so that the whole server
is utilized more efficiently.

"Having open source virtualization software for Sun servers, such as the Sun
Fire T2000, is great news for our users," said Fadi Azhari, director of
marketing, OpenSPARC, Sun Microsystems. "The addition of operating
system-level virtualization technology provided by the OpenVZ project
provides even greater value by helping to increase utilization rates without
impacting performance of SPARC-based servers." 

SPARC system users will be able to provision physical servers to run
applications on virtual servers, rather than a full physical server. The
OpenVZ project makes available templates that allow for almost instant (in
many cases about a minute) provisioning of a virtual server.

The OpenVZ software including UltraSPARC T1 support can be downloaded here,
http://openvz.org/download/kernel/devel/. Also, users can access helpful
installation instructions from the OpenVZ wiki,
http://wiki.openvz.org/Quick_installation. The site serves as a forum to
gain and share knowledge about OpenVZ and includes documentation and a
knowledge base with helpful advice.


About the OpenVZ Project

The OpenVZ project freely distributes and offers support to its users,
promoting operating system virtualization through a collaborative, community
effort. Since going into full production late last year, the OpenVZ project
has been very active with the user community with more than 8,000 message
posts on its support Forum. The OpenVZ website attracted nearly one million
hits last month as more businesses and individuals explore and contribute to
the leading open source operating system virtualization project.

OpenVZ software comes with user tools that help automate management of
virtual servers. With its unique architecture that uses a single operating
system instance, the virtual servers perform and execute like independent
servers with their own memory, configuration files, users and applications.
Each can be re-booted independently. Using template-based application
deployment provides a simple way to get new virtual servers up and running
in minutes and OpenVZ can run several times more virtual servers per CPU
than other virtualization technologies.

Supported by SWsoft, the OpenVZ project serves the needs of the community
developers, testers, documentation experts, and other technology enthusiasts
who wish to participate in and accelerate the technology development
process. OpenVZ is open source software that is used as the basis for the
SWsoft Virtuozzo virtualization software product. Also, the OpenVZ project
maintains a blog site discussing virtualization technology, which can be
accessed here, http://blog.openvz.org <http://blog.openvz.org/> .

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Glenn Rossman | Baker Communications Group, LLC | 914-419-8855 |
<mailto:glenn@bakercg.com> glenn@bakercg.com