Weekly edition	Kernel	Security	Distributions	Contact Us	Search
Archives	Calendar	Subscribe	Write for LWN	LWN.net FAQ	Sponsors

Virtualization

Posted Aug 9, 2007 16:55 UTC (Thu) by vmole (guest, #111)
In reply to: Virtualization by farnz
Parent article: Quotes of the week

1. The psychological effect of having one application per server.

Don't underestimate or ignore the power of this effect. The ability to ability to deploy a new application and guarantee that it won't disturb the existing ones is extremely important in a production system. And it's not just buggy apps. Library and subsystem version issues are a huge deal in a lot of environments.

And when tracking down problems, having each app in a separate "machine" can make life a lot easier.

(Log in to post comments)

Virtualization

Posted Aug 16, 2007 18:54 UTC (Thu) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]

You've got to stop and think about what you're trying to do.

The whole point of an operating system (at least one of them) is to safely multiplex between multiple processes.

If you're finding you're having to multiplex between different entire OSs to perform that task, your operating system isn't doing its job. You've got it set up entirely wrong.

I'm waiting for people to come up with hyper-hypervisors five years down the line when they find the need for their applications to intercommunicate has left them not trusting their hypervisors enough.

Stop building the turtles.

Re: Virtualization

Posted Aug 16, 2007 19:22 UTC (Thu) by larryr (guest, #4030) [Link]

Operating Systems are turtles; processes are turtles; MMUs are turtles.

Partitioning the problem space and solution space are features of system design, not bugs.

Larry

Virtualization

Posted Aug 18, 2007 5:59 UTC (Sat) by NedLudd (guest, #37615) [Link]

--------And when tracking down problems, having each app in a separate "machine" can make life a lot easier.

I agree completely.......it is also how things are done in a lot of shops
that use i386 hardware (small - medium).....one sql box here...one webserver here.....source control over there.....etc.....

i really fell in love with virtualization when i worked for a company that wrote mail filters and i had to set up environments that mimicked customer setups.....pdc/exchange/app/client.....i could use base images, install software, test things out, and then revert it all....i could do a modest qa cycle in a short time....all without having to get up and turn boxes on and off or potentially hose my box.....