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Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org)
MontanaLinux.org has an interview with Kir Kolyshkin, project manager for OpenVZ, a Linux virtualization project.
ML: Are there any areas in the OpenVZ project that you wish you had a bunch of volunteers to work on?
Kir: We have already seen some good contributions here and there, but there's always room for more! I would really like people to work more on tools, especially template tools and OpenVZ control libraries (a.k.a. vzctl-lib). A lot of people already contribute OpenVZ templates, and I'd like that to continue with not only OS templates, but also some kind of virtual appliances (i.e. a pre-installed set of applications for a specific purpose, like running a mail server). I wish we could have some help with the mainstream integration -- if anyone would like to join the fun, start with subscribing to containers-at-linux-foundation-dot-org. (thanks to Warren Sanders). (Log in to post comments)
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 27, 2007 23:38 UTC (Mon) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] Hey, I'm biased. I wrote the questions for the article in question... but I'm just wondering why Xen and VMware get so much coverage and money (not necessarily here on LWN but in "the media") and OpenVZ doesn't seem to get very much.
I mean, OpenVZ has all of the buzzwords too, right?
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 28, 2007 4:34 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] And Linux-VServer gets even less coverage than OpenVZ. It's weird!
Both projects are supremely useful and containerization is a fantastic idea. Give it a year or three... I expect the publicity will catch up.
vserver/OpenVZ: always next year, next year... Posted Aug 28, 2007 7:50 UTC (Tue) by sladen (subscriber, #27402) [Link] "Next year" will always be the year when the publicity comes—I have five year old production vserver boxes (other people for longer). vserver got its syscall number in 2003 and the great publicity bubble day still doesn't seem to have come... OpenVZ deserve congratulation, the project has appeared much more recently and has been alot more efficient at drumming up coverage (a good conference circuit and very regular press releases have done wonders).
Age of OpenVZ Posted Aug 28, 2007 14:42 UTC (Tue) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] Just to clarify, while OpenVZ only appeared about a year an a half ago... it has existed as the kernel and underlying command line tools for SWsoft's Virtozzo for over six years.
I'm not sure which is older, Virtuozzo (OpenVZ) or Linux-Vserver... but I'm glad both are mature.
OpenVZ and VServer, practical view Posted Aug 28, 2007 9:03 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] Ugh, trust me, VServer isn't exactly "supremely useful" -- it won't cross your way for the most time but it won't advance you considerably either. At least when you've already had a longer look at OpenVZ.I've used to run 1.x and 2.4, i586 and x86_64, but moving off to ovz is just so much better. This one does have its troubles (most notable ones for us were around NFS) but these are being taken on and solved, and if you don't happen to run into something really obscure (as they say frequently a bug in kernel proper which didn't manifest in usual circumstances), ovz is clearly better due to its UBC, online quotas and thus far better isolation and provisioning abilities. As a friend of mine would put such situations, "it's a different kind of sports". Still lightweight one though. If you want to test the waters without messing with kernels, utilities and so forth, ALT Linux 4.0 Server comes with OpenVZ-enabled kernel, utilities, and web-based container creation/administration tools as well (ML here). OpenVZ forums being linked to corresponding mailing lists are also robust aides.
Linux-Vserver Posted Aug 28, 2007 14:39 UTC (Tue) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] I totally agree with you about Linux-Vserver... it too is greatly under rated. I must admit though that I really haven't been keeping up with Linux-Vserver development... so I'm not familiar with the status of it. I do have one "legacy" system running Linux-Vserver and three VPSes. It has been rock solid stable and fast. It just doesn't have all of the features of OpenVZ but it is close.
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 28, 2007 9:27 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] Xen and VMWare are multi-platform so they benefit from the Windows and Solaris hype producers (also known as advert-starved IT journalists)
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 28, 2007 9:54 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] yep yep.
It's more useful in mixed environments, especially when dealing with legacy applications, which is very normal problems administrators face everyday.
Say you have some application that only runs on Windows NT or Windows 2000. (there are a few). Then a VM will be able to handle that nicely. Or say your a Windows/Linux shop that is acquiring some smaller company that had it's custom accounting software based around SCO's Unix stuff.
Say your a smaller place that wants to migrate to Linux for the desktop, but you need to keep a Exchange or a MSSQL server going... or maybe you have a few Windows apps, but you don't mind setting it up so that they can be accessed over 'remote desktop' (for example were I work we have the fedex shipping software to deal with). Vmware is perfect for dealing with those situations.
Now.. If you have a shitload of web servers or something like that then stuff like OpenVZ is perfect.
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 28, 2007 16:14 UTC (Tue) by kolyshkin (subscriber, #34342) [Link] Containers can be useful in that situation as well. It's just you have Linux containers on Linux boxen (be it OpenVZ, Linux-VServer or FreeVPS), Windows containers on Windows boxen (say, Virtuozzo for Windows), Solaris containers on Solaris boxen, AIX containers (called WPARs) on AIX and so on.
Surely with VMware you can have all that on a single box. To find out what is better, you have to solve the equation which involves variables such as how many VMs/VEs do you want to have, how many physical servers do you want to use, what is the acceptable performance level etc.
Interview with OpenVZ Project Manager Kir Kolyshkin (MontanaLinux.org) Posted Aug 30, 2007 9:29 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] I've happily used Linux-Vserver on Xen and Xen/Qemu/KVM-based VMs. :)
Comparing VMware/Xen/Qemu+Kqemu/KVM vs OpenVZ/Linux-vserver/Solaris containers are a bit of a canard. I don't like it when people do it, and the biggest violator I've seen was Sun promoting Solaris and trying to tell people that their containers was just soooo much better then Xen or whatever.
It's a bit like trying to compare Emacs or Vim against Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org. Sure, sure both can be used to edit text, but I have yet to see a extension for Vim or Emacs that will incorporate a ODBC connector to a SQL database so office folks can build quick-n-dirty data entry forms or build graphs from importing data into a spreadsheet!
:)
Text editor vs. Word processor analogy Posted Aug 30, 2007 23:21 UTC (Thu) by dowdle (subscriber, #659) [Link] My question for you is... which is more efficient and better suited for editing text, a text editor or a word processor? You asked which is better suited for word processing, a text editor or a word processor? Kind of a silly question.
If you need to run multiple versions of the Linux kernel... or if you need to run OSes other than Linux... then you need machine virtualization. If you want to do Linux on Linux... OS virtualization is so much more scalable and provides much greater density than machine virtualization.
My point is that both excel in the areas they serve.
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