From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed May 20 00:30:10 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BBE79106566B; Wed, 20 May 2009 00:30:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from adrian.chadd@gmail.com) Received: from qw-out-2122.google.com (qw-out-2122.google.com [74.125.92.25]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42C218FC13; Wed, 20 May 2009 00:30:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from adrian.chadd@gmail.com) Received: by qw-out-2122.google.com with SMTP id 3so88885qwe.7 for ; Tue, 19 May 2009 17:30:09 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=memFkR/8MskyjvizZkQAApRcrLz5sBFuqefHAlgxnrI=; b=QwwMidKHLu9hfI1Sint+/sO1T2tQXwUyPZJ4ywoe8ClckiNQpalE0NIc9QURq0H960 rcvwllYQbaWORLiMbknvmv8MxtWWBkjVThzGiRvu8B166M7uXhueheRtkxP8ECjKzvb9 TIA8k3Q1iyrqESw356pMLkEoEFCV/beG15COE= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; b=eTsI1kBUNTUGNL+JHCThW6s7Yb9fgVJGkzhnDRn3QvPNhmuzTjGuIbtAxW73qLNrig xLt9tDtvV5BXQWNNevCqQP8QRphdY8Lv/TUwOYmMcylmf+4dEA6BNgSBM+D+eNGf4NRN y2nGG78c2hkWJcEbGRbCRYWMRQuUpAds1OFQQ= MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: adrian.chadd@gmail.com Received: by 10.229.96.73 with SMTP id g9mr242960qcn.45.1242779409662; Tue, 19 May 2009 17:30:09 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 08:30:09 +0800 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 3bd29d3f5446f850 Message-ID: From: Adrian Chadd To: Saifi Khan Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-xen@freebsd.org, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: My FreeBSD-current/Xen install notes X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 00:30:11 -0000 2009/5/20 Saifi Khan : > Could you please share 'your insight' on the > 'set of virtualization problems' that Xen solves ? Xen lets you run multiple versions of modified OSes on the same box. Each OS for the most part can treat its small pool of resources as its own. It hides the underlying hardware from the virtual domain (although its apparently quite popular to break out bits of hardware to appear in the virtual domain.) The Xen paravirtualisation stuff in -theory- should be more lightweight than full hardware virtualisation and it should perform better. In practice? That's very much workload dependant. Xen also lets you write "other" OSes without needing to care about the hardware. One of my friends bootstrapped a toy OS of his inside Xen. He can then run it on any and all Xen boxes, unmodified, regardless of the underlying hardware. That really hasn't been exploited to its full potential though. Adrian