two articles about Xen

[Hubert Feyrer <hubert%feyrer.de@localhost>]

[From my weblog, http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/blog.html]


1) Xen: a greater threat to Microsoft than Linux?

We all know that it isn't Linux (alone :) to kick Microsoft's behind, and 
this article[1] describes how hardware vendors like Intel and AMD are 
building virtualisation support into their CPUs which may take a lot of 
burden from Xen, and Operating Systems supporting these CPUs will 
eventually be ready for virtualisation for free. Including Microsoft 
Windows. Which may not exactly please a vendor who's working on bringing 
its own product for virtualisation to market. There's a lot of water to go 
down the Danube until all this happens, and only time will tell if Xen 
lives up to the expectations put into it, but we can stay tuned for NetBSD 
being part of that future.

[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Research/index.php?p=123


2) NetBSD Unix Supports Xen Virtualization

This IT Jungle article[2] tells about how Ian Pratt started Xen, their 
history and background, how the newly-incorporated company behind Xen 
(XenSource) was funded, compares against VMware's ESX and GSX servers and 
how Microsoft Windows may run on Xen in the long run even without 
Microsoft's support. NetBSD's Thor Lancelot Simons is quoted for details 
on NetBSD's use of Xen on project machines, and Manuel Bouyer is mentioned 
for his big amount of work he put into Xen 2.0 support. The article ends 
with an outlook on Xen 3.0 and 4.0.

[2] http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug032405-story01.html


 - Hubert

--
NetBSD - Free AND Open!      (And of course secure, portable, yadda yadda)