What’s also interesting is that so far, Red Hat has only submitted for Windows certification on KVM and not yest on RHEL/Xen (which is currently shipping).

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=lcUS21686409

The Red Hat and Microsoft agreement simply is about cross-validation/certification and does not have any IP or financial implications.

 

I think you can expect to see an increase in KVM usage in RHEL going forward ;-)

I saw the press release here:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080904005327&newsLang=en

Check it out here: http://virt.kernelnewbies.org/

I also noticed KGDB (kernel debugger) supports x86 and SPARC right now – SPARC? Hmm…

You can read more about the new kernel features here: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_26

And you can get the latest Gentoo LiveCD over here: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml

http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS4429818312.html

Here’s the report: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/linux/pdfs/GCG_IBM_and_Linux-9_years_later.pdf

The opening teaser:

In 1999, IBM issued a series of announcements fully committing the company to supporting Linux. IBM vowed to Linux-enable all of their hardware platforms, including their non-x86 based mainframe, mini, and RISC-based systems. They also promised to release Linux versions of their software products and develop
Linux-centric service practices. Moreover, they pledged significant resources to the Linux community with the goal of advancing Linux and open source technology.

So, nine years later, did IBM deliver on these promises? Was their commitment to Linux genuine or just lip service? This report examines IBM’s current Linux products, services, and community support in light of the promises they made in 1999…

While I think it’s obvious IBM has been a huge investor in the Linux community, one thing that I noticed reading the report is just how much IBM is actually different from other community members. There are some noticeable differences in the investments and approach to supporting the Linux platform and community. I often forget to just take in all the Linux technologies IBM has been heavily involved in from Xen, KVM and libvirt to filesystems, to systemtap, kprobes and then there’s RAS, scalability and performance enhancements.

Another interesting thought to reflect on is just how important it has been that there are multiple investors in this field. If this report captures just what IBM did, think of the industry combined. IBM couldn’t have done anything this big with Linux if it weren’t for co-creating with a community of enthusiasts, researchers, governments, Intel, AMD, Google, Nokia, Motorola, Oracle and thousands more. What would the report look like if you compiled all the investments and work the entire community leveraged across the industry. Linux is “bigger than huge” when you stop to think about it. This is also why I’ve said for a couple years now when you extend the investment model 3 to 5 years into the future, Sun and its anti-Linux,  Solaris push against the tide of the industry loses in the end. I think we’re starting to witness that now. Sure, OpenSolaris is a great idea… it’s just 9 years late and it’s too late to matter now.

I’m interested in outside perspectives too – where do you think IBM stands? Has the community development and investment model worked? Where will this lead in the future and what will be the next evolution of the model? Red Hat seems to think the model will evolve to include increased customer co-creation – I tend to agree. Why? Because the incentive model to invest aligns very well – and when you have alignment, it almost naturally will happen.

“IBM works closely with Red Hat and the open source community to drive innovation within the Linux kernel,” said Daniel Frye, vice president, open systems development at IBM. “IBM has a heterogenous approach toward virtualization, with KVM one of several options. KVM leverages the core features of the Linux kernel, including paravirtualization interfaces contributed by IBM engineers. By combining Linux virtualization infrastructure with open management interfaces such as CIM and libvirt, we gain a solution that eliminates lock-in and open source community innovations, we are able to offer our customers a solution with outstanding performance, scalability and agility.”

I think we can finally admit that we, the Linux community, made a very big mistake with Xen. Xen should have never been included in a Linux distribution. There, I’ve said it. We’ve all been thinking it, have whispered it in closed rooms, and have done our bests to avoid it.

He makes a very valid point that the Xen kernel will never be upstream and therefore it will always be an extra layer. The difference between Xen or other packages around the kernel is that Xen is at the core its own kernel. This is what makes KVM so attractive – you don’t need that extra layer (which creates complexity no matter what).

Quite simply, Xen is not, and will never be, a part of Linux. Therefore, including it in a Linux distribution has only led to massive user confusion about the relationship between Linux and Xen.

Now one thing Anthony didn’t mention is that the ability to swap Xen as the virtualization technology with another, future, and better technology was something the kernel developers perceived long ago. Because of that foresight, most people are starting to use libvirt which abstracts the interface layer into managing virtualization hypervisors like Xen and KVM. What does this mean for enterprise and ordinary users alike? The migration from one technology like Xen to another like KVM can be done near seamlessly because the libvirt-based management tools can plug into either hypervisor, checkpoint start/stop, and bring the images up on another hypervisor.

http://avikivity.blogspot.com/2008/04/memory-overcommit-with-kvm.html

I really like the direction Mark is taking with Ubuntu on the server. One, it offers a competing model for the industry compared to the RHEL/SLES model, two Ubuntu is pushing the technology further (e.g. KVM) and making it very easy for users to adopt (ala Microsoft Windows), and finally, it’s one platform that does well in many circles from desktop to server (ala Windows). So while Red Hat, Novell and Oracle fight over what’s left of Sun’s Solaris install base and grab some of the Windows opportunity, Ubuntu is driving straight into the Windows Vista SP1 Party with a fresh alternative. Now let’s just get those “Apple-like” Ubuntu systems we need  with all the Adobe apps on them ;-)

Ubuntu article: http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2008/042108-ubuntu-linux-takes-on-enterprise.html?page=1

P.S. I claim absolutely no insight into what amount of sheer stupidity or drunkenness led to that Microsoft video link. I think sogrady said it best with just, “words fail me”.

Well, let’s just start with KVM is available for any IBM System z users out there.

http://blog.codemonkey.ws/2008/04/kvm-for-mainframe.html

What’s also interesting is that KVM is primarily backed by Qumranet who focuses on selling virtualized desktop solutions, not on selling the hypervisor itself. However, the “desktop” virtualization technology is quickly being stabilized and ready for a server environment. I think Ubuntu (try the new beta) and Fedora are the furthest ahead if you want to try KVM.  It’s a very synergistic model for the Linux community to grab hold of and turn into an advantageous feature.

You can listen to the podcast here:

http://www.linuxworld.com/podcasts/linux/2008/030608-linuxcast.html 

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
6:30pm-8:00 PM
IBM
590 Madison Ave, 12th Floor
corner of 57th Street
** RSVP Closes at 4:30pm the day of the meeting (sharp!) ***
Please RSVP for EVERY meeting at this time.
Register at http://rsvp.nylug.org/

PLEASE NOTE: This meeting is at IBM, not Google!

Jim  Gleason – on – The Next Wave of Virtualization

Kernel-based Virtual Machine and its impact on the desktop Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure and open source hypervisor that provides both full and para-virtualization capabilities for Linux on commodity x86 hardware that contain the virtualization extensions from Intel and AMD.  KVM is currently implemented as a loadable Linux kernel module.  In late 2006, it was first included in Linux kernel 2.6.20 and and first shipped with OpenSuse 10.1 and Fedora 6.

Since KVM is part of Linux, KVM leverages the scheduler, memory management and other key resources in the Linux kernel, unlike VMware and Xen which must create their own custom mechanisms. Thus, KVM development focuses exclusively on the next-wave virtualization, while Xen and VMWare must also maintain these ‘forked’ non-Linux resources.

All of the core KVM developers, including Avi Kavity, work at the firm, Qumranet, which launched a desktop virtualization solution called Solid ICE that leverages KVM.  Qumranet is the creator, maintainer and global sponsor of the KVM Open Source Hypervisor Project.  Other high-ranking Linux kernel developers such as Rusty Russell and Anthony Liguori of IBM, Ingo Molnar of Red Hat, and Andrea Archangeli formerly of Novell, devote most of their time to KVM development.

What is the Next Wave of Virtualization?

Qumranet has gone beyond conventional server virtualization and application streaming by completely virtualizing end users’ desktop machines.  From a browser on a thin client or PC, users access their desktop work environment over the network via a virtual machine running on a centralized server.  The end result is a seamless end user work experience, just like a physical PC on a LAN. This is a high-level talk which will focus on the breakthrough Linux technology KVM, and its impact on the virtualization market.

About Jim Gleason:
Jim has been providing emerging technology to early adopters in the Financial Serivces Sector for the past ten years.  Widely regarded as the person who brought Linux to Wall Street, Jim sold the first production Linux cluster to Goldman Sachs in 1998.  Jim was also an early Internet pioneer having closed deals for the first official web sites of Charles Schwab, VISA, and all of Hewlett-Packard’s original web sites in 1993. Jim is also the Founder of the NY Linux Users Group and currently works at Qumranet in the capacity of Vice President of Sales.

Meeting Location:
Please note that this meeting will be held at IBM, 590 Madison Ave, 12th floor, corner of 57th Street, and not at Google.  This is the building with the IBM logo on the front of the building.

Map:
http://tighturl.com/m

Books!!!
Our friends at Prentice-Hall kindly provide us with review copies of various new titles.  One of these could be yours, all you have to do is agree to review the book within a reasonable period of time.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue76#head-ae07153a350b0c9e5da6b4c84d8fca9fa1d7ab7a 

We’ve chosen to settle on KVM as our main virtualization focus. KVM is a special version of QEMU which utilizes the new virtualization extensions that both Intel and AMD have added to their newest CPU models.

It seems that I wrote what lots of people have been thinking when I proclaimed that certification is a weak promise at best — a hoax at worst — with most customers spending 6X their license costs on installation, maintenance, and administration of “certified” software. The pity of this whole situation is that software vendors are also paying a high price for the myriad of customer preferences regarding middleware and operating systems. And the price is about to get a lot steeper.

I also found a good wiki page (I think it’s new) showing the guest OS’s that work (or don’t work) with KVM.

http://kvm.qumranet.com/kvmwiki/Guest_Support_Status

Imagine you’re Microsoft and you’ve spent years struggling to get Windows Server 2008 out the door and will be struggling afterward to add server virtualization? Then along comes Linus Torvalds and his merry band and they add KVM to the Linux kernel over the course of a few months, release a new kernel for review every 2 to 3 months, and attract thousands of developers interested in the new features. Linux had both VMware and Xen hypervisors running on it just fine. Now it’s got another one freely available inside the kernel. It must feel in Redmond like Linux steals from the rich to give to the poor.

and…

Now the Linux kernel development process, which has been under way for 16 years, represents the largest, most complicated ongoing software development project in the world, with the possible exception of Windows itself. It’s moving fast, fluidly filling niches that Microsoft in the past had staked out. It’s leading in virtualization, in virtual appliances, in mobile devices. It’s threatening Windows on a number of fronts.

I’m actually one of those 54,000 users as I installed Fedora 8 on my home PC which now dual boots Fedora and Vista (solely for Photoshop and my Sony HD camcorder video editing).  I actually replace Ubuntu Gutsy with Fedora to try out the new virtualization features in Fedora 8. I must admit, when it comes to virtualization, no distro comes close to Fedora (I tried Ubuntu 7.10 and OpenSuse 10.3). The polish, focus, and achievements with Xen and KVM are second to none. The Fedora 8 Virtual Machine Monitor is fantastic – worth testing the distro out alone. I have not (yet) seen any other distro port this with as many features available.

However, from an end user experience perspective, I would recommend every Fedora developer force themselves to use Ubuntu for the next month. The Ubuntu competition has a huge leg up on Fedora from a user experience perspective and it’s as if they don’t even know it  (or Fedora has decided just to not care). For instance, just try watching an MPEG movie, try even finding how to use the licensed, paid for codecs, try listening to an MP3, try enabling 3D desktop with nVidia drivers, try customizing the 3D effects. When you need help, does the Wiki really help? Does the FAQ that is still stuck on Fedora 7 content apply? Fedora has now released quite a few well done releases – why are there still issues?

It truly was difficult to accept that Fedora was still as far behind as it was from an end user perspective. Now, I don’t want to scare anyone off – as a Linux user – I’ve grown accustomed to self help and working through these issues one by one. None are insurmountable and Fedora 8 is no more complicated for these things than Fedora 7. However, Fedora 7 should not be the bar against which you’re competing. I’ve said many times that Linux distros should ignore Windows and focus on the value Mac OS X offers its users (security holes, firewall issues, and upgrade dilemmas aside).

You can grab Fedora 8 yourself over here:

http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora