Hypervisors May Replace Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 11, 2007, 6:27:53 PM8/11/07

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latest in 40+yr old technology

Hypervisors May Replace Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EANUZD2ESZ23GQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=201400075

from above:

The increased use of virtualization in the data center will enhance
the importance of hypervisors and diminish the importance of Windows,
Linux, and other general-purpose operating systems.

... snip ...

and recent post from ibm-main on subject of (pr/sm) virtualization:
http://www.garlic.com/2007n.html #96 some questions about System z PR/
SM

slightly earlier post mentioning vm370 35th announcement anniv at
share ... and that cp67's 40th announcement anniv is coming up next
spring
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#92 vm 35th b'day at share in
san diego next week
and related follow-up
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007n.html#93 How old are you?

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 11, 2007, 6:52:05 PM8/11/07

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re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#1 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

and other recent items on the subject:

VMware Predicts Death To Operating Systems
http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201311257
Could Virtual Systems Replace Windows?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135774-c,tradeshows/article.html
Virtualization: Key To Linux Future Or Linux Killer?
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201400215
VMware: Linux Is Ideal OS for Virtualization
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3693656
VMware: Linux Is Ideal OS for Virtualization
http://news.earthweb.com/dev-news/article.php/3693656
VMware: Linux Is Ideal OS for Virtualization
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3693706
Will VMWare IPO Boost Virtualization?
http://news.earthweb.com/bus-news/article.php/3693661
Will VMWare IPO Boost Virtualization?
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3693661
'Virtual sandboxing' provides safe security testing
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=security&articleId=9029885&taxonomyId=17

John Ahlstrom

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Aug 11, 2007, 7:53:57 PM8/11/07

to ly...@garlic.com

ly...@garlic.com wrote:
> latest in 40+yr old technology
>
> Hypervisors May Replace Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
> http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EANUZD2ESZ23GQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=201400075
>
> from above:
>
> The increased use of virtualization in the data center will enhance
> the importance of hypervisors and diminish the importance of Windows,
> Linux, and other general-purpose operating systems.

Aren't hypervisors there "just" to allow running multiple OSs?
Hypervisors are essential, but aren't the apps still going to
be written to use the OS APIs?

Also
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080107-ibm-data-centers-green.html

reports IBM announcing it will replace 4000 servers with
Linux VMs running on 30 System Zs.

JKA
>

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 11, 2007, 8:27:31 PM8/11/07

to

On Aug 11, 7:53 pm, John Ahlstrom <Ahlstro...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Aren't hypervisors there "just" to allow running multiple OSs?
> Hypervisors are essential, but aren't the apps still going to
> be written to use the OS APIs?
>
> Also
> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080107-ibm-data-centers-green.html
>
> reports IBM announcing it will replace 4000 servers with
> Linux VMs running on 30 System Zs.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#1 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#2 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

they can be ... but they can also be leveraged for a paradigm change
with simplified implementations ... referred to as service virtual
machines (from the 60s & 70s) ... but new terminology is virtual
appliances.

quick use of search engine for a few virtual appliance references:

VMware virtual appliance a threat to the OS
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/080907-linuxworld-vmware-virtual-appliance-a.html?fsrc=rss-security
Virtual Appliance Marketplace - VMware
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/
Virtual appliance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_appliance
The Stanford Collective Group; A Virtual Appliance Computing
Infrastructure
http://suif.stanford.edu/collective/
Red Hat to Build Virtual Appliance OS for Managing Intel vPro-based
Desktops
http://www.redhat.com/about/news/prarchive/2007/vpro_appliance.html
VMWare's Virtual Appliance Showroom
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3629496
Virtual appliance for email archiving and electronic discovery with
VMware
http://www.inboxer.com/virtual-appliance.shtml
How to convert a VMWare virtual appliance to work with Parallels
http://www.virtualizationdaily.com/archives/73_how-to-convert-a-vmware-virtual-appliance-to-work-with-parallels.html
Virtual appliances cure appliance bloat
http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2007/042307techupdate.html
The Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge
http://www.vmwarez.com/2006/02/ultimate-virtual-appliance-challenge.html
Red Hat to Build a Virtual Appliance OS
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2127848,00.asp
VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge - Time is Running Out!
http://weblog.infoworld.com/virtualization/archives/2006/05/vmware_ultimate.html
The case for chargeback and virtual appliances
http://servervirtualization.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/08/02/the-case-for-chargeback-and-virtual-appliances/

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 11, 2007, 8:51:34 PM8/11/07

to

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#1 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#2 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#3 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

it might also be considered a variation on some of the microkernel
efforts ... except a decade or two earlier.

the paradigm can also be used for partitioning of different components
improving integrity and isolating failures/compromises

for a little topic drift ... a recent thread or two
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#47 If your CSO lacks an MBA,
fire one of you
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#48 If your CSO lacks an MBA,
fire one of you
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#49 If your CSO lacks an MBA,
fire one of you
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#50 If your CSO lacks an MBA,
fire one of you
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#52 more on firing your MBA-
less CSO
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#53 Doom and Gloom spreads,
security revisionism suggests "H6.5: Be an adept!"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#54 Security can only be
message-based?

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 14, 2007, 11:27:25 AM8/14/07

to

ref:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#1 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#2 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#3 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#4 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

the standard home platform has a number of different (and
diametrically opposing) requirements. The unconnected, home, gaming pc
... allowed arbitrary applications to completely take-over the home
machine. The use in the business environment was terminal emulation
but otherwise a unconnected desktop machine. Later this business
environment expanded to include purely local business network ... but
still didn't have to worry about countermeasures for hostile
attackers.

the internet appliance application would have a starting point of
extremely fixed software operation w/o being able to introduce
malicious (or most other kinds of) code.

the use of the same platform ... originating from a heritage with no
requirement for countermeasures against hostile attackers ... for
both things like purely personal gaming use (and applications that
take over the whole machine) and for internet surfing ... creates
diametrically opposing requirements.

this opposing operational requirement dichotomy can be considered
significant contribution to the large existing botnets (where
malicious applications have surreptitiously taking over control of
large number of machines).

2-3 yrs ago, Jim cajoled me into interviewing for the position
of chief security architect. there never was agreement on the terms
for the position ... but I did spend a lot of time discussing the
diametrically opposing requirements being placed on the platform.

attempting to resolve the opposing requirements is one of the things
that hypervisor and virtualization is being billed for. connectivity
to the internet and potentially extremely hostile attacks is done in a
strictly constrained environment ... which is frequently rebuilt fresh
and is discarded when it is no longer being used. This drastically
restricts the damage that an hostile attack is able to achieve.

misc. recent botnet items

Criminals Using Botnet To Attack iPhone Buyers
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201001607
FBI, Carnegie Mellon Identify 1 MM BotNet Nodes
http://campustechnology.com/articles/49053/
Storm Botnet Driving PDF Spam
http://www.securitypronews.com/news/securitynews/spn-45-20070713StormBotnetDrivingPDFSpam.html
Why we're losing the botnet battle
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/072507-why-were-losing-the-botnet.html
ISPs may not be doing enough about botnets
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070731-isps-may-not-be-doing-enough-about-botnets.html
Invasion of Botnets, Trojans, Worms Malware - DA issues fraud alert
http://www.thecherrycreeknews.com/content/view/1603/2/

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 14, 2007, 5:11:51 PM8/14/07

to

re:

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#1 Hypervisors May Replace
Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#2 Hypervisors May Replace
Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#3 Hypervisors May Replace
Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#4 Hypervisors May Replace
Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#7 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

new crop of virtualization items

Intel boosts virtualization with quad-core Xeons
http://news.com.com/Intel+boosts+virtualization+with+quad-core+Xeons/2100-1006_3-6202470.html
Intel boosts virtualization with quad-core Xeons
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6202470.html
VMWare surge puts virtualization in the spotlight
http://news.com.com/VMWare+surge+puts+virtualization+in+the+spotlight/2100-1012_3-6202553.html
VMWare surge puts virtualization in the spotlight
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6202553.html
XenSource new release closes gap with VMware
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/081307-xensource-new-release-closes-gap.html
Virtualization--threat or menace?
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9758794-7.html

ly...@garlic.com

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Aug 17, 2007, 8:40:51 AM8/17/07

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re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007o.html#7 Hypervisors May Replace

Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center

recent botnet item

Storm Botnet Puts Up Defenses And Starts Attacking Back
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201800635

from above:

Researchers are warning universities that they're at risk of being hit
with massive distributed denial-of-service attacks when they scan
their own networks.

... snip ...

Morten Reistad

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Sep 5, 2007, 12:56:23 PM9/5/07

to

In article <46BE4C15...@comcast.net>,

John Ahlstrom <Ahlst...@comcast.net> wrote:
>ly...@garlic.com wrote:
>> latest in 40+yr old technology
>>
>> Hypervisors May Replace Operating Systems As King Of The Data Center
>>
>http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EANUZD2ESZ23GQSNDLRSKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=201400075
>>
>> from above:
>>
>> The increased use of virtualization in the data center will enhance
>> the importance of hypervisors and diminish the importance of Windows,
>> Linux, and other general-purpose operating systems.
>
>Aren't hypervisors there "just" to allow running multiple OSs?
>Hypervisors are essential, but aren't the apps still going to
>be written to use the OS APIs?

Yep, and no.

The hypervisor can also perform another level of isolation, both
for security, maintenence and convenience (that makes three "boths",
which is a glaring error in my native language, but seems to be
permitted in English).

The hypervisor is also a lot simpler, and supposedly more stable, and
does not have to have drivers for every odd device on the planet.

The intelligence to properly drive a Firewire, USB, SCSI, video or PCMCIA
device can be delegated to the OS that wants to host the driver; the
hypervisor only needs to understand muxing, ownership, locking and
access control at the basic USB/SCSI/FW/PC[MC]I[A] level.

This should reduce the complexity of the core OS by around three orders
of magnitude. (from approx 17000 drivers (Fedora) to a dozen or so).

-- mrr