News for December 18

TheRegister: Sun revs VirtualBox desktop virtualization

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Over the years, the server virtualization strategy at Sun Microsystems has been spotty, but recently it has been evolving to include a variety of new techniques. Dynamic domains, Solaris containers, logical domains, and on x64 iron, support for Xen and ESX Server hypervisors are all part of the fare now.

Sun bought its way into the desktop virtualization arena this past February, and it is determined to be a player here, too, even if its own desktop - well, workstation - business has pretty much dwindled to nothing.

The 8 million downloads of VirtualBox - half of them since Sun took over German software company Innotek - make Sun a player of sorts in desktop virtualization, which is even greener (in terms of youth, not energy efficiency) than server virtualization. Innotek launched a virtual machine hypervisor for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X desktops and laptops just a little under two years ago, and oddly enough got its start creating virtualization products for IBM's and Microsoft's jointly developed OS/2 operating system.

The product was rebranded xVM VirtualBox in May when the 1.6 release came out. At that time, Sun gave VirtualBox native Solaris support, which means that Solaris 10 (the commercial version of Sun's Unix) or OpenSolaris (the development version) can act as either a host operating system for the VirtualBox hypervisor or run as guest environments atop the hypervisor, which itself runs on the host OS. (VirtualBox is not what is called a bare metal hypervisor, like VMware's ESX Server, that allows multiple operating systems to run side-by-side while still thinking they own all of the hardware in the box, which they do not.)

VMware Server, the freebie hypervisor, and VMware Workstation, the desktop variant from that company, run atop a host operating system, just like VirtualBox does. The practical difference between the bare metal and host-guest hypervisors is that the guest operating system is a single point of failure for all of the partitions on the machine, while the less-complex hypervisor is (presumably) using less resources and is more rugged, stable, and secure. That's the theory, anyway.

To my way of thinking, a hypervisor has all the same issues as a host operating system and only benefits from its simplicity and obscurity. Like ESX Server, VirtualBox doesn't require the hardware-assisted virtualization electronics in the latest x64 chips (Intel VT on Core and Xeons and AMD-V on Opterons) to work, but it can make use of these features to support ancient operating systems, such as OS/2.

With VirtualBox 2.1, Sun is tapping the Intel VT-x (the variant of VT for x64 chips) to boost the performance of the Mac OS X operating system when it's being used as a host for OS X and other operating systems running the VirtualBox hypervisor. The 2.1 release also providers support for the desktop variants of the "Nehalem" processors, known as Core i7, and their related QuickPath Interconnect.

Sun is also adding experimental support for the OpenGL 3D graphics acceleration for Windows guests running VirtualBox, and this 3D support gets passed through from host operating systems (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, or Solaris) to the Windows guest operating system. Only 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows XP guests can access this OpenGL support, and the Direct3D alternative from Microsoft is slated for a future release.

The OpenGL support will make Google Earth work properly, which is a very important feature (that was sarcasm), and the future Direct3D support will make Microsoft virtual Earth work, too.

The tweaked VirtualBox will also allow a 32-bit host operating system running on 64-bit hardware to support a 64-bit guest operating system; you'll notice this support is experimental, if you read the release notes carefully. Sun also says that it has "improved" support for VMware's VMDK and Microsoft's VHD virtual machine disk formats along with the program's own VDI native VM disk file format.

VirtualBox can also import VMDK and VHD virtual machines (provided the guest OS levels are supported) and do snapshots of the VM files in these three formats. Sun says VirtualBox 2.1 also has tweaks to improve virtual network performance, and sports an iSCSI initiator driver that allows VirtualBox to access VM images stored on iSCSI disk arrays.

You can get VirtualBox 2.1 here, and if you want, you can grab the open source code and play around with it. Sun also offers 24/7 premium support contracts for VirtualBox, which run $30 per user per year.

Interestingly, Sun says that VirtualBox downloads have more than doubled compared with last quarter and that user registration is up 24 per cent. (There are 8 million cumulative downloads of all VirtualBox releases to date, but only 2.5 million registered users. People don't like to fill out forms.)

Sun has given no indication as to how much - or how little - money VirtualBox generates. And the company has yet to explain where VirtualBox will fit into its server virtualization strategy, if at all, in the long term. ®

CNet: How 2007's hot trends played out in 2008

by Gordon Haff

About this time last year, I took a look back at some of the macro trends that hit their stride during 2007. I thought it would be interesting to see which of those trends are still noteworthy, which new ones are on the radar, and generally how the landscape has changed.

Server virtualization remains perhaps the hottest trend in IT. It may no longer be pegging the hype meter quite as hard, but that's only because server virtualization has moved into the mainstream. It's ever more clearly one of those fundamental developments that touches and transforms all manner of associated technologies, products, and processes.

To be sure, lots of virtualization customers are still using it for relatively straightforward server consolidation, but more and more are also implementing high availability and other services on top of a virtualization foundation. One notable event during the year was the ouster of Diane Greene from VMware's helm, but so far, neither this nor Microsoft's increasingly aggressive virtualization efforts have had a substantial impact on VMware's position as market leader.

This trend continues to gather pace, albeit in a relatively measured way, with security and compliance often the primary driving force. Most major virtualization players have steadily broadened their portfolios to encompass both client-side and server-side virtualization, taking advantage of one with the other.

Power and cooling, or more broadly, "green," remains at the same relatively nascent level as last year, when I wrote that "power and cooling is increasingly something that IT staffs think about-even if, in most cases, they're not the absolute top-of-mind worry that is sometimes suggested."

Intel's resurgence continued in 2008, as it ramped its 45-nanometer processors. For its part, Advanced Micro Devices did take steps to repair the damage caused by its delayed "Barcelona" processors. Its 45nm "Shanghai" processor shipped ahead of schedule, lending credence to company claims that its development and manufacturing processes were back on track.

Open source and open-source licenses certainly didn't go away in 2008. But I don't really view them as a trend at this point any more than programming languages or databases. They're just part of the software landscape--a way to develop and market software.

And that's really the trend that emerged in force this year: "cloud computing," a term that I use to refer broadly to using software services or infrastructure over the network.

To be sure, there's more vendor hype (and consumer use in the guise of Web 2.0) than there is enterprise adoption. And I strongly suspect that will remain the case for quite some time. Part of the reason is that deployments will tend to happen with new applications rather than legacy ones.

However, more broadly, enterprises will want to understand and have the tools to manage attributes such as security, compliance, and portability (including the ability to run applications on-premises, off-premises, or a combination of the two).

Is cloud computing a legitimate trend? Yes. And it will be a long-term trend, so just count this as a start.

Ostatic: OpenSolaris Coming to Toshiba Laptops

by Sam Dean

Slowly but surely, major laptop vendors are taking to the idea of shipping systems with pre-loaded open source operating systems. The latest case in point is Toshiba-one of the longest-standing players in the market for portable computers-and its new plan to pre-install Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris on its laptops. The machines are supposed to ship in early 2009, and will join several new Linux-based systems that Dell is shipping, and many Linux-based netbooks arriving from various hardware manufacturers. Will this trend continue?

As I see it, a huge part of the trend toward open source operating systems on portable computers is extreme price-consciousness among buyers. For only a little more than you pay for a Linux netbook, you can get a laptop with more hardware resources running Windows. But the fact is, the machines running open source software are cheaper-and cheaper is cheaper in this economic environment.

I'm not so sure how popular laptops running OpenSolaris are going to be. Sun has struggled to gain adoption for the operating system. But one of the reasons Linux-based netbooks are selling so well is that they come pre-installed with lots of useful open source software applications. That's the key one-two punch in the eyes of the buyer: "I save money on the hardware running the open source operating system, and I pay no money for useful applications."

Lenovo and other hardware manufacturers aren't buying into this trend as quickly as others, but as long as people stay so careful with their pennies, market share for portable computers running open source software is going to increase. eWeek has some interesting corroboration of the trend, coming from IBM. The next shoe that is likely to drop will be the availability of more offers like the Acer Aspire One netbooks now available at Radioshack for $99. These require you to sign a monthly broadband contract with AT&T for $60 a month, but the buy-in price for the hardware is low. The Acers run Windows XP, but I won't be surprised to see Linux-based systems offered at rock-bottom prices with these types of contracts as well.