How Virtualization Led Microsoft to Support Linux 99
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Why did Microsoft make the surprise announcement that it would support business customers who also use Linux? Because of the increasing importance of virtualization, Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'Once businesses start using virtualization to cut back on the number of machines they need to buy, "a light bulb goes on over their head," says Tony Iams, who follows the field for Ideas International, an analyst group,' Gomes writes. 'Other uses become apparent, such as backing up data or easily adding processor power to a particular application as the need arises.' VMware pioneered the market, but now Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two,' Gomes writes. 'The company currently has a fairly rudimentary product, which was involved in its big Linux announcement earlier this month.'"
Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:1)
Re:Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:2)
Re:Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:2)
kde is not emulating windows. kde had it's current look before win2k shipped out. and it's more similar to win2k and winxp in the default look than the look of the win9x.
infact i think that the look of kde was scratched off from the look of solaris. both of them are far better for a workstation layout than anything that microsoft offers (althrough xp finally made it to the virtual desktops, before that there were only hacks on nvidia drivers to achieve this
Re:Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:2)
What they have done is figured out a way to get people to pay for running Linux.
Instead of charging you for a copy of an OS... they'll charge you for every OS you run using their virtualization technology.
Oh... and a copy for every Windows OS you run also.
So, their pricing will probably be something like this:
- price per virtualized partition: $250
- price for Windows OS: $50
- discount for using Windows inside virtualized partition: - $100
Making the total cost for running virtualize
Re:Like My Grandpappy Used To Say... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:2)
Re:Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:2)
Making VS2005R2 a free download is a good start, and the required response to VMWare making their equivalent product free.
I agree wholeheartedly with the last point, this is fantastic for the consumer.
So.. you mean ESX Server? (Score:2)
Re:Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:2)
I think Hypervisor is going to be more than just a server product. It, or something similar is the only real answer to MS ongoing security and stability problems with the NT line OSs.
I think that what they'll eventually do is release Singularity, or whatever its successor is called with Hypervisor tech built in. Singularity will then host an instance of the current XP/Vista to run legacy Win32/64 so
Re:Not doing it will Hurt MS. (Score:2)
See Xbox.
Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is something Microsoft has already done with other products they could not otherwise embrace, extend and extinguish: They simply make it look bad.
Like distributing Java 1.1 for years. Or having pages return degraded content for Opera browsers.
I don't know that they'll introduce actual data corruption, but I can certainly envision the VM doing a number of things very slowly, particularly if it's running Linux or emulating functionality that Linux is known to frequently rely on. It may not even be deliberately hobbled functionality, but rather "lax support" for some key functionality.
Re:Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! (Score:2)
To give a more concrete example of your "hobbling Linux under Virtual Server", they could provide superior "elightenments" (OS patches/drivers that allow the kernel to talk directly to the virtualization software rather than to the virtualized hardware) in Windows to those in other OSes. I wouldn't consider that malicious, though, unless they attempt to keep secret the interfaces for doing this so that it can't be added to Linux by a third party.
Re:Beware of Geeks bearing gifts! (Score:2)
More that likely it involves some device driver needing to be installed on the "guest" OS (say... Linux) requiring elevated permissions (say... root) thus allowing for a backdoor into the system similar to the one they have in Windows.
Microsoft != stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact is that M$ wants to keep its name in the big buisnesses because 10,000 licenses a year is a big deal, plus those big boys of buisness also influence their workers to be familiar with windows, which leads their families to purchase windows, and so on and so on.
Re:Microsoft != stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
The interesting thing (to me) is whether this is a "MS takes over yet another niche" phenomenon or whether this is a "MS desperately trying to slow loss of market share." If they don't support Linux at all, they will lose a certain number of people who decide to go fully Linux to suit their needs. By offering compatible virtualization, MS can also recapture this market. On the other hand, building in this compatibility wil
Re:And Virtualization == Hype (Score:2)
The real advantage to Virtualization is that you can store the process as a single disk image that is first easily backed up and secondly more portable. By having each of your servers virtualized you can quickly expand and contract your equipment. So say your company goes into a period of growth and you get more server load you spread your processes across different systems. And if business gets slow you can save money by putting them back into one spot. Each VM the OS sees it as its o
Re:And Virtualization == Hype (Score:1)
The real advantage to Virtualization is that you can store the process as a single disk image that is first easily backed up and secondly more portable.
This advantage is not because of Virtualization
Disk image backup/restore (i.e. of the -complete- core image+data) has been a staple for computer ops centers for decades. Virtualization too, in
Re:Microsoft != stupid (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft != stupid (Score:1)
Most of us are supporters of the best tool for the job. And as far as companies using windows server solutions. Well yes. For ancilliarlly/non critical services (e-mail/ftp/web etc). And no e-mail/ftp/web is not critical for most companies. All that is to support a core business function. For core systems (database/payroll/hr) it will be Linux or UNIX. Every time.
Supporting Linux doesn't harm MS... for now. (Score:2)
The advantage MS has is that they are the only people that can make changes to the NT kernel. Their virtualization products are written by people in the same division as the NT kernel team, so they can work very closely to ensure that Windows runs optimally atop Virtual Server. No other virtualization product will be able to run Windows better than Virtual Server, and Virtual Server only runs on Windows. If MS then publishes documentation on the interfaces between the guest kernel and the virtualization sof
Re:Wow! (Score:1, Funny)
VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:2)
Re:VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:1)
Re:VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:3, Insightful)
As for slower. That's a question I'm not competent to answer, because I never had the opportunity run an IBM mainframe *without* VM.
IPL CMS, baby!
Re:VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:2)
Re:VMWare "pioneered" the market???? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:VM/386 and VMWare? (Score:2)
Officially, 30 in '02. Now 34.
Re:VM/386 and VMWare? (Score:1)
BTW that is you have a real machine and install VM on it. Then, you bring up a virtual machine and install VM on that. Repeat until until you run out of resources (or get bored).
Re:and... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:and... (Score:5, Informative)
Why? With virtualization, the host OS has no need to understand the guest OS's filesystem any more than it needs to know the guest's binary format. You just point it at a partition or an FS image file, and let it do its thing.
Some of us actually consider that one of the most useful features of running a virtual machine - Absolutely perfect 100% backups involve nothing more complicated than shutting down the guest OS and copying its image file. You can even perfectly backup a running OS that way, you just need to pause it and do a state dump; Then when you restart it, you resume right where you left off.
You can do Ext2/3 now... (Score:2)
See http://www.fs-driver.org/ [fs-driver.org]
Re:and... (Score:2, Informative)
If by "they" you mean the open-source crowd, then check out here [linux-ntfs.org].
If by "they" you mean Microsoft, then check the status here [wikipedia.org].
Re:and... (Score:2)
Re:and... (Score:1)
Copycats (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Copycats (Score:3, Insightful)
Somewhat OT: Check out Parallels [parallels.com], as mentioned in the New York Times (scroll halfway down) [nytimes.com]. It's like VMWare for Macs.
How much support? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are we talking OS configuration and administration support, or merely: "Is your Linux VM booting?" level of support?
I've heard conflicting reports about this. Can anyone set the record straight? I'm asking you, MS Virtual Server team...
Re:How much support? (Score:3, Informative)
First off, a little about how Linux support is accomplished. Virtual Server and Virtual PC use a package of "additions" which are installed in the "guest" virtual machine for performance and useability optimizations. The additions are basically device drivers optimized for for the virtualized hardware used inside the "guest". WIth luck and persistance, you've always been able to run Linux under VPC and
Re:Halfway there (Score:2, Informative)
Vaporware (Score:3, Funny)
It's all vaporware. Vaporware until it actually ships -- if ever.
And in Microsoft's case, it's vaporware until version 3.0 at least.
Or until they buy a company that already knows how to do it properly.
Re:Vaporware (Score:2)
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
Oh come now, that's not true! It wasn't until Windows _2000_ that people actually considered the OS vaguely usable (and I use 'vaguely' in the loosest sense!).
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
touch wood. Lol
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
But just like any virtulization software the OS dosn't perfomre at it's best. ( The same is true for vmware until you install the guest os addin for video and mouse)
I am currently beta testing the vs2005 linux additions pack, which add's linux drivers for scsi, video, mouse drivers, co-ordinated shut down, time sync. Of course the only linux distributions officaly supo
Hardware-supported Virtualization (Score:2)
What Microsoft's products are missing is support for the latest-and-greatest hardware-supported virtualization systems. Both Intel and AMD have (incompatible, competing) technologies in their latest CPUs which allow a lot of the grunt work for virtualization to be done in hardware rather than by emulating devices. The open source virtualization product Xen [xensource.com] can make use of this through its hypervisor [wikipedia.org].
Microsoft is currently working on its own hypervisor-based product, but I seem to remember that they are tyi
Wue Wei ... Wheeeeeeeeee! (Score:2)
It's called, Tao. Don't just know it or acknowledge it. Understand it and Let it flow.
Linux way is the Tao way.
Re:Wue Wei ... Wheeeeeeeeee! (Score:2)
By advocating that only one OS is "the way" you are denying that fact that the Tao is in all things, and ergo, all things are part of the Tao.
Re:Wue Wei ... Wheeeeeeeeee! (Score:1)
By advocating that only one OS is "the way" you are denying that fact that the Tao is in all things, and ergo, all things are part of the Tao.
And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer?
OS sold with server is important (Score:5, Insightful)
MS Virtualization video (Score:3, Interesting)
Channel 9: Virtualization [msdn.com]
You will be able to tell they're ready.... (Score:3, Insightful)
This way, you get a VMware ESX style OS to handle virtual servers on the box which would presumably come with some set number of windows server licenses, and a per virtual server licensing option for windows running on virtualization options other than MS's own.
Sell in option would be to do server consolidation for companies. The pitch? "Let us consolidate these 10 servers onto one box for you, you save the yearly maintenance costs on 9 servers, and we credit your account part of what those 2003 server licenses are costing on all of them to help subsidize the virtualization software with double that number of virtual windows servers licensed on it."
The potential is here for it to be truly insidious.
from the people who brought you Windows ME... (Score:2)
A surprise? (Score:2)
A surprise? Ok, if I knew they were going to do this over two years ago, how did Virtual Server's support of Linux become a surprise?
The *nix subsystem is a BSD variant in Windows as well now, and if Linux gains more popularity, look for a Linux subsystem running on the NT core.
However with Virtual Server support, it is simple economics... Support Linux Images running in Windows 2003, so people that a
It's all about saving on real estate? Hah Hah. (Score:1)
Re:It's all about saving on real estate? Hah Hah. (Score:2)
How much do you lose to virtualization? (Score:2, Interesting)
And what's a bit troubling to me is that this is the second layer of bureaucracy in the machines. The OS already has semi-virtualization turned on to keep the different processes from running into each
Re:It's all about saving on real estate? Hah Hah. (Score:3, Interesting)
In 1996, a "top-end" computer would be a Pentium Pro. At 200Mhz.
10 times this would be 2Ghz (and, yes, I am making the mistake of just comparing clock rate, but I don't have much time).
The job of 10 1996 computers can be merged into one computer today (actually, more, but lets stay simple).
Those 10 systems used rack space, power, a/c, etc.
The problem is that if each of those 10 computers had a task (and we presume they did, or they would not have been deployed) and
Been there... (Score:3, Interesting)
but now Microsoft is 'expected to offer sophisticated virtualization products in the next year or two.
So, what's new. We've seen it before.
1. Say that you are going to release a "new", "feature rich", "superior", etc. product after an year.
2. Businesses stop buy competing products, thus killing the competitors.
3. Release a crappy product, stolen (or bought) from someone, and cripple it more.
4. ?????? (Balmer jumps, etc.)
5. Profit
Oh, crap. (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean I can switch to Linux now? (Score:2)
Does this virtualization stuff mean I can now switch to Linux and run a virtualized Windows session on it to play my Windows-based games?
Steve
Re:Does this mean I can switch to Linux now? (Score:1)
Re:Does this mean I can switch to Linux now? (Score:1)
hehe (Score:2)
it's funny because it's true
Re:hehe (Score:1)
Increasing Virtualization Importance? (Score:2)
Re:Increasing Virtualization Importance? (Score:2)
But when will there be VT compatible hardware ? (Score:1)
KQemu (Score:1)
Virtualisation (Score:2)