Remember the hypervisor footprint debate? You know, the one where Microsoft Virtualization declares that it is nothing but VMware FUD to tout the benefits of a small-footprint hypervisor.
I just found another point of view on hypervisor footprint size — take a look at this excerpt:
Small footprint: any features not applicable to our specific … scenarios are removed. This guarantees that we do not have to worry about updating or fixing unnecessary code, meaning less churning or required reboots for the host. All critical code paths are also highly optimized for our … scenarios.
Any guesses where that came from? Must be more of that VMware FUD!
Actually, it was one of the Windows Azure design principles. Which makes sense if you think about it — vSphere, with small-footprint ESXi, is the perfect foundation for cloud computing.
The very same approach MS itself took with the “Server core” option.
If what matter is what it running in memory, why the hell MS created this Server Core option for windows server 2008 ????
Isn’t it ironic that the best design principles for a cloud worthy hypervisor is to strip out as much of the ‘Windows’ code as possible?
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Eric, don’t you think that clearly means azure won’t be built over Hyper-V as the rumor says ?
The best way to think of the Azure hypervisor is that it is a fork of Hyper-V optimized for a particular use case.
It’s almost like a general-purpose OS is not the most effective foundation for a hypervisor/cloud infrastructure…
LOL, that’s the MS approach.
Footprint does not matter until Hyper has a small footprint;
VMotion is not needed until Hyper-V v2.0 introduces Live Migration;
Storage migration is not needed until ………..
FT is not needed until …….
So with Hyper-V footprint does not matter but with Azure it becomes the most important feature. The ‘quick’ story continues 😉
Talking about footprint, what about Microsoft’s hidden project called ‘WinMin’ !? 25Mb on disk 40MB on RAM. But maybe its all about rumours… More at http://deinoscloud.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/winmin-a-multi-layer-os-ala-linux/
ok, you hate hyper-v, we start to understand..
well.. you, and many, many people will hate it more and more..
How happy am I to use both, enjoying them both.. the only way to have somewhat a good idea about them..