Virtualized Suse runs better with patch / VMware’s VMI standard
June 18th, 2008 | 
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I’ve heard VMware briefly speak about the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) standard for the last few years. For example, it seems VMI is always a topic during one or more of the Keynote sessions at VMworld. However. I can’t recall ever hearing about VMI in the real world – that is , hearing about the progress of different operating systems integrating VMI. So, when I read the Techworld article Novell gives Suse kernel a VMware boost it made me realize that the open virtualization standard is alive and well. In fact, after a little research I discovered that popular GNU/Linux distributions now ship with VMI support enabled by default.
First of all, what is VMI? VMware has a couple of web pages on the subject. The Transparent Paravirtualization page provides a good introduction.
“In 2005, VMware proposed a paravirtualization interface, the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI), as a communication mechanism between the guest operating system and the hypervisor. This interface enabled transparent paravirtualization in which a single binary version of the operating system can run either on native hardware or on a hypervisor in paravirtualized mode.”
More information can also be found on VMware’s Technology Preview for Transparent Paravirtualization web page.
“The transparent virtualization interface supports hypervisor diversity, allowing the same kernel to run on VMware’s hypervisor, on other hypervisors, or on a native machine.”
In my own words, VMI is a standard for the enhancement of an operating system to better access to the resources of a virtualization host. If all of the virtualization platform vendors adopt the open standard and more and more OS kernels integrate VMI, virtualized guests will consistently perform better regardless of which host they are running on. It turns out that VMI reached a major milestone when this standard was merged in the main Linux kernel version 2.6.21. That means any Linux distribution running the 2.6.21 kernel or higher has built in VMI support by default!
Now, let’s get back to the Techworld article about the SLES 10 patch for VMI.
“The upgrade to the SuSE Linux Enterprise kernel lets it take advantage of para-virtualisation techniques so it runs more efficiently as a guest operating system. Specifically, Novell has built in support for VMware’s Virtual Machine Interface (VMI).”
There is a downloadable patch or VMI integration is also available in SLES 10 Service Pack 2.
Improvements to the SLES kernel also help performance on other virtualization platforms.
“Novell also has a kernel patch to support paravirtualisation of SLES on the Xen hypervisor that SLES uses when it is serving as a host environment.“
“In addition, Novell has been working with Microsoft in a lab the two opened last September to ensure SLES runs in a paravirtualised mode on top of Windows Hyper-V, which is slated to ship later this summer. The two also are ensuring Windows Server 2008 runs in enlightened mode on top of Novell’s Xen hypervisor.”
Be sure to read the whole Techworld.com article.
Technorati Tags: virtualization, vmi, linux, sles, suse, vmware
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