x86: Virtualization Using the Sun xVM Hypervisor

This system resource enhancement is new in the Developer 1/08 release.

The goal of virtualization is to move from managing individual datacenter components to managing pools of resources. By consolidating multiple hosts and services on a single machine, virtualization reduces costs through the sharing of hardware, infrastructure, and administration.

The Sun xVM Hypervisor is based on the work of the Xen open source community. In a running system, the Hypervisor fits between the hardware and the operating system instance. The Hypervisor can securely execute multiple virtual machines simultaneously on a single x86-compatible computer, with each virtual machine running its own operating system.

Each virtual machine instance is called a domain. There are two kinds of domains. There is one control domain, also called domain 0, or dom0. A guest operating system is called a guest domain, also referred to as domain U or domU. You can have multiple guest domains on your system.

Within Hypervisor based solutions, there are two basic types of virtualization, full virtualization and paravirtualization. The Hypervisor supports both modes. A system can have both paravirtualized and fully virtualized domains running simultaneously.

The xVM Hypervisor virtualizes the system's hardware. This means that it transparently shares and partitions the system's resources, such as CPUs, memory, and NICs, among the guest domains.

The Hypervisor runs on x64 and x86 based systems. Supported configurations include Solaris dom0, and Solaris domU, Linux domU, FreeBSD domU, and Windows domU guests. Solaris zones and branded zones can be run within a Solaris domU.

For more information, see the following:

• System Administration Guide: Virtualization Using the Solaris Operating System

• http://opensolaris.org/os/community/xen

• Man pages:

  • xVM(5)

  • virsh(1M)

  • virt-install(1M)

  • xenconsoled(1M)

  • xend(1M)

  • xenstored(1M)

  • xentop(1M)

  • xm(1M)