OpenxVM at a Glance

So, what is OpenxVM? The OpenxVM project was created to bring together a community interested in developing technologies that would enable virtualization to both desktop and server resources. OpenxVM currently consists of two core projects:

• xVM Server - virtualization for the server
• xVM VirtualBox - virtualization for the desktop

Read more about both projects and the technology they use in the sections below.

xVM Server

xVM Server is a data-center grade, bare-metal virtualization engine that provides hypervisor life-cycle management for servers. It is designed to be a cross-platform, high efficiency, open source hypervisor capable of hosting multiple guest operating systems (including Solaris, Windows, and Linux), with advanced CPU and memory handling capabilities. The server is being built using technology from the Xen open source project as well as Sun™ Logical Domains (LDOMS). xVM Server turns the computer into a dedicated virtualization Software Appliance with a top-of-the-line, easy-to-use interface you attach to over a standard https connection. The data model is exposed as public programming interfaces via WS-MAN allowing direct web-service access to the public APIs from any WS-MAN client.

xVM Server is being developed with some basic hypervisor design principles and some key capabilities outlined below. Developers can find more information about xVM Server and consuming the public APIs at the xVMServer.org project site when it goes live in the Fall of 2008.

Design Principles:

• Existing applications and binaries must run unmodified
• Support for multi-process, multi-application application environments
  • Permit complex server configurations to be virtualized within a single guest OS instance
• Paravirtualization (PV) enables high performance and strong isolation between domains
  • Particularly on uncooperative architectures (x86)
• Support up to 100 active VM instances on modern servers
• Live migration of VM instances between servers

Key Capabilities:

• Checkpoint/restart and live migration
  • Managed provisioning
  • Grid operations: virtual platform
• Multiple OSes running simultaneously
  • Solaris, Linux, Windows
  • No longer a boot-time decision
• Special purpose kernels
  • JVM, drivers, file systems, ...

UI Sneak Peek

The UI that is served up by xVM Server's embedded web server is still under development, but coming along quickly. This part of the project is being developed using a new AJAX toolkit. Click here to see a sneak peek, early representation of some of the UI screens for xVM Server. You will also see this UI in Sun's™ xVM Ops Center 2.0 (due for release this summer). It's not complete yet, but gives you a sense what things will look like. The most impressive thing about this interface can't be seen from a static screen shot. The new UI architecture does a considerable amount of processing on the client. This means way fewer trips to the server, and provides for near instantaneous feedback on most actions.

xVM VirtualBox

xVM VirtualBox is an extremely feature rich, high performance, x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Presently, xVM VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts, and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD. It's the world's most popular open source virtualization platform because of its fast performance, ease of use, rich functionality, and modular design.

xVM VirtualBox's key features and benefits include:

• Run multiple operating systems concurrently on the same computer
• Open APIs and Modular Design
• High Performance
• Rich Host/Guest integration
• Great hardware and device support
• Snapshots
• High Security
• Open Source

xVM VirtualBox is available for download today, and has a mature community and documentation library. Visit the project site to access technical documents, user manuals, screen shots, FAQ's, and binary and source downloads. You will also find community forums and aliases, and instructions on how to contribute to the VirtualBox project.

Learn more about the origins of OpenxVM at the Sun™ xVM Software Information Exchange. This wiki is rich with video overviews, training webinars, FAQs, product documentation and much more.