"Today, IBM announced a public beta trial of a virtual Linux environment that will let x86 applications run on its System p Unix servers without modification. The new IBM System p Application Virtual Environment technology will allow x86 binaries to run as well without modification, removing the biggest barrier against effective virtualization for some companies. As a result, customers will be able to consolidate dozens, if not hundreds, of servers into one virtual environment."
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Member since:2006-01-05
Member since:2006-04-18
Sounds very similar to lxrun on Solaris..
Not exactly. According to the FAQ, lxrun only works on x86 Solaris, not SPARC. This tool seems more (as someone pointed out) like Rosetta for Linux x86 -> Linux POWER.
So I'd be interested to see an example use case for this. And not including OSS for which I could simply compile native versions nor any proprietary software for which my support would become void.
While the tech is neat, you're right, there's not a wide need for this software. It's not something I'd build my large parts of my infrastructure on. But, if I had lots of POWER servers, and some piece of software that was critical and x86-only, it would be useful.
Member since:2006-01-26
Not exactly. According to the FAQ, lxrun only works on x86 Solaris, not SPARC. This tool seems more (as someone pointed out) like Rosetta for Linux x86 -> Linux POWER.
Yea, you're right. lxrun / Sun's project Janus was the first thing that came to mind when I read the article and although they are not exactly comparible technologies they share many of the same issues that will prevent adoption.
The ISV's go through a lot of work to develop, test and ultimately support their products on the major Linux distro/architecture combinations, namely RHEL and SLES on x86. So unless you can run a full x86 RHEL or SLES install under pAVE and it is supported by Red Hat and/or Novell I dont really see this going anywhere.
But, if I had lots of POWER servers, and some piece of software that was critical and x86-only, it would be useful.
If it was critical, would you really want to run it in this sort of unique config or on the tried and true (and likely far better supported from the app vendor) x86 configuration?
The article states:
Although approximately 2,800 Linux-based applications run on IBM's POWER processor-based System p servers, there are tens of thousands which will run only on less advanced x86 servers.
I guess the POWER guys forgot to actually look at what the x86 guys were doing. IBM sells highly scalable x86 servers today. The x3950 scales up to 32 processors (64 cores) and 512GB of memory..
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/scalable/x3950/index.html
If I were looking to consolidate my x86 Linux workload on an IBM platform, I'd be looking at IBM's X Architecture. The x3950 running RHEL or SLES with Xen (or even VMWare ESX) would be a very nice consolidation platform AND would not require any funky emulation or syscall mapping. It has the additional benefit in that you could not only consolidate your Linux workload, but your Windows workload as well.
Member since:
2006-01-26
Sounds very similar to lxrun on Solaris..
http://www.sun.com/software/linux/compatibility/lxrun/index.xml
The problem with these implementations is that there really isn't any 3rd party support for them. Nor any real demand.. Afterall, why run the Linux x86 binary for (insert application name here) when you can just run the native version? Certainly they're not suggesting you run some commercial x86 Linux software for which there is no native version under this mechanism.. right? I highly doubt that would be a supported configuration under the support terms of those 3rd party providers.
So I'd be interested to see an example use case for this. And not including OSS for which I could simply compile native versions nor any proprietary software for which my support would become void.