Microsoft has made a very interesting virtualization play this week by submitting source code for the Linux kernel. This will allow Linux guests to run on the maturing Windows 2008 hypervisor, Microsoft Hyper-V. This is an unexpected move from Microsoft to publicly release source code and an indicator of their appetite to compete with VMware’s dominate market share.
Microsoft stuns Linux world, submits source code for kernel
In an historic move, Microsoft Monday submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPLv2 license. The code consists of four drivers that are part of a technology called Linux Device Driver for Virtualization.
Microsoft Linux Move Puts Pressure on VMware
Microsoft’s historic embrace of Linux technology could have wide-reaching impacts on the virtualization market and Microsoft’s rival VMware.
By allowing greater ability to run Linux on the Hyper-V virtualization platform, Microsoft is making a compelling case that it could be the virtualization vendor of choice for consolidation of Windows and Linux applications, says Gartner analyst George Weiss.
Discovering that your ESX hosts have been unknowingly creating open snapshots can be an alarming, not to mention dangerous, event.
Third party storage and backup vendors frequently call the vCenter API to issue a snapshot creation of running virtual machines before they grab a copy of the virtual machine’s hard disk – VMDK files – which are located on the VMware VMFS datastore. This process is typically followed by an immediate deletion of the snapshot file which will merge the changes back into the initial VMDK file. Problems can occur when this process does not complete successfully leaving you with an “open” snapshot. This problem is compounded when it occurs multiple times against the same guest.
Each open snapshot can significantly degrade virtual machine performance and also contribute to poor storage utilization. Unless you monitor each of your virtual machines on a daily basis, you could quickly be left with an uncomfortable situation on your hands.
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