[OT] Virtualization (WAS: UNIX V7)

[Johnny Billquist]

Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at Update.UU.SE> wrote:

> (Sorry for keeping this OT discussion continue, but one of my questions 
> are vaguely on topic)

This will definitely go back to on-topic... :-)

>> > These people think it's efficient to run a copy of Windows 2003 on a
>> > server (which needs a couple of gig of RAM to work well) and then run
>> > multiple VMs on that containing copies of Windows 2003 or other
>> > flavours of Windows. They think virtualisation is new and clever and
>> > it doesn't occur to them that not only is this wasteful of resources,
>> > but it's a nightmare to keep all those copies patched and current.
>> > 
> 
> I'm curious, what OS:es and software did virtualisation before 
> VMware/XEN/Virtualbox and the like ?

The most famous would be OS/VM, I guess. IBM did that already in the 70s 
(or was it even the 60s?).

There are an OS for the PDP-8 (put on the net by me, on ftp.update years 
ago actually) called MULTOS-8, which creates a number of virtual PDP-8s. 
Each normally boots and runs OS/8.

> Also, why is it wasteful of resources?

There is always overhead involved.

> And finaly, why would keeping virtual installations up to date be any 
> harder than non-virtual?

Harder to keep track of all the virtual machines you (might) have?

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol