Xen Gains Momentum

Xen is a system that allows multiple operating systems to be run in parallel. It has recently gained momentum with the endorsement of Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Red Hat, Intel, AMD, Novell and others. Xen distinguishes itself from a similar system called VMware in that it allows for paravirtualization, which facilitates faster execution at the expense of requiring some modifications to the operating systems being run in virtual mode. The common approach of running multiple operating systems simultaneously is called virtualization, whereby a software layer simulates the actual hardware to provide the flexibility needed to support multiple operating systems. Xen is operational on Linux running on x86 processors, such as Intel’s Pentium processors, and efforts to bring it the 64-bit x86 platform are under way. Read more…