From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: graham Subject: Re: App virtualisation, not OS virtualisation Date: Thu, 27 Oct 2005 20:01:54 +0100 Message-ID: <43612422.7010702@lycos.co.uk> References: <4356EAF7.6030707@t5labs.com> <2b6116b30510201151ia4e23ddja371a84fde98bd1a@mail.gmail.com> <4357EB6B.7050103@lycos.co.uk> <200510211520.38127.mark.williamson@cl.cam.ac.uk> <2ec03a9d0510271155l2bef543gf83241bfa077ce93@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: <2ec03a9d0510271155l2bef543gf83241bfa077ce93@mail.gmail.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Errors-To: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com Cc: xen-devel@lists.xensource.com List-Id: xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org >>>e OS. >>> >>> >>Not really: Xen is extremely oriented towards encapsulating operating systems. >>Encapsulating an application (whilst useful) is too "high level" for Xen; >>it's really a separate problem space, since it'd basically share no code in >>common with Xens current functionality. >> >> > >On a sort of related note, I was wondering if it was on any roadmap to >support RAM sharing between OS instances -- like with VMware's clone >feature (or something like that), I think if you had two very similar >VMs, they would actually use less RAM and disk than each have, they >would just diverge where they are different (some sort of >copy-on-write scheme). > >Thanks > > Yes, that would solve my concern about wasted resource of having multiple copies of the same OS when all I want to do is run multiple apps. In my case, I don't mind waiting 6 months for the virtualisation-enabled AMD or Intel processors to be available. BTW, in my case I intend using Windows XP embedded which, amongst other things, will allow me to reduce the footprint of the Windows OS. I am assuming that there shouldn't be any problems with that with the current plans for Xen supporting Windows (?). g.