[ Cloud Computing ] Re: why virtualization?

begin:vcard
fn:Alka Gupta's Cloud
n:Gupta;Alka
org:Sun Microsystems Inc.;http://blogs.sun.com/WebScale
adr:Network Circle;;;Menlo Park;CA;94539;USA
email;internet:Alka.Gupta@Sun.Com
title:WebScale and Cloud Computing Engineer
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url:http://blogs.sun.com/WebScale
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end:vcard

Utpal Datta wrote:
> >> BTW, IMHO, elasticity was never the goal of virtualization not can
> we achieve elasticity by virtualization – they are orthogonal
>
> As far as we know, Amazon is based on a Xen infrastructure (i.e.
> virtualization). How are they achieving elasticity and scalability?
Application needs to include additional software to enable
scalability/elasticity. Tools like RighScale enable that. Amazon does
not have any magic wand to do that.

Alka.
>
> --utpal
>
>
> On 12/17/08, *Krishna Sankar (ksankar)* <ksankar@cisco.com
> <mailto:ksankar@cisco.com>> wrote:
>
> Dan,
>
> Good line of thought. Couple of points:
>
>
>
> a) Power efficiency – I think an 8 core machine (with 7.5 VM
> processes) would use less power than 8 small machines (say powered
> by via itx). But if one is using only one VM and one process, then
> the rest of the power is wasted
>
> b) Yes, from an enterprise IT application infrastructure
> perspective, virtualization s a short term solution with a cloud
> infrastructure as the long term goal
>
> c) Virtualization in some sense is getting more granularity
> than a hardware box (for better utilization) and that would
> eventually shift to the infrastructure providers
>
> d) BTW, IMHO, elasticity was never the goal of virtualization
> not can we achieve elasticity by virtualization – they are orthogonal
>
> e) Same goes with scale and ad-hocness
>
> f) And as you point out, virtualization has serious
> drawbacks – like multi-core and extra overhead.
>
>
>
> Cheers & happy holidays
>
> <k/>
>
>
>
> *From:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com>
> [mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com>] *On Behalf Of *Dan Kearns
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 17, 2008 9:06 AM
> *To:* cloud-computing@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:cloud-computing@googlegroups.com>
> *Subject:* [ Cloud Computing ] why virtualization?
>
>
>
>
> Out of curiosity.... it seems to me that two pretty fundamental
> tenets of cloud computing are contradictory:
>
> Virtualization: a mechanism to get better utilization of existing
> hardware when loads are generally smaller than node capacity, or
> spiky in the time domain
>
> Griddiness: (for lack of a better word) the idea that appropriate
> cloud designs support massive scale, and do it by aggregating many
> small+cheap failure-prone compute units with smarter software
>
> If the goals are to have smarter software and maximize utilization
> (or minimize power consumption for equivalent compute capacity),
> then why introduce the constant runtime overhead of virtualization
> instead of, eg using smaller more power-efficient compute-unit
> designs and making the hardware controllable by software?
>
> Am I missing something, or is virtualization a tactical answer and
> therefore a short-term solution, and not a great place to start
> building management frameworks (for example) on top of?
>
> -d
>
>
>
>
> >

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