Open-Source Virtualization Beckons Users at LinuxWorld

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August 15, 2005 (Computerworld) -- SAN FRANCISCO — The overflow crowd that packed the opening session on virtualization at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo here last week showed that the software holds as much allure for open-source devotees as it does for users of Windows servers.

The upcoming 3.0 version of the open-source Xen virtual machine technology—which allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on the same physical server—is nearing finalization. The leading Linux distributors, Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc., plan to incorporate Xen into the next versions of their operating systems. And new chip technology on the way from Intel Corp. by the end of the year and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. next year promises to boost performance.

Some Linux users, including top financial institutions, have been so anxious to get their hands on the new Xen technology that they have been testing early versions of it, said Simon Crosby, a founder of Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up XenSource Inc., which plans to sell products in support of Xen.

But that doesn't mean they expect to deploy Xen in a production environment anytime soon. Timothy Golden, a senior vice president of Linux engineering at Bank of America Corp., said the company is considering many approaches to Linux virtualization, including Xen, and is anxious to see what lessons are learned by the early adopters.

"Obviously there's a buzz, and we're excited too," he said. "But at this point, it's more important that the industry signals the space is truly enterprise-ready before we rush to production."

Waiting Game

A CIO at a major financial firm who asked not to be named said he doesn't think Xen will be considered for production use until the middle of next year. "Most are doing what we're doing—waiting for Xen to be fully integrated into Linux. In the meantime, we're doing some serious playing," he said.

His company already uses commercial virtualization technology from VMware Inc. for its Windows-based Citrix Systems Inc. terminal servers and its development and quality assurance machines.

Many of the financial firm's thousands of Linux servers see only 25% to 30% utilization and could benefit from virtualization. But the CIO said many users will be reluctant to pay for VM software for large environments.

"We have much more ambitious plans in the Linux space for virtualization," he said. "We want it as fast as anyone else. If we could get it today, we would deploy it. But it's not ready."

Not every Linux user has been willing to wait for the open-source options to materialize. Some IT shops have already virtualized their Linux environments, typically in tandem with Windows servers using software from VMware.

Assurant Inc. purchased VMware software as part of a strategic decision to consolidate its Windows and Linux servers, said Ryan Pearson, a Woodbury, Minn.-based lead systems administrator at the insurance company. Assurant has since found additional benefits, such as a reduction in the time required to provision servers from days to as little as an hour in some cases.

Pearson said that Xen looks promising and that his company will likely consider it if it has the same capabilities as VMware's software.

J.R. Simplot Co. ran out of space for racks in its data center and turned to VMware about three years ago to virtualize both its Windows and Linux server environments, said Tony Adams, a technology analyst at the Boise, Idaho-based agribusiness.

The company was able to eliminate hardware at roughly a 3-to-1 ratio and now has 150 Windows "guest" operating systems and about 50 Linux instances running on 15 physical servers equipped with VMware software, Adams said.

David Trainor, a senior middleware analyst at Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., which owns and franchises KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and other fast-food franchises in about 100 countries, said the company will likely stick with VMware. Yum has already made the business case for it, estimating savings at $250,000 in the first year, Trainor said.

Some of the company's Windows servers were using as little as 1% or 2% of their processing power, Trainor said. Yum expects to have 276 virtual machines on 60 boxes by year's end, he added.

So far, many of the pain points of server sprawl that virtualization software can help to alleviate are most visible with Windows, noted Tony Iams, an analyst at Ideas International Inc. He said it's unclear whether Linux servers will encounter the same underutilization issues.

New Linux Deployments

The following customer announcements were made at last week’s LinuxWorld: Ritz Camera Centers plans to deploy the Novell Linux Desktop in more than 1,200 stores for their point-of-sale systems. The Indiana Department of Education plans to deploy Linux in high schools, starting with 1,600 desktops running the Novell Linux Desktop on Dell hardware. Baldor Electric shifted its SAP applications from Unix-based servers to a single IBM eServer zSeries 990 running Linux.

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