I am thinking about using virtualization for my next hosting setup. IMO, operating system level virtualization is ideal in a web hosting environment for a number of reasons. In my research so far, it looks like OpenVZ or VServer are the two main contenders. Based on this review:

http://www.fry-it.com/at/linux-virtu...nvz-vs-vserver

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati...virtualization

It looks like OpenVZ has a slight advantage in the area of documentation, resource management, and container (VE, context) migration.

However, for both of the above projects, Slackware is not officially supported. Therefore, I think I will probably have to invest some time and energy getting the projects to work with 12.1. Therefore, I would like to make a wise decision upfront about which project to work with.

Here are my thoughts so far:

OpenVZ Advantages:

• Commercial Backing
• Solid Documentation
• Resource Management
• Migration of guests built in

VServer Advantages:

• Kernel changes are more "vanilla" which would seem to better jive with the "spirit" of Slackware and provide for easier kernel patches if needed
• supports unification of guest OS files

What are your thoughts? Do you think Pat would ever be interested in including one of these packages by default in Slackware?

Thanks.

A bit of a digression from the topic ... but when did "emulation" start being called "virtualization" instead?

See here: http://blog.1530technologies.com/200...l_machine.html

If the two OSs use different architectures, you must "emulate" the hardware. Virtualization tries to use the host hardware (the CPU) directly to run an entire OS on top of it. If you wanted to run an old Apple OS you'd need to use emulation (it's illegal, just thought it would be a good example) using PearPC or some such thing. If you want to run an OS designed for an ARM processor (like a PalmOS or some such thing) then you need to emulate the hardware using software (or rewrite the entire OS for the new architecture).

That's just my understanding though, and is probably wrong.

this is the most common mistake nowdays. everytime something comes out, like wine, or openvz, people think of it as an emulator. it is using the processor natively, so it isnt emulation. it is (usually hardware supported) virtualization. alot like the old apache vhost. you wouldnt call that emulation would you? this is just an entire operating system.