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Sun joins Microsoft on the virtualization wanabes list
Sun officially unveiled its hypervisor technology today. Dubbed xVM server, Sun will essentially offer a customized Solaris version with the open source Xen virtualization technology.
Sun is late with virtualization, but at least not as late as Microsoft. The server maker for years has been offering its Logical Domains (Sparc only) and Virtual Containers in its Solaris operating system. But the market has gathered behind hypervisors, so hypervisors it will be.
By choosing for Xen, Sun can quickly catch up with competitors like Red Hat and Novell. But even then, it quickly becomes obvious that Sun is playing catch-up. When asked about plans to support for Intel's Flexmigration technology, Sun's CTO for software Tim Marsland admitted to being unfamiliar with the technology (it will enable live migrations between future generations of Intel chips, AMD has something similar), and then claimed that it would be up to Intel to add support to Xen.
Sun also has yet to make up its mind on creating an embedded version of its hypervisor, Marsland said. Will Sun support XenMotion, the ability in the upcoming Xen3.1 to move workloads while they are running? Marsland confirmed, but was unable to commit to a timeline.
Sun has some more time to clean up its act. The first xVM component will ship this December, but that's just a management console that will allow IT admin to control the hypervisor and manage the underlying hardware. The actual xVM server will be released as a preview in January and again in March and then launched in the second quarter of 2008.
Sounds like Sun willl launch another VMware competitor that VMware doesn't have to worry about much, at least for now.
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