4 ms·

We were here back in 2005 with the introduction of Solaris zones, which now live on in SmartOS. Took GNU/Linux “only“ 12 years to begin to catch up. This might

We were here back in 2005 with the introduction of Solaris zones, which now live on in SmartOS. Took GNU/Linux “only“ 12 years to begin to catch up. This might be new to you, but it’s nothing new to those of us who built private clouds back in 2005/2006. Just don’t think it’s new because it isn’t.

mpe 9y ago
Zones are not VMs. If you need to vent your Linux hate at least save it for a post about Docker.
- Annatar 9y ago
  I don’t need to be patronized on the difference between zones and VM’s as I’m also one of those VMware users from 1999 in Brendan’s article. Zones however are superior to VM’s because they don’t require hard pre-allocation of resources like virtual machines do, so they are a superior choice in environments where Windows isn’t desired or required. As for my Linux hate, if Linux were so great and well made, I wouldn’t hate it. I like well made things.
  - aquadrop 9y ago
    > Zones however are superior to VM’s because they don’t require hard pre-allocation of resources like virtual machines do, so they are a superior choice in environments where Windows isn’t desired or required. In public cloud that's not a problem, that's a requirement, so one VM wouldn't trash all its neighbors.
    - Annatar 9y ago
      That is what containers are for. On SmartOS a container is used to constrain resource limits of a zone, but if a zone is using less than the limits it’s more efficient in terms of hardware. However, if one is not using this technology, one is forced to hard partition with virtual machines.
  - _wmd 9y ago
    You're arguing one edge of a very much double-edged sword, and I must say (as someone that was deploying the linux-vserver patches by at least 2004) it's incredibly tiring to watch.
    - Annatar 9y ago
      No less tiring than reading about re-inventing virtualization in Linux. For both of us the fix is the same: either don’t read it or remark how tiresome it is. Where we both agree is that it’s tiresome, but for very different reasons.
    - j_s 9y ago
      Yes there is definitely a way to praise alternatives without railing against the current discussion topic. Some may appreciate being made aware of another technology; unfortunately this specific example reinforces the importance of marketing and pursuing mindshare.
  - orf 9y ago
    You do understand how unsuitable zones are in a public cloud like AWS, right? Why are you even having this discussion.
    - Annatar 9y ago
      Perhaps it is because given technical capability, I cannot understand why Amazon is even being discussed when it is technically inferior to what Joyent offers and Amazon is the most expensive provider.
      - orf 9y ago
        > I cannot understand why... Sounds to me that your understanding is the real problem here. There are a lot of resources you can use to read up on the value proposition, and while I do think AWS is pretty expensive and perhaps priced a bit too high, it's a great platform that goes way beyond just the speed of the VM tech.
  - hyperbovine 9y ago
    > As for my Linux hate, if Linux were so great and well made, I wouldn’t hate it. With Linux running on ~10^11 devices, everything from watches to supercomputers to the Falcon 9 rocket, the market disagrees with you to a pretty comical extent.
    - Annatar 9y ago
      Historia est magistra vitae. When have the masses ever been correct?
      - hyperbovine 9y ago
        I dunno, most of the time? They some years ago decided learning Latin was pointless, for example.
        Annatar 9y ago
        Masses have always been wrong, to the extent that they burned and killed innocent people for one reason or another. No mass has ever produced any innovation; if you look at revolutionary inventions, they were always invented by single persons or very small, focused group of individuals, but never masses. Masses don't have the competence to judge whether that which they are following is good or bad, correct or incorrect. That's why they follow. It's what defines them as a mass. As for Latin, this is the same reasoning of "learning" Linux and not understanding UNIX and mis-configuring the OS or breaking Linux backwards compatibility. Or re-inventing the wheel all the time while basic functionality like booting or the fiberchannel stack still do not work correctly after 20+ years. Thank you masses for all the sleepless nights I was forced to endure because Linux has the same problems Solaris solved decades ago. Because masses know what's good and what's bad.
Erwin 9y ago
You know the author of this piece is Brendan Gregg, right? DTrace author, performance guru, ex-Sun engineer and lead performance engineer at Joyent. And now a full time Linux guy. He doesn't think it's so bad apparently!
- Annatar 9y ago
  Yes, I know that; we even corresponded privately. However, call to authority does not magically validate Amazon, nor does it magically invalidate my points. Nothing Brendan wrote contradicts the points either of us made.
  - openasocket 9y ago
    What is your point, exactly? That we shouldn't care about hardware-backed virtualization because we have zones? That AWS should go home and re-write EC2 to just be zones instead of VMs?
    - Annatar 9y ago
      What is your point, exactly? That we shouldn't care about hardware-backed virtualization because we have zones? Yes! That AWS should go home and re-write EC2 to just be zones instead of VMs? There is no reason for AWS to exist.
      - openasocket 9y ago
        Zones aren't a replacement for VMs. With VMs you can have different OSes, for example, which is not generally possible with a zone (you can do some stuff with syscall routing to do this in certain ways, but requires support from the root container). In a zone you can't do a variety of things that require higher level kernel access, like installing custom kernel modules. Zones also have a higher attack surface, which matters quite a lot when you are dealing with a multi-tenancy situation. But I'm pretty sure you knew that already.
        9y ago
openasocket 9y ago
> Took GNU/Linux “only“ 12 years to begin to catch up. What does Linux have to do with this? This is a new hypervisor backed by hardware virtualization, it isn't remotely related to Linux. Sure, you can run Linux on EC2, but you can also run literally any other OS as well.
brendangregg 9y ago
Solaris Zones were great, but AWS Nitro is better.
- Annatar 9y ago
  It’s also proprietary, runs only on AWS and costs more than zones since AWS is the most expensive. How does AWS Nitro help solve the hard resource preallocation problem? What about CPU bursting capability of the mighty illumos kernel, how does AWS Nitro compare? Can you beat zones on pricing (in terms of resources required) with AWS Nitro?

mpe 9y ago

Zones are not VMs. If you need to vent your Linux hate at least save it for a post about Docker.

Annatar 9y ago
I don’t need to be patronized on the difference between zones and VM’s as I’m also one of those VMware users from 1999 in Brendan’s article. Zones however are superior to VM’s because they don’t require hard pre-allocation of resources like virtual machines do, so they are a superior choice in environments where Windows isn’t desired or required. As for my Linux hate, if Linux were so great and well made, I wouldn’t hate it. I like well made things.
- aquadrop 9y ago
  > Zones however are superior to VM’s because they don’t require hard pre-allocation of resources like virtual machines do, so they are a superior choice in environments where Windows isn’t desired or required. In public cloud that's not a problem, that's a requirement, so one VM wouldn't trash all its neighbors.
  - Annatar 9y ago
    That is what containers are for. On SmartOS a container is used to constrain resource limits of a zone, but if a zone is using less than the limits it’s more efficient in terms of hardware. However, if one is not using this technology, one is forced to hard partition with virtual machines.
- _wmd 9y ago
  You're arguing one edge of a very much double-edged sword, and I must say (as someone that was deploying the linux-vserver patches by at least 2004) it's incredibly tiring to watch.
  - Annatar 9y ago
    No less tiring than reading about re-inventing virtualization in Linux. For both of us the fix is the same: either don’t read it or remark how tiresome it is. Where we both agree is that it’s tiresome, but for very different reasons.
  - j_s 9y ago
    Yes there is definitely a way to praise alternatives without railing against the current discussion topic. Some may appreciate being made aware of another technology; unfortunately this specific example reinforces the importance of marketing and pursuing mindshare.
- orf 9y ago
  You do understand how unsuitable zones are in a public cloud like AWS, right? Why are you even having this discussion.
  - Annatar 9y ago
    Perhaps it is because given technical capability, I cannot understand why Amazon is even being discussed when it is technically inferior to what Joyent offers and Amazon is the most expensive provider.
    - orf 9y ago
      > I cannot understand why... Sounds to me that your understanding is the real problem here. There are a lot of resources you can use to read up on the value proposition, and while I do think AWS is pretty expensive and perhaps priced a bit too high, it's a great platform that goes way beyond just the speed of the VM tech.
- hyperbovine 9y ago
  > As for my Linux hate, if Linux were so great and well made, I wouldn’t hate it. With Linux running on ~10^11 devices, everything from watches to supercomputers to the Falcon 9 rocket, the market disagrees with you to a pretty comical extent.
  - Annatar 9y ago
    Historia est magistra vitae. When have the masses ever been correct?
    - hyperbovine 9y ago
      I dunno, most of the time? They some years ago decided learning Latin was pointless, for example.
      - Annatar 9y ago
        Masses have always been wrong, to the extent that they burned and killed innocent people for one reason or another. No mass has ever produced any innovation; if you look at revolutionary inventions, they were always invented by single persons or very small, focused group of individuals, but never masses. Masses don't have the competence to judge whether that which they are following is good or bad, correct or incorrect. That's why they follow. It's what defines them as a mass. As for Latin, this is the same reasoning of "learning" Linux and not understanding UNIX and mis-configuring the OS or breaking Linux backwards compatibility. Or re-inventing the wheel all the time while basic functionality like booting or the fiberchannel stack still do not work correctly after 20+ years. Thank you masses for all the sleepless nights I was forced to endure because Linux has the same problems Solaris solved decades ago. Because masses know what's good and what's bad.

Erwin 9y ago

You know the author of this piece is Brendan Gregg, right? DTrace author, performance guru, ex-Sun engineer and lead performance engineer at Joyent. And now a full time Linux guy. He doesn't think it's so bad apparently!

Annatar 9y ago
Yes, I know that; we even corresponded privately. However, call to authority does not magically validate Amazon, nor does it magically invalidate my points. Nothing Brendan wrote contradicts the points either of us made.
- openasocket 9y ago
  What is your point, exactly? That we shouldn't care about hardware-backed virtualization because we have zones? That AWS should go home and re-write EC2 to just be zones instead of VMs?
  - Annatar 9y ago
    What is your point, exactly? That we shouldn't care about hardware-backed virtualization because we have zones? Yes! That AWS should go home and re-write EC2 to just be zones instead of VMs? There is no reason for AWS to exist.
    - openasocket 9y ago
      Zones aren't a replacement for VMs. With VMs you can have different OSes, for example, which is not generally possible with a zone (you can do some stuff with syscall routing to do this in certain ways, but requires support from the root container). In a zone you can't do a variety of things that require higher level kernel access, like installing custom kernel modules. Zones also have a higher attack surface, which matters quite a lot when you are dealing with a multi-tenancy situation. But I'm pretty sure you knew that already.
      - 9y ago

openasocket 9y ago

> Took GNU/Linux “only“ 12 years to begin to catch up. What does Linux have to do with this? This is a new hypervisor backed by hardware virtualization, it isn't remotely related to Linux. Sure, you can run Linux on EC2, but you can also run literally any other OS as well.

brendangregg 9y ago

Solaris Zones were great, but AWS Nitro is better.

Annatar 9y ago
It’s also proprietary, runs only on AWS and costs more than zones since AWS is the most expensive. How does AWS Nitro help solve the hard resource preallocation problem? What about CPU bursting capability of the mighty illumos kernel, how does AWS Nitro compare? Can you beat zones on pricing (in terms of resources required) with AWS Nitro?