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I think Unikernels are the next steps after the lightweight containers trend, in short an execution environment free of all the unused clutter an OS brings for

I think Unikernels are the next steps after the lightweight containers trend, in short an execution environment free of all the unused clutter an OS brings for just executing one application. http://t.co/JRxG2RGRgp http://t.co/JRxG2RGRgp What do you think of this?

amirmc 12y ago
I completely agree and the workflow does away with the need for a vast number of configuration management tools too. Also, John Carmack also thinks they're "really interesting" [1] (the link in his tweet takes you to the academic paper). If you've used Unikernels for anything, I'd really like to know about your experience. Please do get in touch with me (see profile). Side note: Why use a Twitter short URL when the original [2] is pretty succinct anyway? [1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/476046680698003458 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/476046680698003458 [2] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628
- jgrodziski 12y ago
  Hi Amir, Thanks for your reply, don't have time to invest that much in unikernel, I just keep an eye on it. But the use case is very appealing to me and to you according to your writings on your blog :) I'll keep in touch if I investigate further the Unikernel way. Thanks for the John Carmack's tweet, very interesting, and a validation of our intuition by one of the greatest programmers :) Side note : I sent the comment from my smartphone and the quickest way to retrieve the link to the ACM article on Unikernel is by browsing my twitter feed :) hence the twitter short URL
krakensden 12y ago
I'm pretty skeptical. First, it's rarely ever really one application. There's a primary application, sure, but there's also a bunch of processes that monitor it, clean up its logs, perform system maintenance, etc. Second, you lose 100% of the tooling for debugging. Finally, and most importantly, your operating system does an awful lot of stuff that is not trivial, not in the slightest. The Linux kernel has better page cache algorithms than your unikernel, a better networking stack, vastly better hardware support, etc. Plus tons of people thinking about how to make it better every day. No one is going to port that to OCaml.
- justincormack 12y ago
  There are other solutions along these lines that are not written in OCaml. And generally the idea is to provide these other things as libraries, so you get a sockets library, and hardware support you can link in. eg the NetBSD rump kernel (http://rumpkenerl.org http://rumpkenerl.org) lets you reuse any netbsd driver, such as the ip stack or a filesystem, as a library.

amirmc 12y ago

I completely agree and the workflow does away with the need for a vast number of configuration management tools too. Also, John Carmack also thinks they're "really interesting" [1] (the link in his tweet takes you to the academic paper). If you've used Unikernels for anything, I'd really like to know about your experience. Please do get in touch with me (see profile). Side note: Why use a Twitter short URL when the original [2] is pretty succinct anyway? [1] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/476046680698003458 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/476046680698003458 [2] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628

jgrodziski 12y ago
Hi Amir, Thanks for your reply, don't have time to invest that much in unikernel, I just keep an eye on it. But the use case is very appealing to me and to you according to your writings on your blog :) I'll keep in touch if I investigate further the Unikernel way. Thanks for the John Carmack's tweet, very interesting, and a validation of our intuition by one of the greatest programmers :) Side note : I sent the comment from my smartphone and the quickest way to retrieve the link to the ACM article on Unikernel is by browsing my twitter feed :) hence the twitter short URL

krakensden 12y ago

I'm pretty skeptical. First, it's rarely ever really one application. There's a primary application, sure, but there's also a bunch of processes that monitor it, clean up its logs, perform system maintenance, etc. Second, you lose 100% of the tooling for debugging. Finally, and most importantly, your operating system does an awful lot of stuff that is not trivial, not in the slightest. The Linux kernel has better page cache algorithms than your unikernel, a better networking stack, vastly better hardware support, etc. Plus tons of people thinking about how to make it better every day. No one is going to port that to OCaml.

justincormack 12y ago
There are other solutions along these lines that are not written in OCaml. And generally the idea is to provide these other things as libraries, so you get a sockets library, and hardware support you can link in. eg the NetBSD rump kernel (http://rumpkenerl.org http://rumpkenerl.org) lets you reuse any netbsd driver, such as the ip stack or a filesystem, as a library.