Will hypervisors make Ubuntu and other Linux operating systems obsolete?
Computing is on the verge of a major paradigm shift with the modern rise in prominence of virtualisation. Fuelled by big corporates interested in the consolidation and energy saving potentials, improvements in virtualisation have hit the point where Linux could be a casualty.
Here’s why: virtualisation is a hot item for managers of large technology infrastructures. Case studies have proven its potential to greatly reduce the number of server computers in an organisation without any loss of functionality. Servers for different purposes, servers running legacy operating systems, servers running applications that don’t cohabit with each other nicely – even 32- and 64-bit architectures – can all be reduced to a stack of virtualised computers running on a far lesser number of actual servers. Each virtual server continues to have its own identity, its own protected memory and disk storage, its own network address and all else that defines it as a unique fully-fledged machine.
Historically, this necessitated having a “real” operating system on the “real” computer. The software which provides the virtual computers then ran on top like any ordinary application, be it VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server, Xen or something else. The real operating system, as per usual, was loaded with drivers to interface with the hardware. As far as the virtual computers were concerned, the hardware was stock standard stuff; like Neo in the Matrix the virtual environment told it what devices it had which could be worlds apart from the real hardware. This totally removed any dependency the virtual computers had on real hardware configurations – meaning the virtual computer could be relocated from one physical machine to another, with no concern needed about hardware compatibility or drivers.
Now, this got people thinking.
Also: Windows will be killed by virtual appliances: VMware exec
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Will hypervisors make Linux operating systems obsolete?
No.