
%         Using a the Xen Hypervisor to Supercharge OS  Deployment                   
%         Mike D Day (ncmike@us.ibm.com)                 

Hypervisor technology presents some promising  
opportunities for optimizing Linux deployment. 
We discuss modifying initrd and the init       
process to work in cooperation with the Xen    
hypervisor to create any number of unique      
server instances by re-using a single system   
image. By isolating a server's unique          
properties into a set of patches to            
initialization scripts and other selected      
files, deployment of a new server can occur in 
a few seconds. To capture changes to a         
server's configuration that occur while it is  
running, we discuss using an LVM snapshot to   
hold changes to selected files. By separating  
the initialization and file data that make a   
linux server instance unique, that data can be 
stored and retrieved in a number of ways. We   
discuss storing and retrieving different       
initialization patches over the network and    
integration of these capabilities into the Xen 
tools. Potential uses for the techniques       
demonstrated in the paper include capacity on  
demand, and new methods of provisioning        
servers and workstations.                      
