
%         Registration            Linux Virtualization on Virtual Iron VFe    
%  [2]Register/Submit Proposal Alex Vasilevsky (alex@virtualiron.com)         

After many years of research and development,  
the concept of cluster-based computing         
seamlessly integrating a set of computing      
resources into a cohesive whole has gone       
largely unfulfilled. The barrier to adoption   
of cluster-based computing has been that       
applications must be made cluster-aware. The   
best technology that is currently available is 
a set of middleware tools, such as the Globus  
toolkit, which is used to rework applications  
to run on a cluster. Because it is difficult   
to make applications run in parallel on a      
cluster, only a handful of highly specialized  
applications sometimes referred to as          
``embarrassingly parallel'' applications, have   
been made cluster-aware. Of the very few       
commercial cluster-aware applications, the     
best known is Oracle Database Real Application 
Clustering. Virtual Iron(R) Software has       
solved these problems by creating Virtual Iron 
VFe, which allows any applications to          
transparently run on a tightly-coupled        
cluster of computers without any               
modifications. This software elegantly         
abstracts the underlying cluster of servers    
with a Distributed Virtual Machine Monitor.    
Like many other Virtual Machines Monitors,     
this software layer takes complete control of  
the underlying hardware and creates virtual    
machines, each of which behaves like a         
complete physical machine running its own      
operating system in full isolation. In         
contrast to other existing Virtual Machines    
Monitors, the Distributed Virtual Machine      
Monitor creates a virtual multi-processor on a 
collection of tightly coupled servers. The     
system gives guest operating systems the       
illusion that it is running on a single        
multi-processor machine with \textit{N} CPUs on top   
of \textit{M} physical servers interconnected by      
networks. In this paper we'll describe Linux   
Virtualization on Virtual Iron VFe, the        
virtualization capabilities of the Virtual     
Iron(R) Distributed VMM technology, as well as 
the changed made to the Linux kernel to take   
advantage of this new distributed              
virtualization technology.                     


