Xen: what is the latest?

Linode's Xen beta was not as successful as it might have been - I am a participant and the uptimes haven't been that good - although they are improving.

Before it could be deployed in production, Linode needs proper control over disk I/O - more than what just CFQ/ionice provides - to prevent one rogue Xenode screwing the host with swap thrashing or other rogue I/O behaviour.

I personally think that Xen was oversold and has failed to meet the expectations generated by the hype.

caker didn't sound super keen about Xen in the podcast so don't wait for Xen at Linode.

My guess: UML with SMP and VT/Pacifica support added 'pretty soon now (TM)' will rule the roost at Linode for the foreseeable future.

You heard it here first: 'Netcraft confirms Xen is dying'. :D

@pclissold:

I personally think that Xen was oversold and has failed to meet the expectations generated by the hype.
No way. Xen is the best thing out there. It just needs to mature a little and become a bit more stable.

Xen paravirtualization is faster than physical virtualization as used by KVM. It's a lot faster than UML and vmware server with their various quirks and isn't so awkwardly hardware dependent as vmware ESX.

I found the Xen beta to be really unstable at first but it's worked perfectly for the last few months. No doubt there is a performance improvement too but I can't even tell with the lightweight stuff I run on linode.

@sednet:

It just needs to mature a little and become a bit more stable.

Right. We were told a year ago that it was pretty much good to go - and now it still needs to "become a bit more stable".

The expectation was that it was ready for production when the distros started including it. It still isn't. I remain disappointed.

Can't say I've had any issues whatsoever in the recent past with my Xennode.

@sednet:

Xen paravirtualization is faster than physical virtualization as used by KVM. It's a lot faster than UML and vmware server with their various quirks and isn't so awkwardly hardware dependent as vmware ESX. KVM supports paravirtualization too.

But, I wouldn't blame the Linode guys if they wanted to give that some time to stabilize.