The Evolution of Virtualization: Anand, Intel & VMware Chat on Video
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 7, 2010 1:18 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
For those of you who read the RV870 and RV770 stories, you'll know the sort of information that can come out of a meeting with experts in the industry. Carrell Killebrew is a unique example because he's the type of person who is not only a master of his field, but does a great job telling stories.
I've had the pleasure of working with a handful of these types of people in the industry. Folks like Pat Gelsinger, Jonah Alben and Ronak Singhal to name a few. Unfortunately, it's usually very rare that I get to write about most of what we talk about in these sorts of meetings. The most interesting details are usually too sensitive to let out and even if they're not, PR is usually too nervous to let one of these discussions proceed openly. Carrell was the first exception, and I'm working to try and make more things like that happen in the future.
One opportunity presented itself a few months ago that is finally coming to fruition. Intel and VMware want to have a discussion about virtualization and where it's headed. They want to do it live on camera. And they want to do it with me.
I told them that it's only interesting if we can get a couple of these types of folks. Masters of their domain, certified genius types to partake in the discussion. I wanted it to be good. And I wanted to be able to talk, live, uncensored, about their respective roadmaps and what sort of stuff we can expect in the next 5 - 10 years. I even wanted to talk about GPU virtualization.
It looks like it's going to happen. In two weeks I'll fly to Portland for the fireside chat between myself, Rich Brunner (Chief Platform Architect for VMware) and Rich Uhlig (Intel Fellow & Chief Architect). No PR, no one limiting questions, just a behind the scenes look at what these sorts of discussions look like. A day in the life of an AT editor in one of those mythical meetings I'm always talking about.
If you're interested in seeing how it all works and care about virtualization at all (and where it's headed), head over to this page to register for the chat. The more support we can get, the more of these types of opportunities we're going to be able to convince folks to do in the future so signing up does help.
For now, it's back to finishing up this iPad review :)
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mesome - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Very much looking forward to it. It's things like this that make Anandtech the go-to site for genuinely interesting information about the IT world today.TheHolyLancer - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
is it just me or is the new comment system is more spam friendly?JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
The admins have the ability to easily delete posts and mark users (and all their posts) as "Spam", so most garbage posts should be gone quite quickly. We had a few issues in the first day or two, but they should be addressed now.marraco - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Software like ThinSoft BetWin allows connecting more than 2 users to the same machine.It's incredibly useful. It justifies investing on a powerful machine instead of many cheap ones. It saves money, energy, and when a single user has it, he also has the full power. It squeezes all the Gigabytes of RAM that you may put on the machine, and all the processors threads.
Before the SSD disks, the hard disk was an annoying bottleneck, but wit fast and slow latency SSD, it is flawless.
Is extremely cost, and space efficient for internet cafes.
Windows is perfectly capable of doing that since Windows 2000. But Microsoft does not support many physical users simultaneously on the same CPU.
____
So, I ask you, Anand, to, PLEASE, introduce this to the virtualization people.
The remaining problem is hardware compatibility. A trial Version of BetWin was included with my MSI Geforce 8800 GT, but it crashed sometimes.
The main use for virtualization on family, SOHO, and some enterprise environment computers, SHOULD be to use a single powerful computer instead of 4 or 6 cheaper ones.
The savings in investment, power consumption, real state, and maintenance are outstanding.
If this were solved by virtualization, it would be perfect, but needs to get into the radar of the virtualization people.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, Do it!
marraco - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
What a virtual machine needs, is just be able to assign a specific USB mouse/Keyboard, monitor, video output (and maybe sound USB speaker) to a specific virtual machine.It's a little extra effort and investment that bradens the buyers space of the virtualization software.
I don't understand why is not already done.
I'm sure that the only ned the idea. The market demmand would be huge, (of course, if people knows that this solution exists.)
marraco - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
bradens=broadensned=need
Hate the lack of preview and editing after post...
vol7ron - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
I sort of agree. I had the idea of developing multiple simultaneous input devices for a screen (or session), which would be perfect for classroom environments. I got half way but, just have too much going on right now.The OS runs, but threads/processes are assigned owners based on the used input device - there's a possibility of having infinite mouse cursors on the screen (all different colors). The opened application's read/write/execute ability is determined by the default setting, or the position on the screen, or the manual selection by the owner.
The screen may have private space and/or collaborative space, all assigned and proportioned by the admin input.
Just imagine 3 people working on a paper in Word, with 3 different edit cursors blinking on the screen. The students could work on the same document, maybe one is assigned the intro, the other is assigned some of the body, the other is assigned some data charts (etc) and see others' updates in real time. More importantly, because it's virtual, they can look at whatever part of the document (their view) may differ from others' views, with the option of looking at the screen through another user's eyes. How amazing would that be?
Take it a step further and think about Photoshop and artistic elements where different designers are expected to deliver different levels of detail. Because there can be different views, designers can start working parts of on an unfinished document, that the group decides is finished. -- "I'm done with the hand and face, you can start touching that up, but don't mess with the body or the background yet, I'm still thinking that over." -- the best part about that: the staging and delay between different tasks is streamlined.
I'm just throwing these ideas out there, what do you guys think?
vol7ron
clarkn0va - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Thinsoft Betwin looks like a thin client/ terminal server solution to me. As much as I like thin clients and terminal servers (I administer some myself), and although they may have some common goals and advantages, it's not really the same as virtualization.marraco - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Is for that reason that I crave a virtualization solution.marraco - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Last time I was on an Internet cafe, the air conditioner was broken, and the temperature was awfuly high.I spoked with the owner. He said me that his month energy costs, were equal to an entire i5 sytem price. His computers wasted energy converted into heat, and his air conditioned wasted even more energy cooling the room.
All the users were browsing Internet, or at most using Word.
Ocasionally some user played games, so DirectX support is necesary, altougth it needs Microsoft blessing, and I doubt MS would like it.
If you read Windows license, it rules also that in such case you need to pay an extra license for each user. So, I do not understand why Microsoft do not officially support many users. By reducing hardware costs, they still can sell a license for each user, and justify charging extra price.
I asked for Linux support in Red Hat, and other Linux distributions. No news here.
That would help spread Linux, and kill many Windows. To browsing Internet on cybercafe`s, it makes no sense to waste money on windows. Firefox is the same o both platforms.
It also can be a killer feature in the Windows/Apple war.