What kind of virtual machine should I use? (Final)

Here are some of my personal subjective feelings without any objective data support.

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Divide by implementation mode and make a comparison from the following aspects

CPU efficiency:

Soft virtualization is similar to hardware virtualization, but the simulated CPU speed is the slowest, and it is not slow at half past one.

Memory efficiency:

Similar to everyone, even qemu simulators with kqemu acceleration can work together.

Memory usage:

A weakness of hard virtualization. Soft Virtualization allows you to easily install more than 10 virtual machines on one machine, but hard virtualization is hard to achieve. The main obstacle is that the hardware and virtual operating systems are independent from each other, and the mainstream operating systems are greedy for memory consumption (using the last bit ).

I/O efficiency:

Another weakness of hard virtualization. A special driver is installed on the guest operating system, and then the operation is directly delegated to the host through the Virtual bus (hyper-V vmbus), which improves the speed. However, due to DMA, there is no way to make a fundamental change without AMD/Intel hardware support.

Manageable:

Hardware and virtual weaknesses. The guest operating system is basically controlled by the installation of control software on the guest operating system. With the help of no control software, things such as shutting down the operating system cannot be completed and forced shutdown is required. Soft virtualization is very convenient in this regard.

Security:

Big weakness of soft virtualization. Is the chroot of UNIX, called the jail system. However, jailbreak often happens. Hardware virtualization, especially hardware-only full virtualization, provides high security and can truly achieve the sandbox effect.

Versatility:

The weakness of soft virtual machines. The most obvious thing is that Microsoft ozzo, the only operating system-level virtualization technology in windows, only supports Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2. In the absence of driver acceleration, hard virtualization is generally more universal. However, if driver acceleration is required, different drivers must be written for different platforms.

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Based on the products I have used, I will probably list some of their characteristics and applicable scenarios.

Hyper-V

Implementation: hardware Virtualization (semi-virtualization for Windows and SuSE Linux supporting driver acceleration)

Feature: good support for Windows, better support in the future. The management type is good. Microsoft has a set of management tools.

Applicable to: low-load servers, security-sensitive scenarios, and development.

Virtual Server/PC

Implementation: hardware virtual

Features: easy to use and integrated with windows. Poor performance.

Applicable: servers with low development Load

VMware Workstation/gsx Server

Implementation: hardware virtual

Features: easy to use and support for multiple platforms. Poor performance.

Applicable: non-Windows platform development and servers with Low Load

Virtual box

Implementation: hardware virtual

Feature: Another virtual PC or VMware Workstation

VMware ESX Server

Implementation: hardware Virtual Machine + driver acceleration for mainstream platforms + Memory Optimization

Features: High Speed and maturity in hard Virtual Environments

Use: Server with medium load

Xen

Implementation: Same as VMware ESX Server

Features: fast and open-sourceCommunitySupported (but Windows optimization is not open source ...)

Applicable: servers with medium loads

Qemu

Implementation: dynamic compilation simulator + kqemu (memory acceleration)

Features: good compatibility and support for multiple CPUs.

Applicable: toys?

KVM

Implementation: hardware virtualization + driver acceleration and Memory Optimization on the Linux platform + Nic acceleration on the Windows platform

Features: a rising star with strong community support and big company support. Directly integrated into Linux Kernel

Applicable: Development and unimportant servers on the Linux platform

Virtuozzo

Implementation: operating system virtualization

Features: The only OS-level virtualization product in Windows (also available in Linux openvz)

Applicable: large-scale virtual server deployment, virtual host provider

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Developed:

Virtual PC for Windows and VMWare for Linux

Medium-and low-load servers:

VMware ESX, xen, KVM, hyper-V

High Load and high-density servers:

Virtuozzo, openvz, Linux chroot product, Solaris Zone

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Status Management

Finally, let's take a look at the status management, a very important feature of virtual machines. Function strength arrangement:

Static disk status

Differencing is not supported. Xen? Virtuozzo?

Dynamic Disk status

Support differencing

Static Memory status

Supports archiving and restoring the memory status, but needs to be restarted. It is called snapshot. Most virtual machines support this (Virtual PC, VMWare Workstation ...)

Dynamic memory status

Dynamically records the memory status and recovery. Qemu/KVM

Full Management

Including the NIC status. This enables Live migration (dynamic migration ). This is an important goal of hyper-V 2.0. Therefore, from a perspective, the most mature hardware and virtual machine is VMware ESX, followed by xen. KVM cannot be underestimated, and live migration is supported in just a short time.