Intel's Cloud-Hypervisor 0.13 Brings Support For NVIDIA GPUs With Proprietary Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel's Cloud-Hypervisor 0.13 Brings Support For NVIDIA GPUs With Proprietary Drivers

Intel's Cloud-Hypervisor that is the Rust-based virtualization hypervisor focused for cloud environments is out with its newest open-source release...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Cloud-Hypervisor-0.13

[polarathene]

This is apparently like Firecracker and Crosvm, a category called VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor)...what exactly are these? It's a hypervisor that uses KVM (which I assume includes QEMU?), so it's an added layer on top? Is it like libvirt or virt-manager (without the UI?), anyone able to better explain where these VMM projects fit in?

Cloud Hypervisor is an open source Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) that runs on top of KVM.

[pabloski]

uses KVM (which I assume includes QEMU?), so it's an added layer on top? Is it like libvirt or virt-manager (without the UI?), anyone able to better explain where these VMM projects fit in?

No. KVM isn't Qemu. This hypervisor is a Qemu alternative. You have KVM ( that runs the "cpu" part of the virtualization equation ) and then have Qemu, etc... that implement the peripherals.

The difference is that while Qemu tries to implement a lot of legacy hardware parts, this hypervisor just implements Virtio peripherals. This is they way virtualization should have been done from the start!

[gilboa]

No. KVM isn't Qemu. This hypervisor is a Qemu alternative. You have KVM ( that runs the "cpu" part of the virtualization equation ) and then have Qemu, etc... that implement the peripherals.

The difference is that while Qemu tries to implement a lot of legacy hardware parts, this hypervisor just implements Virtio peripherals. This is they way virtualization should have been done from the start!

Quite the contrary.
Virtualization was never intended to be a security / utilization solution. The original virtualization solutions were simply designed to allow users of X operating system, continue running their legacy application that required deprecated Y operating system. For this use-case, legacy hardware emulation was a must.

As time progressed, many companies found that can also using virtualization to security "cram" multiple up-to-date services (that previously required their own servers) into a single server (or cluster) reducing both physical footprint and power and cooling requirements, while increasing the average hardware utilization. (Be that VMWare ESX, oVirt/RHEV or public cloud provides)
In this case, virtio devices perform far better, greatly increasing the CPU / IO utilization and reducing the power / cooling requirements.

Good luck trying to run a Windows 7/8 only application on virtio only hypervisor (Let alone DOS/Windows 3.11/9x/Me).

- Gilboa

[pabloski]

Quite the contrary.
Virtualization was never intended to be a security / utilization solution.

I have never said that it was conceived as a security solution.

The original virtualization solutions were simply designed to allow users of X operating system, continue running their legacy application that required deprecated Y operating system. For this use-case, legacy hardware emulation was a must.

To be honest, virtualization's first objective was ( and is ) to consolidate hardware resources. You have underused server resources and you virtualize it to use every single cpu cycle/ram byte.

Good luck trying to run a Windows 7/8 only application on virtio only hypervisor (Let alone DOS/Windows 3.11/9x/Me).

- Gilboa

I use windows 7 on qemu/kvm, with virtiostor and netkvm. It is not difficult at all. What is lacking are fancy features like virtio-fs.

[gilboa]

To be honest, virtualization's first objective was ( and is ) to consolidate hardware resources. You have underused server resources and you virtualize it to use every single cpu cycle/ram byte.

Here we differ.
If you look at the first virtualization solutions on mainframes such as the IBM/370 its was designed as both a consolidation solutions and as legacy solution (As far as I remember it could run CP/M software).
That said, virtualization on the PC, was initially conceived as a legacy application solution - be that qemu, virtualbox, Boches or VMWare.

I use windows 7 on qemu/kvm, with virtiostor and netkvm. It is not difficult at all. What is lacking are fancy features like virtio-fs.

As far as I know, non of which are virtio only solutions. They have BIOS/UEFI emulation, 440/Q35 chipset emulation, boot disk emulation, etc.
Pure virtio solution has *none* of this.

- Gilboa