Network Systems Group Princeton University   Publication Info

Title

Container-based Operating System Virtualization: A Scalable, High-performance Alternative to Hypervisors

Authors

Stephen Soltesz
Herbert Pötzl
Marc Fiuczynski
Andy Bavier
Larry Peterson

Abstract

Hypervisors, popularized by Xen and VMware, are quickly becoming commodity. They are appropriate for many usage scenarios, but there are scenarios that require system virtualization with high degrees of both isolation and efficiency. Examples include HPC clusters, the Grid, hosting centers, and PlanetLab. We present an alternative to hypervisors that is better suited to such scenarios. The approach is a synthesis of prior work on resource containers and security containers applied to general-purpose, timeshared operating systems. Examples of such container-based systems include Solaris 10, Virtuozzo for Linux, and LinuxVServer. As a representative instance of container-based systems, this paper describes the design and implementation of Linux-VServer. In addition, it contrasts the architecture of Linux-VServer with current generations of Xen, and shows how Linux-VServer provides comparable support for isolation and superior system efficiency.

Published
As

In Proceedings of EuroSys 2007
Lisbon, Portugal, March 2007

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paper PDF, 345 KB
talk slides PowerPoint, 1.7 MB
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