Re: Xen vs KVM

[Tom H <tomh0665@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 12:32 PM, francis picabia <fpicabia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Xen requires a patched kernel.  It is unstable.  It crashed on
> me randomly before I got as far as configuring any VM stuff.
> The system which experienced this returned to a standard
> Debian kernel and never had a problem again.
>
> KVM is native part of kernel.  It is stable.  I've been running on several
> systems for over a year and no crash.
>
> Both share the same qemu devices and drivers land.
>
> You can read what IBM has to say about key benefits and security
> features of kvm...
>
> ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/linux/pdfs/LXW03004-USEN-00.pdf
>
> A big clue is Redhat is dropping xen virtualization going forward.
>
> Kvm will get more development support than xen.
>
> I see no reason to even consider xen.

It's something of a stretch to go from "it's unstable for me" to "it's
unstable for all"... Since RHEL6 was published in November 2010, the
level of kvm use might have reached or surpassed the level of xen use
by now but xen's still in heavy use by many...

Unless there's a fedora-devel thread where this was discussed, there's
probably no way to know why RHEL6 switched to kvm except to assume
that kvm's in-kernel and xen isn't. This has changed in the latest
kernels so xen support might very well be re-added, and possibly
favored, in RHEL7.