OpenVZ Server Virtualization Software Now Runs on Power 64-Bit Processors

The OpenVZ project (www.openvz.org) announced its operating system-level server virtualization software technology has been ported and is available for systems using Power 64-bit processors, giving users full access to OpenVZ software, which helps increase server utilization rates.

"This turned out to be a simple procedure to port our code to the Power 64 processor, which demonstrates the portability of OpenVZ software," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "Unlike hypervisor-based virtualization technology, OpenVZ is extremely easily portable across different architectures, since 95 percent of the code is platform-independent. With the port to Power, we've opened the door for another segment of the user community to benefit from our open source virtualization software."

"POWER architecture servers like our IBM System p5 and BladeCenter JS21 make a great platform for Linux and open source applications," said Jeff Howard, Director, IBM System p Marketing. "The OpenVZ project provides clients even greater value by helping to drive up utilization rates without impacting performance of the servers."

Kir Kolyshkin said the OpenVZ project will support additional processor architectures, which only requires having access to hardware for development and testing. Currently, OpenVZ supports x86, x86_64, and IA64 processors.

OpenVZ is operating system-level server virtualization software technology, built on Linux, which creates isolated, secure virtual environments on a single physical server – enabling greater server utilization and superior availability with fewer performance penalties. The virtual servers ensure that applications do not conflict and can be re-booted independently.

With the power of IBM's Power processors, hardware is often under utilized. With virtualization technology, the server can effectively be split into many small ones, each running its tasks so that the whole server is utilized more efficiently.

Power system users will be able to provision physical servers to run applications on virtual servers, rather than a full physical server. The OpenVZ project makes available templates that allow for almost instant (in many cases about a minute) provisioning of a virtual server.

The OpenVZ software including Power support can be downloaded at http://openvz.org/download.