Pei Ling Hoo, 123RF.com

Virtualization via Zones

Enter the Zone

Article from ADMIN 00/2010

By Ken Hess

Linux users take note of the power of OpenSolaris's built-in virtualization, which is free, easy to use, and extremely efficient.

OpenSolaris, like Linux, is an ambitious open source kernel and operating system project that provides an excellent platform for building and running applications. Originally created and maintained by Sun Microsystems, now owned by Oracle, OpenSolaris [1] runs on a variety of PC-based hardware. One of the most compelling features of OpenSolaris is its built-in virtualization capability known as zones.

Virtualization experts measure efficiency in terms of performance and virtual machine density. Zones, the most efficient virtualization method available today, offer the best values of both measurements. Zone performance is native, and zone density can run into the hundreds of instances per host server. Often referred to as containers, zones are an expanded type of chroot jail. Like jails, zones provide a secure and isolated environment from which you may run processes, applications, and services. All zones on an OpenSolaris system refer to a single running kernel, therefore they all must be compatible with that kernel.

Although it is possible to install certain Linux distributions (Red Hat and CentOS) into an OpenSolaris zone, it's recommended that you stick with OpenSolaris (and the same version of OpenSolaris) for all zones. For those who connect to zones via their IP address or hostname, a zone appears to be a standalone system. The casual user will never will never notice a difference when in a zone and a physical system or a fully virtualized system. Each zone may have its own administrator, its own root password, and its own set of unique users.

Zone Requirements

To run an OpenSolaris zones host system, you need a few prerequisites. To start, you need the latest OpenSolaris version installed on compatible PC hardware. If it works with Linux, it will likely work with OpenSolaris. Many enterprise zone hosts use 2GB of RAM as a

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