“It's not a Linux kernel with a new userspace. It isn't a Linux distribution,” said Avi Kivity, a co-founder of Cloudius and former co-maintainer of KVM, the Linux kernel-based virtual machine. “It's a completely new kernel that we wrote from scratch and that's why it's so exciting.”
But while OSv isn't Linux; it also isn't a Linux competitor, says Glauber Costa, a Cloudius software engineer and also a former KVM developer.
“Even though we're trying to replace Linux as a guest operating system, we're not actually competing with Linux,” he said. “We're part of the Linux ecosystem.”
Cloudius Systems joined the Linux Foundation as a silver member earlier this year. We met up at LinuxCon Europe with Kivity and Costa to talk about OSv's relation to Linux; where it fits into the cloud stack; why a new operating system for the cloud is needed; how OSv makes a system administrator's job easier; how to contribute to the project; and more.
How did you get started?
Avi: We were doing KVM for quite a long time. For three years at Qumranet and four more years at Red Hat and while it's an amazing project and with a great trajectory and uptake, we wanted to do something new. Dor (Laor, a co-founder of Cloudius) was my manager at Qumranet and at Red Hat and we tried to look for areas we could both use our expertise but also do something new and interesting. And because we were doing the lower layer, we decided to move one layer up the stack and instead of doing the hypervisor do a guest.
Is OSv a Linux distribution?
Avi: No, that's the part that almost everyone gets wrong because when you say 'operating system' it's basically a synonym for Linux. We're doing something completely new. It's not Linux. It's not a Linux kernel with a new userspace. It isn't a Linux distribution. It's a completely new kernel that we wrote from scratch and that's why it's so exciting. And that's why it has a great potential. It's not encumbered by all the decisions that were taken in Linux for 20 years and previously in Unix for even longer. So it's a new take on the whole thing.
The reason why it's possible even to think of something like that today is because of the cloud. Before if you wanted to write an operating system you had a huge set of hardware to support from different vendors; different processors, different network cards, different storage technology. And that's almost impossible. But in the cloud there's just one or two different types of virtual hardware and once you do them you have access to millions of machines.
That's half of the equation. The other half is compatibility with applications and that is why we're supporting the Java virtual machine as the major runtime. The reason is any application written for the Java VM is automatically compatible with OSv.
Who is your target?
Avi: We are looking at the cloud because it's an environment that's very agile. People know how to handle change. Instead of the usual enterprise cycle that used to be where you'd change an application once a year and prepare months in advance for it, people change their applications once a day or twice a day.
If we can show people the value, they will change. Afterwards of course we'd like to see not only cloud users adopt OSV, but also enterprise. Plus it's a really good buzz word.
Can OSv run on top of Linux?
Avi: Yes, Linux acts as the hypervisor with KVM. So OSV runs it. If you have a cloud that is based on KVM then you have OSv running on Linux.
Glauber: If you take the hypervisor as the layer for granted, then by all means OSv is an operating system. But if you look at the whole stack and you're running KVM, which is essentially Linux, OSv is basically a library that you attach your application to and you can boot directly on KVM. You're booting that application and using KVM as a containing mechanism.
Avi: And OSv is developed on Linux. We compile it on Linux, write on Linux, debug it on Linux. We like to see it as part of the Linux ecosystem.
Source : Linux.com
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