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Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

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31–37 of 37 posts

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#31
post #5

Other than using the Docker format / API, how is this not just a variant VM deployment strategy? If every container is running its own kernel on a hypervisor, doesn't this eliminate one of the key benefits of a true Container system, the kernel/memory overhead?

Agree with teilo here; pragmatically speaking we run into size of images needed for each container as well (think windows down the road); ease of use is there certainly but at scale cost in future...

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#32
post #29
post #28

I like the initial idea very much. As I can see this is a wrapper over QEMU and controlled by QMP [1][2], so they are providing a kernel, initrd and a image. It is also configuring a machine profile (memory, vcpu, bus, devices, etc.). There are also interfaces for libvirt, xen and others virtualization technologies. This also looks similar of what Docker is doing now in Windows with HyperV. My question here is: from…

The most significant improvement comes from the BootFromTemplate, which improves speed and saves memory. And the boot sequence and guest kernel have been optimized.

How has the guest kernel been optimized? Just recompiled vanilla kernel and stripped all unnecessary parts?

What do you use for storage, how is the hosts storage accessed from the guest-container? virtfs?

Doesnt that add a bottleneck/performance-problem, even if youre using virtfs thats several layers of translation from VFS/block-device-virtual(what kind do you use?)/PCI-bus to VFS/block-device/pci and so on.

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#33
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of a public cloud service, you (customer) don't care. You pay for the amount of memory you used, whether there is one kernel, or many of them, is irrelevant.

It is absolutely relevant: If your container is running its own kernel, then it is consuming memory for that kernel, not to mention the CPU overhead of the hosted kernel. Additionally, every container must also boot a complete OS. More overhead. This is why traditional containers use a shared kernel with process group isolation. You pay for what you use. A traditional container only uses what it needs for the app its…

They dont boot a "complete OS", they boot the kernel and a process - that is it, not your systemd which brings in Firefox kind of "complete OS".

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#35

Maybe I'm late to the party, but this looks almost exactly like what VMware did last year, with their vSphere Integrated Containers.

VMware has a similar project. The HyperContainer project is opensourced in May last year, same as Intel clear linux, and is prior to the VMware project.

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#36
post #28

I like the initial idea very much. As I can see this is a wrapper over QEMU and controlled by QMP [1][2], so they are providing a kernel, initrd and a image. It is also configuring a machine profile (memory, vcpu, bus, devices, etc.). There are also interfaces for libvirt, xen and others virtualization technologies. This also looks similar of what Docker is doing now in Windows with HyperV. My question here is: from…

How is this different than just using rkt with the kvm stage1? (which to my understanding does basically the same thing)

Re: Hyper Is Docker Done the Right Way

#37
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of a public cloud service, you (customer) don't care. You pay for the amount of memory you used, whether there is one kernel, or many of them, is irrelevant.

It is absolutely relevant: If your container is running its own kernel, then it is consuming memory for that kernel, not to mention the CPU overhead of the hosted kernel. Additionally, every container must also boot a complete OS. More overhead. This is why traditional containers use a shared kernel with process group isolation. You pay for what you use. A traditional container only uses what it needs for the app its…

The value proposition of Hyper is that the overhead of guest kernel is greatly reduced to the point of being insignificant if you run any significant apps inside HyperContainers, meanwhile you gain the benefit of kernel isolation and ditching VM cluster management altogether.
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