More on the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components

hjanssen — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:24:00 GMT

Well, there is no easy way to say this, so I am simply going to start this blog with the following line.

Microsoft just submitted source code for the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components to the Linux Kernel Community Under GPL v2.

Well, there's a conversation starter! Are you still all sitting in your chairs???

Let me summarize:

Yes, our device driver code was released directly to the Linux Kernel
We released the code under GPL v2
We are working with Greg Kroah-Hartman so it is ready for the next release of the Linux Kernel, version 2.6.32
We will continue to update the driver code to enhance interoperability on an ongoing basis, but it's our hope that other developers in the community will find the code useful and worthy of collaboration.

Fallen off your chair yet?

Microsoft developed the Linux device drivers to enhance the performance of Linux when virtualized on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. My team and I were responsible for testing and validating the driver components that were contributed for this first release.

Now, my team and I will be responsible for further developing this code going forward. (Yes, that does mean that I have gone back to leverage my very early roots as a Kernel programmer. Let the world be warned!!!!). Haiyang Zhang has been working on this code with me, and he will continue to work with me on this going forward.

When I joined Microsoft three years ago, the primary reason was to put my money where my mouth was. You see complaining about something is easy, but it becomes a little more complicated when somebody offers you the opportunity to be part of helping change what you have complained about.

So, three years after taking the job that made me put my money where my mouth was (and still often is!), I for one am EXTREMELY happy to see one of the most significant fruits of our work here in the Microsoft Open Source Technology Center (OSTC). But I have to say, even I would have been hard-pressed to think three years ago that we would consider contributing to the Linux Kernel.

As you know, two years ago Microsoft announced a partnership with Novell, and Tom Hanrahan ran the lab on a day to day basis till about 9 months ago. Since then I have had the pleasure of running the technical side of the execution of that lab under Tom Hanrahan for the OSTC. One of the primary tasks for that lab is to make sure Windows runs well on top of XEN and Linux runs well on top of Hyper-V, and we do this in very close cooperation with Novell.

We do most of this work as an extension to Mike Neil's Hyper-V team.

As part of this, we were asked to help develop and maintain a crucial part of this work called the Linux Integration Components. This code is designed so that Linux can run in an "enlightened mode" on top of Hyper-V (enlightened mode is roughly the Hyper-V equivalent of "paravirtualized mode" for the Xen hypervisor). Without this driver code, Linux can run on top of Windows, but without the same high performance levels. It is this device driver code that we are releasing today, directly to the Linux Kernel.

We're not talking a few hundred lines of code here; we're talking about roughly 20,000 lines of code.

Is this a Dump and Run from Microsoft? Absolutely not! We plan to enhance the functionality of this code, and we will continue to work with the Linux Community to support the drivers and to ensure continued interoperability.

As you can imagine, this was the result of a lot of hard work: Hiyang Zhang, who has been co-writing this code; Hashir Abdi, who has been testing all this stuff; as well as Vijay Tewari and Mike Sterling from the Hyper-V team who have been taking care of the Hyper-V side.

And last, but certainly not least, Greg Kroah-Hartman, who has been helping me to make all this code land in the right area in the kernel. He has patiently worked to help me correct my obvious mistakes and to get the code contributed into the kernel.

So where are we today? Well, Greg Kroah-Hartman will make the code visible to the outside world today. (For those who want to get a head start, the code will sit under <your kernel tree>/drivers/staging/hv). After it becomes visible, I will write a few more blogs this week that should help you to understand, build and run them.

The titles I am thinking for these blogs are:

Where do the Linux ICs reside in the kernel tree and how do I build them?

And

How do I install, configure and run the Linux IC's?

I had almost forgotten how wrapped up you can be once you start writing code again. So I have not gotten much sleep this past week, but it has been a joy to get back into coding again!

Microsoft, Xen and Hypervisor Partnerships

jcannon — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:37:00 GMT

By now, many of you have seen the article, Microsoft Gives Linux a Virtual Hug.

If not, I recommend checking it out.

It describes Microsoft’s partnership with Xensource (www.xensource.com). For those who do not know anything about the technology and what they would use it for, I will give a brief description. Many years ago when processors where not so fast, memory was expensive and general computing hardware was not very powerful, we needed all we got to make a single computer run as fast as we could. Now, today, we are in an area where a lot of people and companies have hardware that is very powerful (And some could argue relatively cheap) that many have machines that are way more powerful than what they need. So they end up with machines that are underutilized. So, what can we do to squeeze the last bit of performance out of the hardware we bought? In comes a technology called hypervisor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor), which in laymen terms is a method (Either hardware or software implemented, or a combination thereof) that allows multiple operating systems to run at the same time. This, as I stated, can reduce hardware operating costs and adds a level of security and stability. (One operating system can not crash another one running on the same machine for example). Interestingly enough, Hypervisor is a relatively old technology, and was used early on in the 1970’s in mainframes.

I personally do not claim to have any insight to the articles meaning. (And we in the lab were not involved) But I think it indicates a trend here, the trend is that Microsoft is looking at OSS. Another example is of the OSS lab we work at here in Microsoft, which something many people did not think would happen any time soon. (If ever) As some of you might have read from my earlier blogs, I am very new at Microsoft, and I would have never expected to work here myself. As my colleagues can attest, I still walk the hallways talking about ‘them’ (Microsoft) and ‘us’ (OSS). So seeing changes like this are very exciting to me.

I was reading Slashdot, and the responses to the above article. And I have to smile about some of them. There is a wide array of peoples opinion on the interpretation of this, the usual “Microsoft’s latest attempt to dominating the world” to people who seem surprised and excited about this direction.

Here in the Lab, we are taking what we do with our work very seriously, and all that comes out of the OSS world, we look at from many different angles. This group is very new inside Microsoft, and already we are making an impact. Several years ago the perception was that Microsoft was discounting OSS, and who would have predicted than that there would ever be an OSS research group at Microsoft.

There are many things we can continue to learn from each other, and we at the OSS Lab are very much looking forward to help erase FUD on both sides of the isle.

As always, comments/suggestions etc appreciated.

- Hank Janssen

Port 25: The Open Source Community at Microsoft : Hank Janssen, Partnerships

More on the Hyper-V Linux Integration Components

Microsoft, Xen and Hypervisor Partnerships