MANY IN ONE

Of course, you can use CPU cycles to search for extraterrestrial life forms, as the SETI@Home project demonstrates, but that’s not all. When one computer is incapable of exploiting the full potential of a modern CPU, you can let multiple computers do so. Multiple virtual servers on a small number of physical hosts put the hardware resources to better use while at the same time consolidating the system landscape. This month’s cover story looks at virtualization in Linux. We’ll show you the popular Xen virtual machine monitor, and we’ll look at the alternative VServer virtualization tool. We’ll also bring you a glimpse of virtualization in the real world with VMware’s ESX Server.