OpenVZ Software Available for Latest Linux Kernel 2.6.20

HERNDON, Va., March 2007 — Keeping in step with the Linux kernel development, the OpenVZ project (http://openvz.org) today announced availability of its operating system (OS) server virtualization software for the most recent stable Linux kernel 2.6.20 — introduced last month.

This new Linux kernel includes a number of bug fixes and improvements, along with support for the latest hardware.

"Linux 2.6.20 is also the basis for the next Ubuntu distribution, which potentially would enable us a smooth transition to add OpenVZ virtualization," said Kir Kolyshkin, manager of the OpenVZ project. "With this latest release of OpenVZ software, we've made a number of improvements to benefit our users in the open source community."

The OpenVZ software for Linux kernel 2.6.20 includes improvements in the following areas:

- Support for read-only bind mounts, which allows a read-only view into a read-write file system. This allows for greater levels of control and enhances security by only allowing specified parts of file systems to be made writable.

- Namespaces technology, resulting from on-going work on Linux kernel containers virtualization, is now used by OpenVZ software.

- A new I/O prioritization feature that makes it possible to set priorities for each virtual environment so that some can be set as high priority for disk access, and others as lower priority. This solves the problem of distributing I/O throughput (which can be a performance bottleneck) across all virtual environments.

The new OpenVZ kernel software can be downloaded here, http://openvz.org/download/kernel/2.6.20. Also, users can access helpful installation instructions from the OpenVZ wiki, http://wiki.openvz.org/Quick_installation. The site serves as a forum to gain and share knowledge about OpenVZ and includes documentation and a knowledge base with helpful advice.

About the OpenVZ Project
The OpenVZ project freely distributes and offers support to its users, promoting operating system virtualization through a collaborative, community effort. Supported by SWsoft, the OpenVZ project serves the needs of the community developers, testers, documentation experts, and other technology enthusiasts who wish to participate in and accelerate the technology development process. OpenVZ is open source software that is used as the basis for the SWsoft Virtuozzo virtualization software product.

Since going into full production late in 2005, the OpenVZ project has been very active with the user community with more than 11,000 message posts on its support Forum. The OpenVZ website attracts tens of thousands of visitors each month as more businesses and individuals explore and contribute to the leading open source operating system virtualization project.

About OpenVZ
OpenVZ is operating system server virtualization software technology, built on Linux, which creates multiple isolated, secure virtual environments on a single physical server – enabling greater server utilization and superior availability with fewer performance penalties. The virtual servers ensure that applications do not conflict and can be re-booted independently.

With the power of today's processors, hardware is often under utilized. With virtualization technology, the server can effectively be split into many small ones, each running its tasks so that the whole server is utilized more efficiently.

OpenVZ software comes with user tools that help automate management of virtual servers. With its unique architecture that uses a single operating system instance, the virtual servers perform and execute like independent servers with their own memory, configuration files, users and applications. Each can be re-booted independently. Using template-based application deployment provides a simple way to get new virtual servers up and running in minutes and OpenVZ can run several times more virtual servers per CPU than other virtualization technologies. Also, the OpenVZ project maintains a blog site discussing virtualization technology, which can be accessed here, http://blog.openvz.org

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