OpenVZ is an open source operating system-level virtualization technology based on the Linux kernel and operating system. OpenVZ allows a physical server to run multiple isolated operating system instances. These are secure, isolated containers. Each container performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server.
OpenVZ is not true virtualization but similar to FreeBSD Jails.
OpenVZ is a highly scalable virtualization technology with minimal overhead, good isolation and rapid customer provisioning.
OpenVZ consists of a kernel, user-level tools and templates.
The OpenVZ kernel is a Linux kernel, modified to add support for OpenVZ containers. The modified kernel provides virtualization, isolation, resource management, and checkpointing.
OpenVZ is the basis of Parallels Cloud Server, a commercial virtualization solution offered by Parallels.
Features include:
- OpenVZ employs a single kernel model, it is as scalable as the Linux kernel – up to thousands of CPUs and terabytes of RAM.
- Virtualization overhead observed in OpenVZ is minimal so that there is very little performance degradation.
- Serve more containers from a given physical server, so long as the computational demands do not exceed the physical availability.
- A root user of an OpenVZ physical server can see all the running processes and files of all the containers on the system.
- Rapid customer provisioning.
- Updates provisioning.
Website: openvz.org
Support: Live Journal
Developer: Community project, with help from Parallels, Inc.
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
OpenVZ is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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