VMworld 2010 Expo Hall: MokaFive demos their bare metal hypervisor

How can they call this a type-1 hypervisor? They are running a cut down version of Linux (CentOS) with a VMware player (and I think they have some other options).

just because they are hiding the OS that is running the vmware player it doesn't make this a type-1 hypervisor.

We've seen something similar with Parallels with their "bare metal hypervisor" which again is a hidden version of CentOS.

These guys are using smoke and mirrors and misleading marketing

You think Virtual Computing is not with their OpenVZ mgmt approach as opposed to true service VMs?

Misleading is right.

I thought I would take a look at the product, only to find that MokaFive won't even look at you if your company has less than 1000 users.

Not interested.

Please don't spread FUD.  MokaFive BareMetal is not and has never been based on CentOS.  As I mentioned in the video, we have a hybrid kernel that can run as either a dom0 service OS in a Xen/Hyper-V architecture, or directly on the hardware.  It is a Linux kernel very much like one XenClient/XenServer uses.

You can choose your own hypervisor to use; today BareMetal works with VMware, VirtualBox, Xen, and kvm, although as we get closer to GA we will focus on supporting a single preferred one, then expand beyond that in later releases based on customer demands.  MokaFive is just a management wrapper and there is very little difference between the different platforms from the management standpoint.

The whole Type-1 vs. Type-2 debate is bollocks anyway.  All existing "Type-1" (Xen, Hyper-V, VMware ESX) run what is actually an OS kernel, although they don't call it that.  All have process management, memory management, schedulers, resource allocation, system calls, IPC, etc.  And yes, security exploits and updates/hotfixes.  The one difference is Type-1 offloads *most* (not all) device driver work to a service OS, whereas monolithic kernels do it inline.  (When I learned OS, we would have called Xen a "microkernel", but that doesn't sound nearly as cool as "hypervisor", does it :-).)

The benefits to running directly on the hardware is better hardware compatibility and improved performance due to fewer levels of indirection.  The benefit to running a hypervisor with a dom0 service OS is improved isolation of device-related exploits.  The difference to manageability and end-user experience in MokaFive: Zilch.

Regarding the 1000 user restriction, we are unfortunately still a small company (45 employees) with very limited resources.  There has been way more interest than we can support right now, so for now we are focusing on customers with a large potential install base.  That will change as we grow the business more.  We are also releasing our MSP (Managed Service Provider) edition this month that will make it a lot easier for partners and service providers to provide MokaFive to smaller customers.

-John