Types of Virtualization
Zetacloud's native OS supports the complete spectrum of virtualization platforms on any single data center node. This allows us to provide our clients the greatest flexibility to mix-and-match different types of VMs depending on their needs.
Native Zones
Native Solaris/Illumnos zones, a partitioning technology that's used to virtualize operating system resources and provide an isolated and secure environment for running services with no performance penalty.
Native Solaris/Illumnos zones, a partitioning technology that's used to virtualize operating system resources and provide an isolated and secure environment for running services with no performance penalty.
LX Zones
Similar to native zones, specifically for running different Linux guest OSs at close to bare metal specs. Complete flexiblity in changing resource allocation to the LXVM without reboots.
Similar to native zones, specifically for running different Linux guest OSs at close to bare metal specs. Complete flexiblity in changing resource allocation to the LXVM without reboots.
Bhyve
Hardware virtual machine (HVM) that scales and improves performance compared to other HVM options. Has numerous convenience features to clients with close to bare-metal specs.
Hardware virtual machine (HVM) that scales and improves performance compared to other HVM options. Has numerous convenience features to clients with close to bare-metal specs.
KVM
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), also a hardware virtual machine, is a virtualization hypervisor that allows a host to run multiple, isolated guest VMs with complete resource virtualization
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), also a hardware virtual machine, is a virtualization hypervisor that allows a host to run multiple, isolated guest VMs with complete resource virtualization
Feature HIghlights Comparing Virtualization Hypervisors
| Zones | LX Zones | Bhyve | KVM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guest OS | Solaris, Illumnos | Ubuntu, Fedora, Other Linux flavours | BSD, Windows, Linux, MacOS | BSD, Windows, Linux, MacOS |
| Type of Virtualization | OS level | OS level | Virtual HW (HVM) | Virtual HW (HVM) |
| Performance level | Bare-metal | Bare-metal | Low resource HVM | Mid-resource HVM |
| Security - fully Isolated Guest VM? | ✅ ✅ Better than HVM |
✅ ✅ Better than HVM |
✅ | ✅ |
| Independent Networking Stack? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Dynamic changes to RAM, disk size, CPU, network without reboot? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Resource blocking | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Instantaneous Backups via snapshots | ✅ | ✅ | Hypervisor | Hypervisor |
| Clone/Copy VMs on another server | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Effort needed to install | Easy | Easy | Hard | Medium |
| Minimum CPUs/RAM/disk requirement | 1/128 MB/256 MB | 1/256 MB/512 MB | Guest OS dependent | Guest OS dependent |
| Specific environment needs such as FreeBSD, Windows, and Docker Engine | ❌ | Maybe | ✅ | ✅ |
| Legacy applications | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Brand new microservice-based application | ✅ | ✅ | Not recommended | Not recommended |
