The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing. — Isaac Asimov

Paravirtualization – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

In computing, paravirtualization is a virtualization technique that presents a software interface to virtual machines that is similar but not identical to that of the underlying hardware.

The intent of the modified interface is to reduce the portion of the guest’s execution time spent performing operations which are substantially more difficult to run in a virtual environment compared to a non-virtualized environment. The paravirtualization provides specially defined ‘hooks’ to allow the guest(s) and host to request and acknowledge these tasks, which would otherwise be executed in the virtual domain (where execution performance is worse.) Hence, a successful paravirtualized platform may allow the virtual machine monitor (VMM) to be simpler (by relocating execution of critical tasks from the virtual domain to the host domain), and/or reduce the overall performance degradation of machine-execution inside the virtual-guest.

Paravirtualization requires the guest operating system to be explicitly ported for the para-API — a conventional O/S distribution which is not paravirtualization-aware cannot be run on top of a paravirtualized VMM. However, even in cases where the operating system cannot be modified, components may be available which confer many of the significant performance advantages of paravirtualization; for example, the XenWindowsGplPv project provides a kit of paravirtualization-aware device drivers, licensed under GPL, that are intended to be installed into a Microsoft Windows virtual-guest running on the Xen hypervisor.

The Coolest Server Names – Server Fault.

The funniest server name story I have is from when I worked at the Kennedy Space Center. On our particular project, our main server was named snowwhite, and the 7 client workstations were named after the Seven Dwarves. The kicker is, one day one of our engineers ran into a Disney Imagineer who worked at Walt Disney World, and they started talking about server names. The Disney Imagineer said “that’s funny, we have a group of servers named columbia, challenger, atlantis, and discovery.”

Use MOUNTAINS!

Why?

• There’s a TONNE of them.
• You’ll never run out of names.
• They’re easy to Type:
• FUJI, MAYON, EVEREST, K2
• Volcanoes are used for volatile servers
• Long mountain names like KILIMANJARO are servers that you don’t want people to log onto
• Different Mountain RAnges can serve as Clusters or a SAN. (The Rockies, Andes, Alps)
• It’s always the user’s fault when they crash into a mountain
  • Mountains don’t crash
• However, sometimes they explode (VESUVIUS)
• You can rank them by Height and represent many of them pictorially in Network diagrams. (The Matterhorn, Mt. Fuji)
• Mountains are great Security fortresses (Why do you think China wants to keep Tibet… it’s a plateau beside India!)
• They are visible from outer space.
• They can be classified in many different ways.
• They can be Local (Intranet Servers) or in other countries/continents (WANs)
• They are common to ALL people in all countries.
• They can be named after people’s local hometown mountains. (When I was a kid I climbed to the peak of x mountain)

MOUNTAINS!!!