Xen and the Many Uses of Virtualization

Xen is an Open Source, Type 1, OS agnostic, hypervisor. Back in 2003, it paved the way to the cloud, by inventing paravirtualization. Nowadays, it is what runs Amazon EC2, and it’s about to go into cars! So, come and learn about Xen’s architecture, and how it evolved during all these years.

The talk will cover the following topics: - (quick) introduction to virtualization, and the challenges it poses - virtualization on x86 and ARM - virtualization and its role within the cloud - description of Xen architecture - host/guest OS support & supported virtualization mode - latest innovations in Xen world - how the Xen community works

Focus will be put on explaining: - the high level of security that the Xen architecture enables, by exposing a really small attack surface - how Xen is a fit for server consolidation, client virtualization (for security paranoid people), cloud computing, and mobile/embedded.