[Xen-users] Running Xen on current Opteron family?

["Sanket Agrawal" <sanket.agrawal@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have been looking at XenSource 3.0 solution for running virtual servers on opteron servers. According to XenSource's documentation, it runs on Opterons with pacifica feature. My understanding is that we need this feature for following reaons:

- lower virtualization overhead. Theoretically, 3-5% overhead for guest oses when virtualized
- running guest OSes without source code - useful for running Windows 2003 in addition to linux and solaris for testing

However, the pacifica feature is not present in current opteron family. After googling, I found out that it has been renamed to "Secure Virtual Machine Extension" for opterons and is scheduled for release for upcoming Athlon processor releases with socket 'F'. I checked with HP and they confirmed that pacifica feature is planned to be released with socket 'F' in opterons. There is no firm release date yet, to the best of my knowledge.

Given that pacifica feature is not implemented in Opterons (unless "Direct Connection Architecture" qualifies as a pacifica feature?), my question is whether XenSource 3.0 can still be run on current opteron 2xx families with low overhead and without source code for guest OSes, as documented in the "info" section of XenSource 3.0.

Thanks,
Sanket

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