I has been in search for Linux/BSD distribution with Java and Tomcat support that is suitable to be used for virtualization. I spent a few weekends (over the last few months), but I haven't found any that suits the task.
Both installation and runtime memory footprint should be very small, such that as many as instances can be fit into the same machine, and the VM instance can be activate or passivate quickly.1/ The kernel should boot really fast, (less than a min with P2-500Mhz level machine)2/ It boots as little drivers as possible,
3/ A firewall is optional but welcome,
4/ A few file transfer protocol and SSH is essential,
5/ support popular SAN, NAS clients,
5/ To certify for full Java support, it must also able to support Swing (so, it requires XWin of some sort). Ideally, the distribution only has Xwin client, but not the Server part to save space,
6/ Total installation 100MB with JDK 1.5.x and Tomcat 5.5.x would be ideal,
7/ Ant, CVS client, SVN client support (to obtain source or binary for app deployment)
8/ Kernel working set footprint of 32MB or less,
9/ Out of the box Java support, Tomcat, (and even an open source JMS), Type 4 JDBC drivers of popular database.BEA jRocket's BareMetal sounds very interesting on that respect. Only very little information was released. It is hard to guess its availability. I think I better put my hope to Linux/BSD distribution with Java, at least for now. I think such distribution, if available, we be an enabling technology that can change the game: it would make Java much more popular compare with PHP, Ruby etc. Java has been focus on scaling big, and it has been successful on it. But, it is losing ground as the development platform for weekend projects. It really shouldn’t be. Most projects started small. Simple projects are the ground for the bigger. Java Hosting is always limited and a few years behind in term of availability, feature and price. The hosting offerings are even worse than .Net which only becomes suitable for web programming a few years after Java/Servlet getting popular. I don’t think the demand of Java hosting is low to begin with. The uncompetitive hosting options reflect that Java system is hard to be maintained cheaply. Indeed, individual, corporation, and system administrators face the same problem. Because of it, the Java hosting market is never getting mature.I believe when such Java distribution is available, with VMWare (Microsoft Virtual Server, or XenSource) the game will change in favor for Java.I tried to resist it, and I often prefer writing code than doing integration. But, maybe it is the time to roll my own Linux/BSD distribution. I am doing reading on T2 Project and Debian Developers' Corner.Tag: virtualization