[Xen-users] Xen/VMWare co-existence?

[Martin Goldstone <m.j.goldstone@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Hi all,

I've been working on a project recently which we want to virtualize.  It
runs on Windows Server 2003, so my first attempt was to put it in a HVM
domU.  Sadly, this application requires network performance higher than
HVM is seemingly capable of.  In the absence of PV drivers for Windows,
I tried running it on VMWare instead, and I got the extra network
performance I was looking for.

However, rather than having to have VMware hosts alongside Xen hosts,
I'd much rather run VMware on the same physical box as Xen.  Obviously I
can't run it in dom0 or in a PV domU (according to what I've seen on the
net, the kernel modules VMware uses attempt to force it into ring 0,
which causes a General Protection Fault), so I've tried running it in a
HVM domU (CentOS 5, with PV drivers to improve the network performance).
 I've seen several posts on several lists via Google suggesting that HVM
domU's have a virtual ring 0, which should suffice.  While I'm no longer
getting a GPF, the Windows VM still refuses to start, most of the time
giving me no error message but sometimes it pops up a box telling me
about an unrecoverable error, unexpected signal 11.  I can't determine
anything useful from the log file either.

So, the question is, has anyone tried (or had any success with) getting
VMware and Xen to co-exist on the same box?  If you have, how did you do
it?  If not, I'd appreciate any ideas as to how to achieve this, or
(perhaps preferably) any hints to improve network performance under HVM.
   Or if anyone's got any alternative ideas I'd be happy to hear them.
Of course, the best solution would be to have open source PV drivers for
Windows, but I don't think that's even on the horizon.

Thanks in advance for any input.


Martin
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