vkernel migration

[Bill Hacker]

Nigel Weeks wrote:
Just an idea for thought over your next coffee...

I'm if it would be to conceivably possible to move a vkernel process(and any
sub-processes it had) to another host? It'd have to stop temporarily, or at
least, slow down immensely while pumping all the userland data inside the
vkernel to the other host.
It might just be easier to have a vkernel powered by multiple physical
kernels (on different machines), giving the appearance of an SMP machine
inside the vkernel.
(Insert 40,000 lines of code here...)

Nige.

Hmm... there is a sort of 'left-handed' precedent..

Before Microslog got its 'one way' licensing mits on Connectix' "Virtual PC"..
one could close a VPC session in 'save state' - which preserved even the 
(virtual) program-counter of the (virtal) PC (not to mention registers, stack, 
memory) in the 'container file' along with everything else.

That container file could be-emailed half way 'round the globe, loaded on 
another VPC-equipped box, and fired up - with the cursor in the same spreadsheet 
cell as when saved. Or whatever. Whether minutes - or months - earlier.

And it fired-up fast.

MS later prevented a container created on box A from running on box B.
Or even logged-in user A and logged-in user B on the same box.
So long as the registers, caches, RAM, stack, and program counter are preserved, 
it is as portable as the (virtualized?) hardware supports.

The IP stack, OTOH, *should* get hairy - but they handle that anyway - as when a 
network cable is swapped over to a different link and IP.

Bill