from Hacker News

Timekeeping in VMware Virtual Machines [pdf] (2005)

by josh-wrale on 8/27/16, 3:21 AM with 6 comments

  • by csydas on 8/27/16, 7:35 AM

    While a very interesting read, I'm curious how much is applicable anymore since the paper is relatively dated. I ask from ignorance not to dismiss the paper.

    The reason I ask is because my current line of work heavily involves supporting and troubleshooting VMware and HyperV infrastructures and I frequently do receive cases where we have to consider why the VMs on VMware struggle or have issues with quiescence; I thought this would be a good article to learn a bit about the underpinnings, but for most of the problems they describe near the bottom of the article, the linked VMware KB articles are no longer available - have many of these issues been improved upon and are no longer as relevant?

  • by josh-wrale on 8/27/16, 12:44 PM

    Thanks folks. It's good to know this is not directly relevant anymore. Is VT-x one main reason things are better?

    I was actually looking at this from the perspective of implementing hardware simulation in software, unrelated directly to VMware. Essentially, I was grappling with the problem of how to do timekeeping in toy VMs. Looking at this gave me some insight into how to solve my problem (I think).

  • by icelancer on 8/27/16, 9:04 AM

    Wow, this brings back some memories. I remember vividly having real issues with VMWare + my Athlon 4400+, then the king of the jungle.

    As far as I understand it, this is no longer an issue and hasn't been for some time.

  • by stephengillie on 8/27/16, 1:20 PM

  • by formichunter on 8/27/16, 9:43 AM

    This is not applicable anymore but I do remember those days and am glad I don't have to add any elements to kernel line in grub.conf to every linux VM. Not fun.

  • by jacquesm on 8/27/16, 11:22 AM

    That's 11 years old and as far as I know no longer relevant.