An open source project to create high-performance virtual machine software has achieved its second major release. Xen 2.0 is said to enable multiple instances of ported OS kernels to run at “close to native” speeds on a single x86 computer, with no modifications to applications or libraries needed. The new release adds 2.6.9 and 2.4.27 Linux ports, and a NetBSD port, with FreeBSD and Plan 9 ports underway.

The Xen project is part of the University of Cambridge's Xenoservers project to build a public infrastructure for wide-area distributed computing.

Xen project leaders say that requiring guest OSes to be ported to the Xen platform enables levels of performance not possible with virtual machine schemes that involve trapping “faulting” instructions or using an interpreter or JIT compiler emulating privileged operation system code.

Relative performance on native Linux (L), Xen/Linux (X), VMware Workstation 3.2 (V), and User Mode Linux (U)
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A Windows XP port was also developed, but is unavailable due to licensing restrictions. As CPUs gain virtualization features, it may be possible to run unmodified Windows and other OSes under Xen in the future.

The Xen project roadmap includes more work on existing QoS (quality of service) features, support for SMP guest OSes, an x86_64 Xen port, ports to architectures such as ARM, PPC, and IA-64, CPU load balancing, cluster management, and more.

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