Which virtualization approach is better for grid computing?

Tim Freeman, Software Developer and Research Assistant at Globus Toolkit, wonders which approach is better for grid computing: server virtualization or OS partitioning?

…production grids are just warming up to the idea of one virtualization platform (Xen), not five at once 🙂

In the long run, an important factor is the onus placed on the remote user when preparing its environment for deployment across a grid. With VMs or any kind of “contained” guest, you’ve always got to lock in your “capsule” to a certain environment in order for the container to accept it…

For grid applications, it is yet to be seen how important locking in to instruction sets is, but Xen is still a great option (acceptable performance, very portable and very isolated). The choice can affect a lot of things: ease of maintenance, security policies, resource availability, performance, etc…

Read the whole article at source. Highly recommended.