Virtualization Daily

There’s a very interesting article up on internetnews.com that is claiming BEA will be rolling out a version of Weblogic that will run directly on top of a hypervisor with no underlying operating system.

BEA’s initiative will include WebLogic Server Virtual Edition (WLS-VE) 1.0, an application server that will help “Java applications to run directly on a hypervisor without a standard operating system,” according to BEA.

“Unlike Oracle and IBM, which require an OS underneath their virtualization stack, BEA is removing the OS out of the equation,” BEA said in the statement. “The software simply sits on top of a Java shell,” meaning better performance and lower costs.

I typically look at virtualization and things like virtual appliances as a way to make Java obsolete, but the idea of running Java directly on a hypervisor is kind of interesting. There’s certainly been a heavy investment in Java application development and when you run a Java virtual machine inside of a software virtual machine all you’re really gaining is bloat. Getting the operating system out of the picture is certainly an interesting approach and I’m very curious to see what they’re really doing. The OS still provides a number of facilities, such as the TCP/IP stack, that applications require. So this makes you wonder if they’re really just replacing the real OS with a dumbed down Java OS or more likely if there’s a Linux kernel hiding somewhere under the covers. Regardless, it’s an interesting development