InfoQ Homepage Virtual Machines Content on InfoQ
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Slowdown in Virtualization
A 2010 survey suggests that companies have slowed their efforts to virtualize their data centers. The survey was conducted by InformationWeek and is the second in an annual series. The key finding: almost 20% fewer companies expect to have 25-49% of their servers virtualized by 2011 and almost 10% fewer companies expect to virtualize 50-74% of their servers.
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Enterprise Customers Can Use Their Licenses to Run Windows Instances on EC2
Amazon extends their Windows VM offering, and offers customers the possibility to use their enterprise license to run Windows instances on EC2 through a pilot program consented with Microsoft. Microsoft is going to evaluate the results of the program, possibly offering the same license mobility in the future, and promises to support Windows VM on Azure some time this year.
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Ruby 1.9.2 Release Schedule Aims at August for Final Release
Now that Ruby 1.9.2 passes all RubySpec tests, a revised release schedule for Ruby 1.9.2 has been announced. It aims at mid-August for the final release.
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Dynamic Language Roundup: Python's GIL Gets Overhauled but not Removed, Squeak Comes to Android
The Unladen Swallow project that aims to speed up Python has proposed to be merged into mainstream Python. One of Unladen Swallow's goals was to remove the GIL; a new implementation of Python's GIL by Antoine Pitrou will be fairer and less intrusive on multicore CPUs. Also: Squeak Smalltalk has been ported to Android.
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Lua: Embeddable Scripting Engine, LuaJIT 2.0 Includes New High-Performance VM
Lua is a scripting language that can be embedded in any application that can provide hooks for its C API. Version 2.0 of its JIT compiler is in Beta and includes a completely re-written VM based on a trace compiler and an interpreter written in assembler.
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Rubinius 1.0 Brings MRI 1.8 Compatibility and Near Speed Parity
Rubinius has just released their first candidate for 1.0, bringing Ruby 1.8 compatibility and near speed parity. InfoQ talked to Evan Phoenix about what it took to get here and whether Rubinius will run Rails.
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Ruby VM Roundup: MacRuby 0.5 Beta 2 Adds AOT Tooling, Rubinius 0.13 Released
Beta 2 of MacRuby 0.5 improves compatibility and adds new tools for Ahead of Time (AOT) compilation and building standalone applications. Rubinius 0.13 was released with improved performance using LLVM, a JIT and a new compiler.
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Future of the Threading and Garbage Collection in Ruby - Interview with Koichi Sasada
InfoQ caught up with the creator of Ruby 1.9.x's VM Koichi Sasada to talk about what's coming for Ruby 1.9.2, the state of the Global Interpreter Lock (or Global VM Lock) and what it'll take to get a generational GC in 1.9.x.
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Ruby VM Roundup: IronRuby 1.0 Coming Up, RubySpec, JRuby 1.3.1
IronRuby's alive and kicking - and will go 1.0 in July. We look at some resources to get up to speed with IronRuby's status. Also: JRuby 1.3.1 is an important bug fix update for JRuby users, MacRuby continues to improve and MagLev now comes with a native parser.
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JRuby Roundup: JRuby 1.3 Released, ruby2java, JSR 292 Progress
JRuby 1.3 is now available, bringing performance improvements and compatibility with Google AppEngine. Work on other improvements is continuing and a first version of the ruby2java compiler is now available. Also: InvokeDynamic support is making it's way into the builds for the next Java version.
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Squeak Smalltalk and Seaside come to the iPhone
Squeak Smalltalk is the latest language to be supported on the iPhone platform. We talked to John M McIntosh who ported Squeak to the iPhone and also released software built with Squeak (and its cleaned up version Pharo) in the AppStore. The applications make use of Squeak, but also use the Seaside web framework for building GUIs.
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Performance Roundup: Heap Stacks Boost Threads in 1.8.x, MacRuby AOT, ZenProfile and EventHooks
New patches by Joe Damato improve the efficiency of Ruby 1.8.x's green threads with heap stacks: instead of copying the entire stack at every context switch, the patches actually switch between different stacks. Ryan Davis released zenprofile and event_hook for efficient profiling. Also: work on a MacRuby Ahead of Time compiler using LLVM has started.
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CrossTwine Linker Aims to Boost MRI and 1.9.1 Performance
CrossTwine aims to improve the performance of MRI, 1.9.1, and Python. Unlike new Ruby VMs, the CrossTwine Linker allows to improve efficiency of the existing interpreters and VMs, while keeping their complete feature set. The company plans to offer services to use the CrossTwine Linker technology to speed up specific applications.
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Ruby On... SAP: One More Step In The Enterprise With A New Ruby VM
SAP, the market share leader in CRM & ERP and second largest business software company is adopting Ruby as part of their SAP NetWeaver and SAP ERP 6.0 solution. ABAP Virtual Machine will be able to run Ruby Code through the Blue Ruby extension. With recent debates on Ruby VMs, we talked with Juergen Schmerder from SAP and Charles Nutter from Sun (JRuby).
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Critical Security Vulnerability Found in Quicksort
In what is sure to become one of the most wide-reaching security vulnerabilities yet known, a researcher with L0pht Heavy Industries has uncovered a flaw in the standard implementation of the Quicksort algorithm. InfoQ spoke with Dildog of L0pht to learn more about this vulnerability and it's ramifications.