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This is a big deal because you can now run Firecracker/other microVMs in an AWS VM instead of expensive AWS bare-metal instances. GCP has had nested virtualiza
by anurag 7mo ago
This is a big deal because you can now run Firecracker/other microVMs in an AWS VM instead of expensive AWS bare-metal instances.
GCP has had nested virtualization for a while.
- parhamn 7mo agowhats the ~ perf hit of something like this?
- iJohnDoe 7mo agoWas hoping this comment would be here. Firecracker and microVMs are good use-case. Also, being able to simply test and develop is a nice to have. Nested virtualization can mean a lot of things. Not just full VMs.
- HumanOstrich 7mo ago> Firecracker and microVMs are good use-case. Good use-case for what?
- adobrawy 7mo agoNowadays universal answer for "what? why?" is AI. AI agent needs VMs to run generated code in sandbox as they can not be trusted.
- HumanOstrich 7mo agoI don't think everyone should assume that AI is the answer to all questions. I was asking the person I replied to, thanks.
- sorenbs 7mo agoWe operate a postgres service on Firecracker. You can create as many databases as you want, and we memory-snapshot them after 5 seconds of inactivity, and spin them up again in 50ms when a query arrives. https://www.prisma.io/postgres https://www.prisma.io/postgres
- j45 7mo agoThe poster you asked can reply too - Postgres and microvms are worth considering nearly every time at the start. Beyond encapsulation it greatly increases the portability of the software between environments and different clouds.
- ushakov 7mo agoWe are running Sandboxes for AI Agents using Firecracker microVMS @ E2B
- firesteelrain 7mo agoAzure has had nested virt available for a while too. I used to run HyperV in cloud
- whopdrizzard 7mo agoAzure has recently announced "direct virtualization", which is a sort of logical nesting, in which users can sub-partition their L1 VMs into virtual L2 VMs that are technically siblings. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azurecompute/scaling-azure-compute-for-performance/4474662 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azurecompute/scalin... (I work there)
- firesteelrain 7mo agoCool, so that’s the new and preferred model for nested or sibling virt?
- whopdrizzard 7mo agoeventually yes, this is supposed to remove the perf tax of nested virtualization (less world/context switches on vm_exits) and unlocks some new use cases (pass through hardware from your VM to the sibling-guest).
- firesteelrain 7mo agoInteresting ! I stopped working in Azure back in August. But I know of teams still using the nested virt HyperV setup I created to allow multicast to between VMs in Cloud.
- Twirrim 7mo agoOCI supports it with Intel. I know it works with AMD, but we don't officially support that so far as I'm aware. The performance hit on AMD is bigger than Intel, last I looked.
- direwolf20 7mo agoYou can use an expensive AWS VM instead of an expensive AWS bare–metal image. Does anyone realise how expensive AWS is, even in the best case?
- PunchyHamster 7mo agoIt is expensive. But the point where it stops being expensive is far above most companies use case. If you're paying less than a developers salary for hosting you most likely won't see all that many benefits from moving. Renting a server from cheaper hosting providers can be massive savings but you now need to re-invent all of the AWS APIs you use or might use and it's big CAPEX time investment. And any new feature you need, whether that's queue, mail gateway or thousand other APIs need to be deployed and managed first before you can even start testing. It's less work now than it was before just due to amount of tools there are to automate it but it's still more work that you could be spending on improving your product.
- re-thc 7mo ago> but you now need to re-invent all of the AWS APIs you use or might use and it's big CAPEX time investment Or maybe you just never needed most of these in the first place. People got into this "AWS" mentality like it is the only way to do things. Everything had to be in a queue, event driven etc. I'd argue not using AWS means simplifying things and it'll be less expensive not just in server cost but developer time.
- stoneforger 7mo agoYou don't get how this works. You buy in AWS because everyone else is , so it's expected. It diffuses risk to your stock options. This also begets a whole generation of people who can only use cloud services so now you are more hard pressed to find people with experience to run things without the cloud. You also create a bigger expenses sheet so it shows you're investing and growing, attracting more investors. "We pay 10 mil in AWS , we're that big". It's classic perverse incentives feeding into a monoculture.