The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor

This is the eBook version of the printed book.

“The Xen hypervisor has become an incredibly strategic resource for the industry, as the focal point of innovation in cross-platform virtualization technology. David’s book will play a key role in helping the Xen community and ecosystem to grow.”

–Simon Crosby, CTO, XenSource

An Under-the-Hood Guide to the Power of Xen Hypervisor Internals

The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor is a comprehensive handbook on the inner workings of XenSource’s powerful open source paravirtualization solution. From architecture to kernel internals, author David Chisnall exposes key code components and shows you how the technology works, providing the essential information you need to fully harness and exploit the Xen hypervisor to develop cost-effective, highperformance Linux and Windows virtual environments.

Granted exclusive access to the XenSource team, Chisnall lays down a solid framework with overviews of virtualization and the design philosophy behind the Xen hypervisor. Next, Chisnall takes you on an in-depth exploration of the hypervisor’s architecture, interfaces, device support, management tools, and internals—including key information for developers who want to optimize applications for virtual environments. He reveals the power and pitfalls of Xen in real-world examples and includes hands-on exercises, so you gain valuable experience as you learn.

This insightful resource gives you a detailed picture of how all the pieces of the Xen hypervisor fit and work together, setting you on the path to building and implementing a streamlined, cost-efficient virtual enterprise.

Coverage includes

Understanding the Xen virtual architecture
Using shared info pages, grant tables, and the memory management subsystem
Interpreting Xen’s abstract device interfaces
Configuring and managing device support, including event channels, monitoring with XenStore, supporting core devices, and adding new device types
Navigating the inner workings of the Xen API and userspace tools
Coordinating virtual machines with the Scheduler Interface and API, and adding a new scheduler
Securing near-native speed on guest machines using HVM
Planning for future needs, including porting, power management, new devices, and unusual architectures

The Definitive Guide to the Xen Hypervisor

List Price: $ 39.99

Price:

The Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference puts within easy reach the commands that Oracle database administrators need most when operating in a Unix environment. If you are an Oracle DBA moving to Unix from another environment such as Windows NT or IBM Mainframe, you know that these commands are far different from those covered in most beginning Unix books. To jump start your learning process, Don Burleson has gathered together in this succinct book the Unix commands he most often uses when managing Oracle databases. You’ll be able to reach into your pocket for the answer when you need to know how to:Display all Unix components related to Oracle, identify the top CPU consumers on your server, and even kill processes when necessaryStack Unix commands into powerful scripts that can perform vital DBA functionsMonitor Unix filesystems, and automatically manage your trace files, dump files, and archived redo log filesUse essential server monitoring commands such as top, sar, and vmstatAnd there’s much more between these covers. If you need to get up to speed with Oracle on Unix, and quickly, this book is for you.The Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference has a remarkably tight focus. It’s about making Oracle database management systems run optimally under various Unix operating systems, including HP-UX, Sun Solaris, and IBM AIX (there’s also some specialized coverage of IRIX and DEC Unix). Author Donald Burleson assumes readers know how to get around the Unix command shell, and that they’re quite familiar with Oracle database administration. To put it simply, to get the most out of this book, you should already know what you want to do, and need only to be told concisely how to do it. This book is ideal for people moving from Oracle administration under Windows to the same job under Unix.

As a byproduct of its careful focus, the book is tiny. It almost fits in a shirt pocket, and is about as thick as a standard pencil. A typical entry documents a single command (there are separate entries for different operating systems when commands differ), and includes a bit of text followed by the relevant command and a listing of typical output. Utility scripts with Oracle relevance are listed with minimal comments. This isn’t traditional man-page-style Unix documentation, but rather advice on how to accomplish various Oracle goals inside Unix. Most readers will likely turn first to the index to find the entries that they need. –David Wall

Topics covered: Making Oracle database management systems run well under HP-UX, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, IRIX, and DEC Unix. Ways of examining and adjusting Oracle’s use of processes, memory, processor cycles, files, disk resources, and other aspects of the Unix system. Information is presented in recipes, in type-this-to-do-that format.