Intuitively, I think I have some appreciation for how much silicon has been poured into virtualization. Its always seemed like a "yeah but you could avoid those costs by not doing that" but I'm more receptive to the idea that these might in some cases be really good ways to get some of the isolation workloads demand with the hardware helping us out, these days. There's so much securing for vm's, and maybe it's just easier than trying to secure in userlands: let the hardware help.
Long time interest in microvm's but they felt heavier weight than I wanted. Now it feels like maybe they might actually in some regards in some ways be lighter weight than managing workloads yourself in userland. Maybe. I dunno. Interesting times, i'm open to it.
I used to regard V8 Isolates as a best possible sort of technology, with userlands juggling lots of processes.
Seeing netlify & unikraft switch to microvm's and have such a huge speed up was a bit of an awakening for me. Those are really fast start times! https://www.netlify.com/blog/edge-functions-firecracker-micr... https://unikraft.com/customer-stories/edge-functions-netlify...
Intuitively, I think I have some appreciation for how much silicon has been poured into virtualization. Its always seemed like a "yeah but you could avoid those costs by not doing that" but I'm more receptive to the idea that these might in some cases be really good ways to get some of the isolation workloads demand with the hardware helping us out, these days. There's so much securing for vm's, and maybe it's just easier than trying to secure in userlands: let the hardware help.
Long time interest in microvm's but they felt heavier weight than I wanted. Now it feels like maybe they might actually in some regards in some ways be lighter weight than managing workloads yourself in userland. Maybe. I dunno. Interesting times, i'm open to it.
Edit: I just chatted with Astra Pro some about these ideas, if anyone wants some sense material to chew on. https://chatgpt.com/share/6aca924c-8e64-83ea-a5c3-aae08b2cdf...