Unikernels are unfit for production (2016)

eyberg · on March 2, 2023

Here is a recent (a little over one month ago) discussion https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/revisiting-... from the same - kinda funny if you listen to it. :)

Also unikernels appear in Brendan's predictions: https://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2023-03-01/computer-perfor...

dekhn · on March 2, 2023

dunno why the site has a self-signed cert but it's clear that the majority of the world's production computing is done with unikernels, so the claim is false (or just opinion). Bryan's a smart guy but ... empirical observations matter.

Quequau · on March 2, 2023

> it's clear that the majority of the world's production computing is done with unikernels

What!?! Where are all these unikernels I am not aware of?

dekhn · on March 2, 2023

I must have misunderstood; I thought linux was a unikernel, versus a microkernel.

Quequau · on March 2, 2023

No, not at all. Unikernels are entirely different.

You can go read more: http://unikernel.org/

I think it's a fairly interesting concept but it's not like they're taking over the world or anything. FWIW, I don't DTrace was as successful as its creators might have wished either.

bcantrill · on March 2, 2023

Linux is also (emphatically) not a microkernel.[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanenbaum%E2%80%93Torvalds_deb...

dekhn · on March 3, 2023

Yes, I had somehow mixed up "monolithic kernel" with "unikernel" in my head.