Unikernels

Chapter 3. Existing Unikernel Projects

There are a number of existing unikernel systems currently in the wild. But it’s important to note that new ones appear all the time, so if none of these strike your fancy, a quick search of the Web might yield some interesting new ones. The following information is accurate at the time of this writing (summer of 2016), but the list of players and quality of the efforts could be markedly different in just a few months.

MirageOS

One of the oldest and most established unikernel efforts, the MirageOS project continues to be a spearhead for thought leadership in the unikernel world. Several MirageOS contributors have authored academic white papers and blogs that have helped propel unikernels into the popular consciousness. In addition, many of the generally accepted concepts around unikernels have been generated from members of this team. Many key people from this project (as well as some other unikernel engineers) went on to form Unikernel Systems, a company that was purchased by Docker at the beginning of 2016. So Docker now employs a significant portion of the MirageOS brain trust.

The MirageOS project is built on the OCaml language. If you are not familiar with OCaml, OCaml.org defines it as “an industrial strength programming language supporting functional, imperative and object-oriented styles.” The relative obscurity of the OCaml language combined with the academic background of the principal contributors led many people to initially ...