On: Tuning JVM for a VM - Lessons Learned, Directly from VMware

[_3u10]

Pretty reasonable as proof of concept, MS runs the .NET VM as an operating system, see Singularity. There's also JavaOS, JNode, JX

In practicality the issue is drivers, databases, webservers, etc.

[derleth → _3u10]

There are a few ways to solve this; the simplest might be to replace the OS with a library (a libos) linked into the JVM that implements whatever the JVM needs from an OS API in terms of what a specific VM offers. This is the idea of the MIT Exokernel Operating System, XOK.

http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/exo/