[lug] ksplice - rebootless updates ?

[Maxwell Spangler]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9153519/Ksplice_debuts_zero_downtime_service_for_Linux?source=CTWNLE_nlt_pm_2010-02-09

Anyone want to comment on this ?

The Cambridge, Mass., start-up has about 35 customers and several
thousand servers using its paid Uptrack service, in which security and
maintenance patches are automatically applied to Linux servers with
minimal delay and no downtime, according to Chief Operating Officer
Waseem Daher.

"rebootless update".

Usually in the commercial world when someone introduces something like
this they've found a clever hack into Windows that lets them do
something neat and they're ahead of the pack.

But if there is a reasonable way to do this in Linux, usually someone
figures it out and then shares the technique in the open and multiple
methods / applications / services implement it.

So how can ksplice have proprietary magic on an open system?



-- 
Maxwell Spangler