Virtualization
LECTURE 3
Contents
Introduction
What is Virtualization?
Pros and cons of virtualization
What to Virtualize?
Approaches to Virtualization?
Virtualization architectures
Hypervisors or VMM
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is a technology that enables the
single physical infrastructure to function as a
multiple logical infrastructure or resources.
Virtualization is the process of abstracting the
physical resources to the pool of virtual resources
that can be given to any virtual machines (VMs).
Before
Virtualization
After
Virtualization
Virtualization
Levels of Virtualization Implementation
The main function of the software layer for virtualization is to
virtualize the physical hardware of a host machine into virtual
resources to be used by the VMs, exclusively
Virtualization Reference Model
Better
resource
utilizatio
n
Improves
Increases
disaster
ROI
recovery
Benefits
Eases
Supports
administr
green IT
ation
Virtualization Benefits
Better resource utilization
Increases Return on investment (ROI)
Dynamic data center
Supports green IT
Eases administration
Improves disaster recovery
Drawbacks
Single point of failure
Demands high-end and powerful infrastructure
May lead to lower performance
Requires specialized skill set
Processor
Applicatio
Memory
n
What to
Virtualize?
Data Storage
I/O Network
Processor Virtualization
The virtualization layer abstracts the physical processor to the pool of
virtual processors that is shared by the VMs.
Memory Virtualization
The physical main memory is mapped to the virtual main memory as in
the virtual memory concepts in most of the OSs.
Storage Virtualization
Multiple physical storage disks are abstracted as a pool of virtual
storage disks to the VMs. Normally, the virtualized storage will be called
a logical storage.
Network Virtualization
Normally, the physical network
components like router, switch, and
Network Interface Card (NIC) will be
controlled by the virtualization
software to provide virtual network
components.
Network virtualization can be
achieved from internal network or by
combining many external networks.
Network virtualization is it enables
the communication between the
VMs that share the physical network
I/O virtualization
I/O virtualization involves
managing the routing of I/O
requests between virtual
devices and the shared physical
hardware.
Data Virtualization
Single point access to data by
aggregating data from different
hetrogenous sources.
Hides the complexity and
technical information about the
data format and location.
Data virtualization is the ability to
retrieve the data without knowing
its type and the physical location
where it is stored.
Application
Virtualization
The application
virtualization offers the
ability to use the application
without the need to install
any software or tools in the
machine.
Virtualization
architectures
Full virtualization
Paravirtualization (OS-assisted virtualization)
Hardware-assisted virtualization
Full virtualization
The Guest OS is completely isolated by the virtual
machine from the virtualization layer and
hardware and cannot communicate to the
physical infrastructure directly.
The guest OS is not aware it is being virtualized
and requires no modification.
Pros
Best isolation and security for the VMs.
Different OSs can run simultaneously.
The virtual guest OS can be easily migrated to work
in native hardware.
Easy to install and use and does not require any
change in the guest OS.
Cons
Binary translation is an additional, overhead, and it
reduces the overall system performance.
There is a need for correct combination of
hardware and software.
Para-virtualization
Paravirtualization enables several different
operating systems to run on one set of
hardware by effectively using resources such
as processors and memory.
Communication between the guest OS and
the hypervisor
The he operating system is modified to work
with a virtual machine.
Pros
Eliminates the additional overhead of binary
translation
Easier to implement than full virtualization
Cons
Overhead of guest OS kernel modification.
The modified guest OS cannot be migrated to
run on physical hardware.
Hardware-assisted
virtualization
Hardware vendors, like Intel and AMD, offer
the support for virtualization, which
eliminates much overhead involved in the
binary translation and guest OS modification.
Intel releases its Intel Virtualization
Technology (VT-x) and AMD releases its AMD-
v to simplify the virtualization techniques
The OS requests directly trap the
hypervisor without any translation.
Pros
It reduces the additional overhead of binary
translation in full virtualization.
It eliminates the guest OS modification in
paravirtualization.
Cons
Only new-generation processors have these
capabilities
CPU overhead, limited scalability
Hypervisors or VMM
A software tool that creates the virtual environment.
Are the software tool that sits in between VMs and physical
infrastructure and provides the required virtual infrastructure for VMs.
The hypervisors are also called Virtual Machine Monitor(VMM).
Some of the examples are VMware, Xen, Hyper-V, KVM, and OpenVZ.
Types of Hypervisors
Type 1 or bare metal hypervisors
Type 2 or hosted hypervisors
Type 1 or bare metal
hypervisors
Runs directly on the hardware
Also known as bare metal or native
hypervisor
It can Run and access physical resources
directly without the help of any host OS
Overhead of communicating with the
host OS is reduced
This type of hypervisors is used for
servers that handle heavy load and
require more security.
Some examples
Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix XenServer,
VMWare ESXi, and Oracle VM Server for
SPARC.
Type 2 or hosted
hypervisors
Also called embedded or hosted
hypervisors.
Requires the host OS and does not have
direct access to the physical hardware.
These types of hypervisors are installed
on the host OS as a software program.
Cons
if the host OS fails or crashes, it also
results in crashing of VMs (use in systems where
efficiency is less critical)
Examples
VMWare Workstation and Oracle
Virtualbox.
