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
disaster Increases
recovery ROI
Benefits

Eases
adminis Supports
t ration green IT
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
n Memory

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.