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.