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An Overview of Virtualization Techniques

Renato Figueiredo Advanced Computing and Information Systems (ACIS) Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Florida NCN/NMI Team

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Outline

Resource virtualization: Motivations and techniques

Virtual Machines: past, present, future

Applications in Grid Computing

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Physical computer

Processor, memory, and I/O

Hard disk and network interfaces are key components of the I/O subsystem

Processor runs instructions. Memory holds data for fast operation. Disk holds data in persistent state (files, directories). Network supports communication

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Virtual Computer

A virtual computer has the same look and feel as a physical computer
Virtual processor, virtual memory, virtual disk and virtual network card Can run exactly the same software (e.g. Windows, Linux) But multiple virtual computers can time-share a single physical computer!

Linux

WinXP

NetBSD

Virtual machines

Physical machine
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Virtual Machines

Capable of running full-blown O/S within VM guest

VMware Xen Microsoft Virtual PC

Support legacy software

Advantage over Java VM, C# CLR

VM Guests
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VM Host

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Why virtual Computers?

Motivations Resource sharing and consolidation; security and isolation

Familiar example: virtual memory in multi-task O/Ss Physical memory shared by multiple processes; each process has its own, independent address space

Ease of management
Virtual (software) vs. physical (hardware) Copying, migration, archival, versioning

Virtualization adds an extra layer of security and isolation

A user can crash or reboot a VM without compromising its host, or other VMs

VM is not nearly as complex as O/S

Because they are smaller and simpler, they are harder to hack than an O/S Disco VM: 50K lines of code IRIXO/S : millions of lines CyberInfrastructure
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Virtual Machines - VMs

Classic VMs
Technology traces back to the early 70s Legacy O/Ss which would share expensive mainframes IBM 370 - zSeries

Virtual machine defined: A systemwhichis a hardware-software duplicate of a real existing machine, in which a non-trivial subset of the virtual machines instructions execute directly on the host machine
[Goldberg, 1971]

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Architecture of VMs

How are VMs implemented? Core: virtual machine monitor (VMM) software
Presents illusion of machine duplicate to other software running on top of it

Virtualization operates at the (low) level of individual processor instructions

Can boot existing operating systems, run unmodified applications on top of VM

Key insight to achieve good performance:

Run most instructions directly on hardware
Same performance as without a VMM

Emulate few instructions that require special handling

Virtualization overhead

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Example - performance

Example quantifying virtualization overhead for typical CPU-intensive scientific applications SpecHPC benchmarks Experimental setup:
Physical: dual Pentium-III, 933MHz, 512MB mem, RedHat 7.1, SMP kernel Virtual: VMware workstation, 128MB mem, RedHat 7.1 uniprocessor kernel

SPECseis SPECclimate

Native 14806s 9304s

VM 14946s 9693s

Overhead 1.0% 4.2%

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Performance

Overheads can be larger with disk I/O, network activity Xen VMM achieves near-native performance

CPU + I/O CPU

CPU + I/O + net

Barham et al, Xen and the Art of Virtualization, SOSP 2003

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Virtual machine software

Several mature virtualization products now available for typical desktops and servers; here is a brief overview VMware
Pioneer of products bringing VMs to Intel-based desktops and servers

Products
Workstation
Easy to install and use; good performance and several features

Player
Free! Can play VMs created by Workstation and ESX

GSX
Group server; more management tools

ESX
Enterprise server; higher performance, several management features, advanced scheduling

For more information and downloads: http://www.vmware.com

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Virtual machine software

Microsoft Acquired start-up (Connectix) and added VMs to its line of products Plans to have VM support as part of future releases of Windows VirtualPC
Akin to VMwares workstation. Can run VMware VMs (and vice-versa) Unlike workstation, does not run on top of Linux Can run Intel-based VMs (e.g. Windows) on PowerPC-based Macs

Virtual Server
Akin to VMwares GSX server

For more information:

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx
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Virtual machine software

Xen Open-source VM initially developed at Cambridge

Packaging and distribution now handled by start-up company XenSource

Designed to achieve high performance Para-virtualization techniques to reduce virtualization overhead

But para-virtualization requires operating systems to be modified before they run on Xen Typically, Xen runs Linux, FreeBSD or NetBSD

With new Intel/AMD processors, Xen is beginning to support unmodified operating systems For more information and downloads: http://www.xensource.com

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Virtual machine software

Parallels Workstation
Low-cost VM Comparable to VMware workstation, Windows VirtualPC Runs on both Windows and Linux

Server, Enterprise server: due 2006 For more information and downloads: http://www.parallels.com

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Hardware support

Much of the virtualization overhead today are due to processors not being designed with virtualization in mind Seminal paper by Popek, Goldberg (1974) provides basic guidelines
Efficient VMM can be designed if:
1. Processor has protection mechanisms, and 2. Privileged instructions that read/write system status must cause exceptions if run at non-privileged level

Modern microprocessors support protection (condition 1)

However, second condition rarely satisfied
E.g. Intel x86: 17 problematic instructions

Today, VMs must use several software tricks to circumvent problematic instructions in processors such as Intel/AMD Tomorrow: processors have been/are being redesigned to support more efficient VMs Intel VT in dual-core Yonah; AMD Pacifica
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Beyond a single host

One virtual machine

Single physical machine (uni/multi-processor); multiple concurrent O/Ss VM monitors (VMware, Xen) virtualize local devices

Interconnected VMs
Emerging applications not considered in early VM days How to virtualize networking and remote storage access? How to schedule, manage VMs beyond local area network (LAN) domain boundaries?

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Applications in Grid computing

Goal: harness computing power of distributed desktops, servers, clusters Computing as utility Analogy to power grid Computing grid:
Outlet is the network jack; pay per processor cycles, storage, bandwidth, application time used

Applications:
Nanoelectronics online simulation - nanoHUB Many others: high-energy physics, hurricane path prediction, seismic modeling, protein sequencing, CAD design/simulation, rendering farms, financial analysis,

Virtualization facilitates management and deployment of Grid resources

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Grid computing on virtual resources

Three virtues of virtualization

Manifolding, polymorphism, multiplexing Multiple, independent virtual resources share a physical resource

VMs:
Isolation improved security Multiple concurrent O/Ss time-sharing Independent configuration flexibility

Approach: apply virtualization machines, disk storage and network The nanoHUB and the underlying In-VIGO middleware
Application of these techniques result in a unique, flexible cyberinfrastructure

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Summary

Virtual machines are becoming more and more pervasive in enterprise and desktop environments Hardware and software vendors are increasingly supporting virtualization
Competition better products, lower prices

Virtualization is key to a flexible computational cyberinfrastructure nanoHUB and In-VIGO: apply virtualization to bring online simulations to the nano-* community

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