Virtualized Data Center

COMPUTE
VIRTUALIZATION

Compute Virtualization

Objectives
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Types of Hypervisor Need for Compute Virtualization

Before Virtualization After Virtualization

• Runs single operating system (OS) per • Runs multiple operating systems (OSs) per
Type 1: Bare-Metal Hypervisor Type 2: Hosted Hypervisor machine at a time machine concurrently
• Couples s/w and h/w tightly • Makes OS and applications h/w independent
• It is an operating system (OS) • It installs and runs as an application
• May create conflicts when multiple applications • Isolates VM from each other, hence no conflict
• It installs and runs on x86 bare-metal • It relies on operating system (OS) running run on the same machine • Improves resource utilization
hardware on physical machine for device support
• Underutilizes resources • Offers flexible infrastructure at low cost
• It requires certified hardware and physical resource management
• Is inflexible and expensive

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Benefits of Compute Virtualization Hypervisor

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Full Virtualization Requirements: x86 Hardware Virtualization
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Full Virtualization Binary Translation Techniques

This combination of binary
translation and direct execution VMware (1998), developed
provides Full Virtualization as binary translation techniques
the guest OS is fully abstracted
(completely decoupled) from • VMM runs in Ring 0 for
the underlying hardware by the isolation and performance
virtualization layer • OS is moved to a user
level ring with greater
The hypervisor translates all
privilege than applications
operating system instructions
in Ring 3 but less privilege
on the fly and caches the
results for future use, while than the virtual machine
user level instructions run monitor in Ring 0
unmodified at native speed

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Hardware Assisted Virtualization Paravirtualization
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Hardware Assisted Virtualization OS Assisted Virtualisation

Privileged and sensitive Paravirtualization involves
calls are set to modifying the OS kernel to
automatically trap replace nonvirtualizable
to the hypervisor, instructions with hypercalls
removing the need for that communicate directly
either binary translation with the virtualization layer
or paravirtualization. hypervisor.

The guest state is The hypervisor also provides

stored in Virtual hypercall interfaces for other
Machine Control critical kernel operations
Structures (VT-x) or such as memory
Virtual Machine Control management, interrupt
Blocks (AMD-V). handling and time keeping

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File System to Manage VM Files Virtual Machine
• • From a user’s perspective, a

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CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk
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Virtual Machine Hardware Virtual Machine Files

File name Description
Virtual BIOS File • Stores the state of the virtual machine’s (VM’s) BIOS

• Is a VM’s paging file which backs up the VM RAM contents

Virtual Swap File
• The file exists only when VM is running
• Stores the contents of the VM’s disk drive
Virtual Disk File • Appears like a physical disk drive to VM
• VM can have multiple disk drives
• Keeps a log of VM activity
• Is useful for troubleshooting

• Stores the configuration information chosen during VM

Virtual creation
Configuration File • Includes information such as number of CPUs, memory,
number and type of network adaptors, and disk types

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Physical to Virtual Machine (P2V) Conversion VM Hardware Components

Virtual Hardware Description

• Virtual machine (VM) can be configured with one or more virtual
vCPU CPUs
• Number of CPUs allocated to a VM can be changed
• Amount of memory presented to the guest operating system (OS)
• vRAM
• Memory size can be changed based on requirement
machine’s disk to VM disk • Stores VM's OS and application data
Virtual Disk
• • A VM should have at least one virtual disk
vNIC • Enables a VM to connect to other physical and virtual machines
Virtual DVD/CD-ROM • It maps a VM’s DVD/CD-ROM drive to either a physical drive or
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Drive an .iso file
Virtual Floppy Drive • It maps a VM’s floppy drive to either a physical drive or an .flp file
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Virtual SCSI Controller • VM uses virtual SCSI controller to access virtual disk
Virtual USB Controller • Maps VM’s USB controller to the physical USB controller

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Benefits of P2V Converter Virtual Machine Console

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Hot Conversion Process Components of P2V Converter
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Hot Conversion Process (contd.) Conversion Options

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P2V Conversion: Considerations Cold Conversion Process
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Concept in Practice: VMware vCenter Converter Cold Conversion Process (contd.)

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Summary

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