VIRTUAL MACHINES

CONTENTS

• Overview
• Benefits and Features
• Building Blocks
• Types of Virtual Machines and Their Implementations
 OVERVIEW

• Fundamental idea – abstract hardware of a single computer into several different execution
environments
• Similar to layered approach
• But layer creates virtual system (virtual machine, or VM) on which operation systems
or applications can run
• Several components
• Host – underlying hardware system
• Virtual machine manager (VMM) or hypervisor – creates and runs virtual machines
by providing interface that is identical to the host
• (Except in the case of paravirtualization)
• Guest – process provided with virtual copy of the host
• Usually an operating system
• Single physical machine can run multiple operating systems concurrently, each in its own
virtual machine
 OV E RV I E W

Non-virtual machine Virtual machine

 OV E RV I E W

• Vary greatly, with options including:

• Type 0 hypervisors - Hardware-based solutions that provide support for virtual machine creation and
management via firmware
• IBM LPARs and Oracle LDOMs are examples
• Type 1 hypervisors - Operating-system-like software built to provide virtualization
• Including VMware ESX, Joyent SmartOS, and Citrix XenServer
• Type 1 hypervisors – Also includes general-purpose operating systems that provide standard functions
as well as VMM functions
• Including Microsoft Windows Server with HyperV and RedHat Linux with KVM
• Type 2 hypervisors - Applications that run on standard operating systems but provide VMM features to
guest operating systems
• Including VMware Workstation and Fusion, Parallels Desktop, and Oracle VirtualBox
 IMPLEMENTATION OF VMMS (CONT.)

• Other variations include:

• Paravirtualization - Technique in which the guest operating system is modified to work in
cooperation with the VMM to optimize performance
• Programming-environment virtualization - VMMs do not virtualize real hardware but
instead create an optimized virtual system
• Used by Oracle Java and Microsoft.Net
• Emulators – Allow applications written for one hardware environment to run on a very
different hardware environment, such as a different type of CPU
• Application containment - Not virtualization at all but rather provides virtualization-like
features by segregating applications from the operating system, making them more secure,
manageable
• Including Oracle Solaris Zones, BSD Jails, and IBM AIX WPARs
• Much variation due to breadth, depth and importance of virtualization in modern
computing.
 BENEFITS AND FEATURES

• Host system protected from VMs, VMs protected from each other
• i.e. A virus less likely to spread
• Sharing is provided though via shared file system volume, network communication
• Freeze, suspend, running VM
• Then can move or copy somewhere else and resume
• Snapshot of a given state, able to restore back to that state
• Some VMMs allow multiple snapshots per VM
• Clone by creating copy and running both original and copy
• Great for OS research, better system development efficiency
• Run multiple, different OSes on a single machine
• Consolidation, app dev, …
 BENEFITS AND FEATURES (CONT.)

• Templating – create an OS + application VM, provide it to customers, use it to

create multiple instances of that combination
• Live migration – move a running VM from one host to another!
• No interruption of user access
• All those features taken together -> cloud computing
• Using APIs, programs tell cloud infrastructure (servers, networking, storage) to
create new guests,VMs, virtual desktops.
 BUILDING BLOCKS

• Generally difficult to provide an exact duplicate of underlying machine

• Especially if only dual-mode operation available on CPU
• But getting easier over time as CPU features and support for VMM improves
• Most VMMs implement virtual CPU (VCPU) to represent state of CPU per guest as guest
believes it to be
• When guest context switched onto CPU by VMM, information from VCPU loaded and stored
• Several techniques, as described in next slides
 BUILDING BLOCK – TRAP AND EMULATE

• Dual mode CPU means guest executes in user mode

• Kernel runs in kernel mode
• Not safe to let guest kernel run in kernel mode too
• So VM needs two modes – virtual user mode and virtual kernel mode
• Both of which run in real user mode
• Actions in guest that usually cause switch to kernel mode must cause switch to virtual kernel mode
 TRAP-AND-EMULATE (CONT.)

• How does switch from virtual user mode to virtual kernel mode occur?
• Attempting a privileged instruction in user mode causes an error -> trap
• VMM gains control, analyzes error, executes operation as attempted by guest
• Returns control to guest in user mode
• Known as trap-and-emulate
• Most virtualization products use this at least in part
• User mode code in guest runs at same speed as if not a guest
• But kernel mode privilege mode code runs slower due to trap-and-emulate
• Especially a problem when multiple guests running, each needing trap-and-emulate
• CPUs adding hardware support, mode CPU modes to improve virtualization
performance.
TRAP-AND-EMULATE VIRTUALIZATION IMPLEMENTATION
 TYPES OF VIRTUAL MACHINES AND IMPLEMENTATIONS

• Many variations as well as h/w details

• Assume VMMs take advantage of h/w features
• h/w features can simplify implementation, improve performance
• Whatever the type, a VM has a lifecycle
• Created by VMM
• Resources assigned to it (number of cores, amount of memory, networking details,
storage details)
• In type 0 hypervisor, resources usually dedicated
• Other types dedicate or share resources, or a mix
• When no longer needed,VM can be deleted, freeing resources
• Steps simpler, faster than with a physical machine install
• Can lead to virtual machine sprawl with lots of VMs, history and state difficult to
track
 TYPES OF VMS – TYPE 0 HYPERVISOR

• Old idea, under many names by h/w manufacturers

• “partitions”, “domains”
• A h/w feature implemented by firmware
• OS need to do nothing special,VMM is in firmware
• Smaller feature set than other types
• Each guest has dedicated h/w
• I/O a challenge as difficult to have enough devices, controllers to dedicate to each
guest
• Sometimes VMM implements a control partition running daemons that other
guests communicate with for shared I/O
• Can provide virtualization-within-virtualization (guest itself can be a VMM with
guests)
• Other types have difficulty doing this
TYPE 0 HYPERVISOR
 TYPES OF VMS – TYPE 1 HYPERVISOR

• Commonly found in company datacenters

• In a sense becoming “datacenter operating systems”
• Datacenter managers control and manage OSes in new, sophisticated ways by
controlling the Type 1 hypervisor
• Consolidation of multiple OSes and apps onto less h/w
• Move guests between systems to balance performance
• Snapshots and cloning
• Special purpose operating systems that run natively on h/w
• Rather than providing system call interface, create run and manage guest OSes
• Can run on Type 0 hypervisors but not on other Type 1s
• Run in kernel mode
• Guests generally don’t know they are running in a VM
• Implement device drivers for host h/w because no other component can
• Also provide other traditional OS services like CPU and memory management
 TYPES OF VMS – TYPE 1 HYPERVISOR (CONT.)

• Another variation is a general purpose OS that also provides VMM

functionality
• RedHat Enterprise Linux with KVM, Windows with Hyper-V, Oracle Solaris
• Perform normal duties as well as VMM duties
• Typically less feature rich than dedicated Type 1 hypervisors
• In many ways, treat guests OSes as just another process
• Albeit with special handling when guest tries to execute special instructions
 TYPES OF VMS – TYPE 2 HYPERVISOR

• Less interesting from an OS perspective

• Very little OS involvement in virtualization
• VMM is simply another process, run and managed by host
• Even the host doesn’t know they are a VMM running guests
• Tend to have poorer overall performance because can’t take advantage of some h/w features
• But also a benefit because require no changes to host OS
• Student could have Type 2 hypervisor on native host, run multiple guests, all on standard host OS
such as Windows, Linux, MacOS
 TYPES OF VMS – PARAVIRTUALIZATION

• Does not fit the definition of virtualization – VMM not presenting an exact duplication
of underlying hardware
• But still useful!
• VMM provides services that guest must be modified to use
• Leads to increased performance
• Less needed as hardware support for VMs grows
• Xen, leader in para-virtualized space, adds several techniques
• For example, clean and simple device abstractions
• Efficient I/O
• Good communication between guest and VMM about device I/O
• Each device has circular buffer shared by guest and VMM via shared memory
 TYPES OF VMS – EMULATION

• Another (older) way for running one operating system on a different operating system
• Virtualization requires underlying CPU to be same as guest was compiled for
• Emulation allows guest to run on different CPU
• Necessary to translate all guest instructions from guest CPU to native CPU
• Emulation, not virtualization
• Useful when host system has one architecture, guest compiled for other architecture
• Company replacing outdated servers with new servers containing different CPU architecture, but
still want to run old applications
• Performance challenge – order of magnitude slower than native code
• New machines faster than older machines so can reduce slowdown
• Very popular – especially in gaming where old consoles emulated on new