MODULE – 3

VIRTUALIZED DATA
CENTER – COMPUTE

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Upon completion of this module, you should be able to:

• Describe compute virtualization
• Discuss the compute virtualization techniques
• Explain the virtual machine (VM) components
• Describe resource management and resource optimization
techniques
• Describe the process to convert physical machine to VM

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 Virtualized Data Center
Transforming a Classic Data Center Virtualized Data Center (VDC)
(CDC) into a Virtualized Data Center
(VDC) requires virtualizing the core
elements of the data center. Virtualize Network

Virtualize Storage

Virtualize Compute

Classic Data Center (CDC)

Using a phased approach to a

virtualized infrastructure enables
smoother transition to virtualize core
elements.

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Lesson 1: Compute Virtualization Overview

Topics covered in this lesson:
• Drivers for compute virtualization
• Types of hypervisor
• Benefits of compute virtualization

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 Compute Virtualization
Compute Virtualization

It is a technique of masking or abstracting the physical compute

hardware and enabling multiple operating systems (OSs) to run
concurrently on a single or clustered physical machine(s).

• Enables creation of multiple virtual

machines (VMs), each running an OS
and application
 VM is a logical entity that looks and
behaves like physical machine
• Virtualization layer resides between Virtualization Layer

hardware and VMs x86 Architecture

 Also known as hypervisor

• VMs are provided with standardized
CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk
hardware resources

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 Need for Compute Virtualization

Hypervisor
x86 Architecture
x86 Architecture

CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

Before Virtualization After Virtualization

• Runs single operating system (OS) per machine at a • Runs multiple operating systems (OSs) per
time machine concurrently
• Couples s/w and h/w tightly • Makes OS and applications h/w independent
• May create conflicts when multiple applications • Isolates VM from each other, hence no conflict
run on the same machine • Improves resource utilization
• Underutilizes resources • Offers flexible infrastructure at low cost
• Is inflexible and expensive

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 Hypervisor
Hypervisor

It is a software that allows multiple operating systems (OSs) to run

concurrently on a physical machine and to interact directly with the
physical hardware.

• Has two components

 Kernel
 Virtual Machine Monitor
(VMM)
VMM
VMM VMM
VMM VMM
VMM

Hypervisor (Kernel and VMM)

x86 Architecture

CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

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 Types of Hypervisor

APP

Hypervisor
Hypervisor

x86 Architecture Operating System

x86 Architecture

CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

Type 1: Bare-Metal Hypervisor Type 2: Hosted Hypervisor

Type 1: Bare-Metal Hypervisor Type 2: Hosted Hypervisor

• It is an operating system (OS) • It installs and runs as an application
• It installs and runs on x86 bare-metal • It relies on operating system (OS) running on
hardware physical machine for device support and
• It requires certified hardware physical resource management

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 Benefits of Compute Virtualization

• Server consolidation
• Isolation
• Encapsulation
• Hardware independence
• Reduced cost

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Lesson 2: Virtual Machine

Topics covered in this lesson:

• Virtual machine (VM) files
• File systems that manage Virtual machine files
• Virtual machine hardware
• Virtual machine console

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 Virtual Machine
• From a user’s perspective, a
logical compute system
 Runs an operating system (OS) and
application like a physical machine
 Contains virtual components such
as CPU, RAM, disk, and NIC
• From a hypervisor’s perspective Hypervisor

 Virtual machine (VM) is a discrete x86 Architecture

set of files such as configuration

file, virtual disk files, virtual BIOS
file, VM swap file, and log file CPU NIC Card Memory Hard Disk

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 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
Log File
• Is useful for troubleshooting

Virtual • Stores the configuration information chosen during VM creation

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

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 File System to Manage VM Files

• The file systems supported by hypervisor are Virtual Machine

File System (VMFS) and Network File System (NFS)
• VMFS
 Is a cluster file system that allows multiple physical machines to
perform read/write on the same storage device concurrently
 Is deployed on FC and iSCSI storage apart from local storage
• NFS
 Enables storing VM files on a remote file server (NAS device)
 NFS client is built into hypervisor

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 Virtual Machine Hardware
Parallel Serial/Com USB controller
port ports and USB devices

IDE controllers Floppy controller

and floppy drives

Graphic card Virtual Machine Mouse

RAM Keyboard

VM chipset with one Network adapters

or more CPUs SCSI controllers (NIC and HBA)

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 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
• 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 an
Drive .iso file
Virtual Floppy Drive • It maps a VM’s floppy drive to either a physical drive or an .flp file
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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 Virtual Machine Console

• Provides mouse, keyboard, and screen functionality

• Sends power changes (on/off) to the virtual machine (VM)
• Allows access to BIOS of the VM
• Typically used for virtual hardware configuration and
troubleshooting issues

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Lesson 3: Resource Management

Topics covered in this lesson:

• Resource management and resource pool
• Share, limit, and reservation
• CPU and memory resource optimization techniques

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 Resource Management
Resource management

A process of allocating resources from physical machine or clustered

physical machines to virtual machines (VMs) to optimize the utilization of
resources.

• Goals of resource management

 Controls utilization of resources
 Prevents VMs from monopolizing resources
 Allocates resources based on relative priority of VMs
• Resources must be pooled to manage them centrally

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 Resource Pool
Resource pool

It is a logical abstraction of aggregated physical resources that are managed

centrally.

• Created from a physical machine or cluster

• Administrators may create child resource pool or virtual machine
(VM) from the parent resource pool
• Reservation, limit, and share are used to control the resources
consumed by resource pools or VMs

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 Resource Pool Example
Standalone Physical Machine – Machine 1
Parent Pool
CPU = 3000 MHz
Memory = 6GB

Engineering Pool (Child Pool) Finance Pool (Child Pool)

Marketing-Production VM

CPU = 1000 MHz CPU = 1000 MHz CPU = 500 MHz

Memory = 2GB Memory = 2GB Memory = 1GB

Engineering-Test VM Engineering-Production Finance-Test VM Finance-Production VM

VM
CPU = 500 MHz CPU = 500 MHz CPU = 500 MHz CPU = 500 MHz
Memory = 1GB Memory = 1GB Memory = 1GB Memory = 1GB

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 Share, Limit, and Reservation
• Parameters that control the resources consumed by a child
resource pool or a virtual machine (VM) are as follows:
 Share
 Amount of CPU or memory resources a VM or a child resource pool can have
with respect to its parent’s total resources
 Limit
 Maximum amount of CPU and memory a VM or a child resource pool can
consume
 Reservation
 Amount of CPU and memory reserved for a VM or a child resource pool

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 Optimizing CPU Resources

• Modern CPUs are equipped with multiple cores and hyper-

threading
 Multi-core processors have multiple processing units (cores) in a
single CPU
 Hyper-threading makes a physical CPU appear as two or more
logical CPUs
• Allocating a CPU resource efficiently and fairly is critical
• Hypervisor schedules virtual CPUs on the physical CPUs
• Hypervisors support multi-core, hyper-threading, and CPU load-
balancing features to optimize CPU resources

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 Multi-core Processors
VM with VM with VM with
one CPU two CPUs four CPUs

Virtual CPU

Virtual
Physical

Thread Thread Thread Thread Thread Thread Thread Thread

Thread

Core

Socket

Single – core Dual – core Quad – core

Dual – socket system Single – socket system Single – socket system

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 Hyper-threading
VM with VM with VM with

• Makes a physical CPU appear as one CPU two CPUs one CPU

two Logical CPUs (LCPUs)

 Enables operating system (OS) to
schedule two or more threads
simultaneously
• Two LCPUs share the same
physical resources
 While the current thread is stalled,
CPU can execute another thread
LCP LCP
• Hypervisor running on a hyper- U U

threading-enabled CPU provides LCP LCP

U U
improved performance and
utilization Thread 1 and 2 Dual – core Thread 1 and 2
Single – socket system
with hyperthreading

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 CPU Load Balancing
VM with VM with VM with
one CPU one CPU one CPU

LCP LCP
U U

LCP LCP
U U

Hyperthreaded dual – core

Dual – socket system

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 Optimizing Memory Resource
• Hypervisor manages a machine’s physical memory
 Part of this memory is used by the hypervisor
 Rest is available for virtual machines (VMs)
• VMs can be configured with more memory than physically
available, called ‘memory overcommitment’
 Memory optimization is done to allow overcommitment
• Memory management techniques are Transparent page sharing,
memory ballooning, and memory swapping

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 Transparent Page Sharing
• Hypervisor detects identical memory pages of virtual machines (VMs) and
maps them to same physical page
 Read-only when shared
• For writes, hypervisor treats the shared pages as copy-on-write
• Attempts to write on shared page
 Generates minor page fault
 Creates private copy after write and remaps the memory

VM0 Memory VM1 Memory VM2 Memory

Private copy

Physical Memory

Memory Page

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 Memory Ballooning
No memory shortage, balloon remains
uninflated

Virtual Machine (VM)

1. Memory shortage, balloon inflates
2. Driver demands memory from guest
operating system (OS)
3. Guest OS forces page out
4. Hypervisor reclaims memory

Virtual Machine (VM)

1. Memory shortage resolved,

deflates balloon
2. Driver relinquishes memory
3. Guest OS can use pages
4. Hypervisor grants memory
Virtual Machine (VM)

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 Memory Swapping

• Each powered-on virtual machine (VM) needs its own swap file
 Created when the VM is powered-on
 Deleted when the VM is powered-off
• Swap file size is equal to the difference between the memory
limit and the VM memory reservation
• Hypervisor swaps out the VM’s memory content if memory is
scarce
• Swapping is the last option because it causes notable
performance impact

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 Resource Management Tool
• Provides ability to manage physical Management
Server
machines running hypervisor
• Enables centralized management of
resources from a management server Manage Physical and

• Enables pooling of resources and Virtual Machines

allocates capacity to VMs

 Communicates with hypervisors to
perform management Hypervisor Hypervisor

• Provides operational automation

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Lesson 4: Physical to Virtual Conversion

Topics covered in this lesson:

• Converter components
• Conversion options
• Conversion process
• Conversion considerations

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 Physical to Virtual Machine (P2V) Conversion
P2V Conversion

It is a process through which physical machines are converted into virtual

machines (VMs).

• Clones data from physical

machine’s disk to VM disk
• Performs system reconfiguration
of the destination VM such as:
 Change IP address and computer
name Conversion

 Install required device drivers to

enable the VM to boot
Physical Machine Virtual Machine (VM)

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 Benefits of P2V Converter

• Reduces time needed to setup new virtual machine (VM)

• Enables migration of legacy machine to a new hardware without
reinstalling operating system (OS) or application
• Performs migration across heterogeneous hardware

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 Components of P2V Converter

• There are three key components:

 Converter server
 Is responsible for controlling conversion process
 Is used for hot conversion only (when source is running its OS)
 Pushes and installs agent on the source machine
 Converter agent
 Is responsible for performing the conversion
 Is used in hot mode only
 Is installed on physical machine to convert it to virtual machine (VM)
 Converter Boot CD
 Bootable CD contains its operating system (OS) and converter
application
 Converter application is used to perform cold conversion

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 Conversion Options

• Hot conversion
 Occurs while physical machine is running
 Performs synchronization
 Copies blocks that were changed during the initial cloning period
 Performs power off at source and power on at target virtual
machine (VM)
 Changes IP address and machine name of the selected machine, if
both machines must co-exist on the same network
• Cold conversion
 Occurs while physical machine is not running OS and application
 Boots the physical machine using converter boot CD
 Creates consistent copy of the physical machine

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 Hot Conversion Process
Converter server
running converter
software

Step 1: Converter server

installs agent on source Step 3: Creates VM on
physical machine destination machine

Agent

Step 4: Clones source

disk to VM disk
Powered-on
Source Physical Source
Snapshot
Machine Volume

Snapshot Destination Physical

Machine running
Step 2: Agent takes hypervisor
snapshot of source volume

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 Hot Conversion Process (contd.)
Converter server
running converter
software

Step 6: VM is ready to run

Step 5: Synchronizes and
reconfigures the VM

Reconfiguration
Agent

Powered-on
Source Physical Source
Snapshot
Machine Volume

Snapshot Destination Physical

Machine running
hypervisor

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 Cold Conversion Process

Step 1: Boot physical Step 2: Creates VM on

machine with converter destination machine
boot CD
Converter boot CD

Powered-on
Source Physical Source
Volume
Machine

Destination Physical
Machine (Running
Hypervisor)

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 Cold Conversion Process (contd.)

Step 4: Installs required drivers to Step 5: VM is ready to run

allow OS to boot on VM

Converter boot CD

Reconfiguration

Powered-on
Source Physical Source Step 3: Clones source
Machine Volume disk to VM disk

Destination Physical
Machine (Running
Hypervisor)

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 P2V Conversion: Considerations

• Some hardware-dependent drivers and mapped drive letters

might not be preserved
• Source machine configuration remains unchanged such as:
 Operating system (OS) configuration, such as computer name,
security ID, user accounts, profiles, and preferences
 Applications and data files
 Volume serial number for each disk partition
• Source and target machines will have the same identities
 Running them on the same network might result in conflicts
• Applications that depend on characteristics of the hardware may
not work

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 Module 3: Virtualized Data Center – Compute

Concept in Practice

• VMware vSphere
• VMware vCenter Converter

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 Concept in Practice: VMware vSphere VMware vSphere
• An infrastructure virtualization vSphere Client
suite that provides: Consolidated
DRS HA Plug-in
 Virtualization Backup

 Resources management and vCenter Server

optimization Virtual Machine
 High availability
 Operational automation
ESXi Hosts VMFS
• vSphere consists of the following
key components:
 VMware ESXi
 VMware vCenter Server
 VMware vCenter Client
 VMware vStorage VMFS

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 Concept in Practice: VMware vCenter Converter
• Converts physical machines to Source VMware Products
VMware ESX

virtual machines (VMs)

• Supports conversion of VM
Hypervisor
created third party software x86 Architecture
Physical
to VMware VM Machine
NIC Hard
CPU Card Memory Disk

VMware
Converter
Center
VMware ESXi

Hypervisor
x86 Architecture
Third-party
Virtual Machine
NIC Hard
CPU Card Memory Disk

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 Module 3: Summary
Key points covered in this module:
• Drivers of compute virtualization
• Challenges of virtualizing x86 hardware
• Techniques to virtualize x86 hardware
• Components of a virtual machine (VM)
• Resource optimization techniques
• Conversion of physical machine to VM

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 Check Your Knowledge
1. Explain two types of hypervisor.
2. What are the challenges of x86 hardware virtualization?
3. Explain the function of each virtual machine (VM) file.
4. Explain the three memory optimization techniques.
5. What are the two options to convert physical to VM?

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