Virtualization

Chapter 4

Cloud Computing: Infrastructure & Services

Sheheryar Malik, Ph.D.
 Cloud Computing: Infrastructure & Servi

Virtualization
• In computing, virtualization is simulating a hardware platform,
operating system (OS), storage device, or network resources
• The term "virtualization" traces its roots to 1960s mainframes
o during which it was a method of logically dividing the mainframes' resources
for different applications
• Virtualization allows one computer to do the job of multiple
computers
o Virtual environments let one computer host multiple operating systems at the
same time

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Virtualization
• Virtualization is way to run multiple operating systems and user
applications on the same hardware
o E.g., run both Windows and Linux on the same laptop
• How is it different from dual-boot?
o Both Operating Systems run simultaneously
• The Operating Systems are completely isolated from each other

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Virtualization
Virtual Virtual
Container Container

App. A App. B App. C App. D

App. A App. B App. C App. D

Operating System Virtualization Layer

Hardware Hardware

‘Nonvirtualized’ system Virtualized system

A single OS controls all It makes it possible to run multiple
hardware platform resources Virtual Containers on a single
physical platform

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Virtualization

App. A App. B App. C App. D

x86 x86 x86 x86

Windows Windows Suse Red Hat
10 2003 Linux Linux

x86 Multi-Core, Multi Processor

70% Hardware Utilization

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Uses of Virtualization
• Server consolidation
o Run a web server and a mail server on the same physical server
• Easier development
o Develop critical operating system components (file system, disk driver)
without affecting computer stability
• Quality Assurance
o Testing a network product (e.g., a firewall) may require tens of computers
o Try testing thoroughly a product at each pre-release milestone and have a
straight face when your boss shows you the electricity bill
• Cloud computing
o Really helpful in cloud computing

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Why to Virtualize
• x86 server deployments introduced new IT challenges
o Low server infrastructure utilization (10-18%)
o Increasing physical infrastructure costs (facilities, power, cooling, etc)
o Increasing IT management costs (configuration, deployment, updates, etc)
o Insufficient failover and disaster protection
• The solution for all these problems was to virtualize x86 platforms
• It matches the benefits of high hardware utilization with running
several operating systems (applications) in separated virtualized
environments
o Each application runs in its own operating system
o Each operating system does not know it is sharing the underlying hardware
with others
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Why Virtualize Cloud Infrastructure

• Virtualization has three characteristics that make it ideal for cloud
computing
o Partitioning
 In virtualization, many applications and operating systems (OSes) are supported in a single
physical system by partitioning (separating) the available resources
o Isolation
 Each virtual machine is isolated from its host physical system and other virtualized
machines
 Because of this isolation, if one virtual instance crashes, it doesn’t affect the other virtual
machines
o Encapsulation
 A virtual machine can be represented (and even stored) as a single file, so you can identify
it easily based on the service it provides
 The encapsulated process could be a business service
 The encapsulated virtual machine can be presented to an application as a complete entity
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Hypervisor

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Hypervisor
• In computing, a hypervisor is a virtualization platform that allows
multiple operating systems to run on a host computer at the same
time
• Also called Virtual Machine Monitor

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Types of Hypervisor
• Native (bare-metal) hypervisor
o It runs directly on a given hardware
o A "guest" operating system thus runs at the second level above the hardware
o It sits directly on the hardware platform and most likely used to gain better performance for
individual users
o Has complete control over hardware
o Doesn’t have to “fight” an OS
• Hosted hypervisor
o Runs as a distinct software layer above both the hardware and the OS
o Useful both in private and public clouds to gain performance improvements
o Avoid code duplication: need not code a process scheduler, memory management system –
the OS already does that
o Can run native processes alongside VMs
o Familiar environment – how much CPU and memory does a VM take
o Easy management – stop a VM? Sure, just kill it
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Bare-metal Hypervisor (Type 1)

Applications Applications Applications Applications

Guest OS 1 OS 2 OS 3 OS 4

Virtualization Platform
Host

Hardware

Example: VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen

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Hosted Hypervisor (Type 2)

Applications Applications Applications

Guest OS 1 OS 2 OS 3

Virtualization Platform Applications

Host Base Operating System

Hardware
Examples: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Sun VirtualBox, QEMU, KVM

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VMware Products
• VMware Workstation Pro
o First product launched by VMware in 1999
o It allows users to run multiple instances of x86 or x86-64 -compatible operating systems on a single physical
PC
• VMware Workstation Player
o It is for users without a license (for non-commercial use) to use VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion
• VMware Fusion
o It provides similar functionality for users of the Intel Mac platform, along with full compatibility with virtual
machines created by other VMware products
• VMware vSphere
o It is an enterprise-level product, can deliver greater performance than the freeware VMware Server, due to
lower system overhead
o It is also called "ESXi"
o VMware ESXi, as a "bare-metal" product, runs directly on the server hardware, allowing virtual servers to
also use hardware more or less directly
o In addition, VMware ESXi integrates into VMware vCenter, which offers extra services to enhance the
reliability and manageability of a server deployment
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Types of Virtualizations

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Types of Virtualization

Hardware Virtualization

Desktop Virtualization

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Hardware Virtualization
• Full virtualization
o Almost complete simulation of the actual hardware to allow software, which typically
consists of a guest operating system, to run unmodified
• Partial virtualization
o Some but not all of the target environment is simulated
o Some guest programs, therefore, may need modifications to run in this virtual environment
• Paravirtualization
o Hardware environment is not fully simulated
o It involves modifying the OS kernel to replace non-virtualizable instructions with hypercalls
that directly communicate with the virtualization layer hypervisor
o The guest programs are executed in their own isolated domains, as if they are running on a
separate system
o The hypervisor and the operating system collaborate on the virtualization, requiring
operating system changes but resulting in near native performance

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Desktop Virtualization
• It is a software technology that separates the desktop environment and
associated application software from the physical client device that is used to
access it
• It may allow all the components of the desktop to be virtualized
o which allows for a highly flexible and much more secure desktop delivery model
• It supports a more complete desktop disaster recovery strategy as all
components are essentially saved in the data center and backed up through
traditional redundant maintenance systems
• If a user's device or hardware is lost then
o the restore is much more straightforward and simple, as all the components will be present
at login from another device
o there is much less chance that any critical data cannot be retrieved and compromised,
because no data is saved to the user's device

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Remote Desktop Virtualization

• Remote desktop virtualization implementations operate as client/server computing environments
• In this application execution takes place on a remote operating system which is linked to the local
client device over a network using a remote display protocol through which the user interacts
with applications
• All applications and data used remain on the remote system with only display, keyboard, and
mouse information communicated with the local client device
o Devices can be a conventional PC/laptop, a thin client device, a tablet, or even a Smartphone
• A common implementation of this approach is to host multiple desktop operating system
instances on a server hardware platform running a hypervisor
o It is generally referred to as "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" or "VDI”
• Remote desktop virtualization is frequently used in the following scenarios
o In distributed environments with high availability requirements and where desk-side technical support is not
readily available, such as branch office and retail environments
o In environments where high network latency degrades the performance of conventional client/server
applications
o In environments where remote access and data security requirements create conflicting requirements that can
be addressed by retaining all (application) data within the data center
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Other Application of Virtualization

• Virtualization can be applied very broadly to just about everything
that you could imagine

Software

Memory

Storage

Data

Network

Applications
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Software Virtualization
• Operating system-level virtualization
o hosting of multiple virtualized environments within a single OS instance
• Application virtualization
o It is a software technology that encapsulates application software from the
underlying operating system on which it is executed
o It is the hosting of individual applications in an environment separated from
the underlying OS
o Application virtualization is closely associated with the concept of portable
applications

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Software Virtualization
• Workspace virtualization
o It is a way of distributing applications to client computers using application
virtualization
o It also bundles several applications together into one complete workspace
o It is an approach that encapsulates and isolates an entire computing
workspace
• Service virtualization
o It is emulating the behavior of dependent (e.g., third-party, evolving, or not
implemented) system components that are needed to exercise an application
under test (AUT) for development or testing purposes
o Rather than virtualizing entire components, it virtualizes only specific slices of
dependent behavior critical to the execution of development and testing tasks

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Memory Virtualization
• Memory virtualization
o aggregating random-access memory (RAM) resources from networked systems into a single
memory pool
• Virtual memory
o giving an application program the impression that it has contiguous working memory,
isolating it from the underlying physical memory implementation

Physical memory

Virtual Each application sees its own logical

App
Memory memory, independent of physical memory

App
Benefits of Virtual Memory
Swap space
• Remove physical-memory limits App
• Run multiple applications at once

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Storage Virtualization
• Storage virtualization
o the process of completely abstracting logical storage from physical storage
• Distributed file system
o any file system that allows access to files from multiple hosts sharing via a computer
network
• Virtual file system
o an abstraction layer on top of a more concrete file system, allowing client applications to
access different types of concrete file systems in a uniform way
• Storage hypervisor
o the software that manages storage virtualization and combines physical storage
resources into one or more flexible pools of logical storage
• Virtual disk drive
o a computer program the emulates a disk drive such as a hard disk drive or optical disk
drive
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Storage Virtualization
Servers

Benefits of Storage Virtualization

• Increased storage utilization
• Adding or deleting storage without
affecting application’s availability
Virtualization
• Non-disruptive data migration Layer

Heterogeneous Physical Storage

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Data Virtualization
• Data virtualization
o the presentation of data as an abstract layer, independent of underlying
database systems, structures and storage
• Database virtualization
o the decoupling of the database layer, which lies between the storage and
application layers within the application stack over all

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Network Virtualization
• Network virtualization
o creation of a virtualized network addressing space within or across network subnets
• Virtual private network (VPN)
o a network protocol that replaces the actual wire or other physical media in a network with an
abstract layer, allowing a network to be created over the Internet

VLAN A VLAN B VLAN C

Benefits of Virtual Networks
• Common network links with access-
control properties of separate links
Switch
• Manage logical networks instead of
physical networks
Switch VLAN trunk • Virtual SANs provide similar benefits
for storage-area networks

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x86 Virtualization

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x86 modes: Privilege Levels

• x86 processor’s segment-protection mechanism recognizes 4 privilege levels (0-
high, 3-low level) – unused

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Extending the Concept of Virtualization

Servers
• Hosted virtualization – mainframes
• VMMs / Bare Metal hypervisors
• OS virtualization

Desktops
• Desktop virtualization
• Server-side workspace virtualization
• Client-side workspace virtualization

Application virtualization
• Application isolation
• Application streaming

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Evolution of Virtualization Solutions

1st Generation: Full 3rd Generation: Silicon-
virtualization (Binary 2nd Generation: based (Hardware-
rewriting) Paravirtualization assisted) virtualization
Software Based Cooperative virtualization Unmodified guest
VMware and Microsoft Modified guest VMware and Xen on
VMware, Xen virtualization-aware
hardware platforms

Virtual
… Virtual
Machine Machine VM … VM

Dynamic Translation
Virtual
Machine … Virtual
Machine

Hypervisor Hypervisor
Operating System

Hardware Hardware
Hardware

Time Virtualization Logic

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Full Virtualization
• 1st Generation offering of x86/x64 server virtualization
• Dynamic binary translation

Virtual Machine

App. B
App. C
The emulation layer talks to an operating system which talks to

App. A
Guest OS
o
the computer hardware
Device Drivers
o The guest OS doesn't see that it is used in an emulated
environment
• All of the hardware is emulated including the CPU Emulated
Hardware
• Two popular open source emulators are QEMU and Bochs
Device Drivers

Host OS

Hardware
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Full Virtualization
• Advantages
o The emulation layer
 Isolates VMs from the host OS and from each other
 Controls individual VM access to system resources, preventing an unstable VM from impacting system
performance
o Total VM portability
 By emulating a consistent set of system hardware, VMs have the ability to transparently move between hosts
with dissimilar hardware without any problems
• It is possible to run an operating system that was developed for another architecture on your own architecture
• A VM running on a Dell server can be relocated to a Hewlett-Packard server

• Disadvantages
o Hardware emulation comes with a performance price
o In traditional x86 architectures, OS kernels expect to run privileged code in Ring 0
 However, because Ring 0 is controlled by the host OS, VMs are forced to execute at Ring 1/3, which requires the
VMM to trap and emulate instructions
o Due to these performance limitations, paravirtualization and hardware-assisted
virtualization were developed
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Para-Virtualization
• Hardware environment is not fully simulated
• It involves modifying the OS kernel to replace non-

Virtual Machine
virtualizable instructions with hypercalls that directly

App. B
App. C

App. A
Guest OS
communicate with the virtualization layer hypervisor
• The Hypervisor is responsible for handling the virtualization Device Drivers

requests and putting them to the hardware

• The Guest OS is modified and thus run kernel-level Specialized API

operations at Ring 1 (or 3) Virtual Machine Monitor

o the guest is fully aware of how to process privileged instructions
o thus, privileged instruction translation by the VMM is no longer
necessary Device Drivers
o The guest operating system uses a specialized API to talk to the VMM Hypervisor
and, in this way, execute the privileged instructions

Hardware
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Para-Virtualization Approaches
• Recompiling the OS kernel
o Paravirtualization drivers and APIs must reside in the guest operating system kernel
o You do need a modified operating system that includes this specific API, requiring a compiling
operating systems to be virtualization aware
 Some vendors (such as Novell) have embraced paravirtualization and have provided paravirtualized
OS builds, while other vendors (such as Microsoft) have not
• Installing paravirtualized drivers
o In some operating systems it is not possible to use complete paravirtualization, as it requires
a specialized version of the operating system
o To ensure good performance in such environments, paravirtualization can be applied for
individual devices
o For example, the instructions generated by network boards or graphical interface cards can
be modified before they leave the virtualized machine by using paravirtualized drivers

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Hardware-assisted Virtualization
• The guest OS runs at ring 0

Virtual Machine
• The VMM uses processor extensions (such as

App. B
App. C

App. A
Guest OS
Intel®-VT or AMD-V) to intercept and emulate
privileged operations in the guest Device Drivers

• Hardware-assisted virtualization removes many of

the problems that make writing a VMM a challenge Specialized API

Virtual Machine Monitor

• The VMM runs in a more privileged ring than 0, a

virtual -1 ring is created Device Drivers

• The hypervisor/VMM runs at Ring -1 Hypervisor

o super-privileged mode
Hardware
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Hardware-assisted Virtualization
• Pros
o It allows to run unmodified Operating systems (so legacy OS can be run
without problems)
• Cons
o Speed and Flexibility
 An unmodified OS does not know it is running in a virtualized environment and so, it
can’t take advantage of any of the virtualization features
• It can be resolved using paravirtualization partially

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Desktop Virtualization
• A VMM or hypervisor running on a physical desktop
• Examples include:
o Microsoft Virtual PC
o Parallels Desktop for Mac
o VMware Fusion
o WINE

• Use cases include:

o Emulating Windows games on the
Macintosh,
o Testing code inside VMs
o Underpinning client-side workspace virtualization

• Desktop hypervisors and VMMs don’t necessarily scale to meet enterprise needs; that’s why most
of the providers have server products as well

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Server-side Workspace Virtualization

• A workspace (desktop operating system with custom configuration) running inside a virtual
machine hosted on a server
o Examples include:
 VMware VDI
• Use cases include:
o Centrally managed desktop infrastructure
o Security enforcement and lockdown
• A pool of virtual workspaces resides on the server
o Remote users log into them from any networked device via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP)
• Users can customize their virtual workspace to their heart’s content, while operators enjoy
the relatively straightforward task of managing desktop configuration on one central server
• Connection brokers arbitrate between a pool of virtual workspaces residing on a central
server
• The biggest problem with server-hosted workspace virtualization is that it’s a bandwidth
hog
o Performance is constrained by the performance of your network

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Client-side Workspace Virtualization

• A workspace (desktop operating system with custom configuration) running inside a virtual
machine hosted on a desktop
• Examples include:
o Kidaro Managed Workspace
o Sentillion vThere

• Use cases include:

o Secure remote access
o Protection of sensitive data for defense, healthcare industries
o Personal computer running corporate desktops remotely

• A virtual workspace is served out to execute on the client device

• Centralizes management
• Its big advantage over other models is the security and isolation of data and logic on the
client
• It’s the right model for organizations that need to ensure the security of environments
served to remote users
o Defense contractors
o Healthcare providers
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Application Isolation
• An application packaged with its own virtual copies of the operating system
resources it might otherwise need to change (registries, file systems, libraries)
• Examples include:
o Thinstall
o Trigence

• Use cases include:

o Preventing DLL hell
o Sandboxing desktop applications for secure execution

• Applications use a virtual registry (Thinstall) and file system embedded in the
package with the application
o These extra tools insulate applications from changes to and incompatibility with the
underlying desktop operating system
• Mostly in Windows, although Linux and Solaris as well
• Drawback: increased footprint of the application package and the correspondingly
greater memory requirements
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Application Streaming
• Just-in-time delivery of a server-hosted application to the desktop, such that
the desktop application can execute before the entire file has been downloaded
from the server
• Examples include:
o AppStream
o Microsoft App-V
o Citrix XenApp

• Use cases include:

o Managing the number of instances of running applications, in the case of license
constraints
• Superset of Application Isolation, including a delivery method and an execution
mode
o You stream the application code to the desktop, where it runs in isolation
• No full PC environment, just the application, so you have to provide a
workspace
o Requires to maintain the client-side operating system and ensuring compatibility
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Periodic Table of Virtualization

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Linux-related virtualization projects

Project Type License
Bochs Emulation LGPL
QEMU Emulation LGPL/GPL
z/VM Full virtualization Proprietary
VMware Full virtualization Proprietary
Xen Paravirtualization GPL
UML Paravirtualization GPL
Linux-VServer Operating system- GPL
level virtualization
OpenVZ Operating system- GPL
level virtualization

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Bochs (emulation)
• Bochs is an x86 computer simulator that is portable and runs on a
variety of platforms, including x86, PowerPC, Alpha, SPARC, and MIPS
• It simulate the entire computer, including the peripherals, such as the
keyboard, mouse, video graphics hardware, network interface card
(NIC) devices, and so on
• Bochs can be configured as an older Intel® 386, or successor
processors such as the 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, or a 64-bit variant
• Using the Bochs emulator, you can run any Linux distribution on Linux

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QEMU (emulation)
• QEMU is another emulator, like Bochs, but it has some differences that are worth
noting
• QEMU supports two modes of operation
o Full System Emulation mode
 This mode is similar to Bochs in that it emulates a full personal computer (PC) system with
processor and peripherals
 This mode emulates a number of processor architectures, such as x86, x86_64, ARM, SPARC,
PowerPC, and MIPS, with reasonable speed using dynamic translation
 Using this mode, you can emulate the Windows operating systems and Linux on Linux, Solaris, and
FreeBSD
o User Mode Emulation
 In this mode, which can only be hosted on Linux, a binary for a different architecture can be
launched
 This allows, for example, a binary compiled for the MIPS architecture to be executed on Linux
running on x86
 Other architectures supported in this mode include ARM, SPARC, and PowerPC, though more are
under development

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z/VM (full virtualization)

• The z/VM is the operating system hypervisor for the System z by IBM
• It provides the virtualization of physical resources to the guest
operating systems, including Linux
• It permits multiple processors and other resources to be virtualized
for a number of guest operating systems
• The z/VM can also emulate a guest local area network (LAN) virtually
for those guest operating systems that want to communicate with
each other

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VMware
• VMware is a commercial solution for full virtualization
• Typically a hypervisor sits between the guest operating systems and
the bare hardware as an abstraction layer
• This abstraction layer allows any operating system to run on the
hardware without knowledge of any other guest operating system
• VMware also virtualizes the available I/O hardware and places drivers
for high-performance devices into the hypervisor
• The entire virtualized environment is kept as a file, meaning that a full
system (including guest operating system, VM, and virtual hardware)
can be easily and quickly migrated to a new host for load balancing

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Xen
• Xen is a native (bare-metal) hypervisor providing services that allow multiple
computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware
concurrently
• It is a free open source solution for operating system-level paravirtualization
from XenSource
• It is available for the IA-32, x86-64 and ARM instruction sets
• Operating systems that support Xen include Linux Windows, Minix, Plan 9,
NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenSolaris
• Xen offers five approaches to running the guest operating system:
o HVM (hardware virtual machine)
o HVM with PV drivers
o PVHVM (paravirtualization with full hardware virtualization i.e. HVM with PVHVM
drivers)
o PVH (PV in an HVM container)
o PV (paravirtualization)
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Linux-VServer
• Linux-VServer is a solution for operating system-level virtualization
• Linux-VServer virtualizes the Linux kernel so that multiple user-space
environments, otherwise known as Virtual Private Servers (VPS), run
independently with no knowledge of one another
• Linux-VServer achieves user-space isolation through a set of
modifications to the Linux kernel
• It operates on a number of platforms, including x86, x86-64, SPARC,
MIPS, ARM and PowerPC

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OpenVZ
• Open is another operating system-level virtualization solution, like
Linux-VServer
• OpenVZ is a virtualization-aware (modified) kernel that supports
isolated user-spaces, VPS, with a set of user-tools for management
• For example, you can easily create a new VPS from the command line

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Linux KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine)

• KVM is a full virtualization solution that is unique in that it turns a
Linux kernel into a hypervisor using a kernel module
• This module allows other guest operating systems to then run in user-
space of the host Linux kernel
• The KVM module in the kernel exposes the virtualized hardware
through the /dev/kvm character device
• The guest operating system interfaces to the KVM module using a
modified QEMU process for PC hardware emulation

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