EVOLUTION OF DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING

Parallel Computing

It is form of computing in which many calculation are carried out simultaneously.

• To be run in multiple CPU.
• Problems are broken into discrete parts that can be solved concurrently.
• Each part is further broken into a series of instruction.
• Instruction from each part execute simultaneously of different CPU.

Advantage:

• Save time of execution

• Solve large problem.
• Provide concurrency
• Use non local resource
• Multiple Execution unit
• Use Piplines instruction

Distributed Computing

It is collection of autonomous computes linked by a computer network and equipped with distributed
system software.

The software enables computes to coordinate their activites and share resource of system ,hardware ,software
and data.
Characteristic of Distributed System.

1.Resource sharing
2.Portable.
3.Concurrency
4.scalability
5.fault tolerance
6.Transperancy

Features Parallel Computing Distributed Computing

Definition It is a type of computation It is that type of computing in which the

in which various components are located on various networked
processes runs systems that interact and coordinate their actions
simultaneously. by passing messages to one another.

Communication The processors The computer systems connect with one another
communicate with one via a network.
another via a bus.

Functionality Several processors Several computers execute tasks simultaneously.

execute various tasks
simultaneously in parallel
computing.

Number of It occurs in a single It involves various computers.

Computers computer system.

Memory The system may have Each computer system in distributed computing
distributed or shared has its own memory.
memory.
 Usage It helps to improve the It allows for scalability, resource sharing, and the
system performance efficient completion of computation tasks.

Evaluation of Distributed Computing

A Distributed System is a Network of Machines that can exchange information with each other through Message-
passing. It can be very useful as it helps in resource sharing.
• Client/Server Systems: Client requests to the server for resources or a task to do, the server allocates the
resource or performs the task and sends the result in the form of response to the request of the client.

• Peer to Peer Systems: As nodes are an important part of a system. In this, each node performs their own
task on their local memory and share data through the supporting medium, this node can work as a server
or as a client for a system.

• Middleware: It works as a base for different interoperability applications running on different operating
systems. Data can be transferred to other between others by using this service.

• Three-tier: In this data of the client is stored in the middle tier rather than sorting into the client system
or on their server through which development can be done easily. This is mostly used in web or online
applications.

• N-tier: When interoperability sends the request to another application to perform a task or to provide a
service.

Types of Distributed Systems

A distributed system is also known as distributed computer science and distributed databases; independent
components that interact with other different machines that exchange messages to achieve common goals. As such,
the distributed system appears to the end-user like an interface or a computer. Together the system can maximize
resources and information while preventing system failure and did not affect service availability.

1. Distributed Computing System:

This distributed system is used in performance computation which requires high computing.
• Cluster Computing: A collection of connected computers that work together as a unit to perform
operations together, functioning in a single system. Clusters are generally connected quickly via local
area networks & each node is running the same operating system.
When input comes from a client to the main computer, the master CPU divides the task into simple jobs and send it
to slaves note to do it when the jobs are done by the slave nodes, they send back to the master node, and then it
shows the result to the main computer.
Advantages:
• High Performance
• Easy to manage
• Scalable
• Expandability
• Availability
• Flexibility
Disadvantages:
• High cost
• The problem in finding fault
• More space is needed
Applications of Cluster Computing:
• In many web applications functionalities such as Security, Search Engines, Database servers, web
servers, proxy, and email.
• It is flexible to allocate works as small data tasks for processing.
• Assist and help to solve complex computational problems
• Cluster computing can be used in weather modeling
• Earthquake, Nuclear, Simulation, and tornado forecast

Grid computing: In grid computing, the subgroup consists of distributed systems, which are often set up as a
network of computer systems, each system can belong to a different administrative domain and can differ greatly in
terms of hardware, software, and implementation network technology.
The different department has a different computer with different OS to mage the control node is present which help
different computer with different OS to communicate with each other and transfer messages to work.
Advantages:
• Can solve bigger and more complex problems in a shorter time frame. Easier collaboration with other
organizations and better use of existing equipment
Disadvantages:
• Grid software and standards continue to evolve
• Getting started learning curve
• Non-interactive job submission
• You may need a fast connection between computer resources.
• Licensing on many servers can be prohibitive for some applications.
Applications of Grid Computing
• Organizations that develop grid standards and practices for the guild line.
• Works as a middleware solution for connecting different businesses.
• It is a solution-based solution that can meet computing, data, and network needs.
S.No. CLOUD COMPUTING DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING

Cloud computing refers to

providing on demand IT
resources/services like server, Distributed computing refers to solve a
storage, database, networking, problem over distributed autonomous
analytics, software etc. over computers and they communicate between
01. internet. them over a network.

In simple distributed computing can be

In simple cloud computing can be said as a computing technique which
said as a computing technique that allows to multiple computers to
delivers hosted services over the communicate and work to solve a single
02. internet to its users/customers. problem.

It is classified into 4 different types It is classified into 3 different types such as

such as Public Cloud, Private Distributed Computing Systems,
Cloud, Community Cloud and Distributed Information Systems and
03. Hybrid Cloud. Distributed Pervasive Systems.

There are many benefits of cloud

computing like cost effective,
elasticity and reliable, economies There are many benefits of distributed
of Scale, access to the global computing like flexibility, reliability,
04. market etc. improved performance etc.

Cloud computing provides services

such as hardware, software, Distributed computing helps to achieve
networking resources through computational tasks more faster than using
05. internet. a single computer as it takes a lot of time.

The goal of cloud computing is to The goal of distributed computing is to

provide on demand computing distribute a single task among multiple
services over internet on pay per computers and to solve it quickly by
06. use model. maintaining coordination between them.

Some characteristics of cloud Some characteristics of distributed

computing are providing shared computing are distributing a single task
pool of configurable computing among computers to progress the work at
resources, on-demand service, pay same time, Remote Procedure calls and
per use, provisioned by the Service Remote Method Invocation for distributed
07. Providers etc. computations.
 Some disadvantage of cloud
computing includes less control
especially in the case of public Some disadvantage of cloud computing
clouds, restrictions on available includes chances of failure of nodes, slow
services may be faced and cloud network may create problem in
08. security. communication.

Cloud Computing Grid Computing

S.NO

Cloud computing is a Client-server While it is a Distributed computing

1. computing architecture. architecture.

Cloud computing is a centralized While grid computing is a decentralized

2. executive. executive.

In cloud computing, resources are While in grid computing, resources are

3. used in centralized pattern. used in collaborative pattern.

It is more flexible than grid While it is less flexible than cloud

4. computing. computing.

In cloud computing, the users pay While in grid computing, the users do not
5. for the use. pay for use.

Cloud computing is a high While grid computing is a low accessible

6. accessible service. service.

It is highly scalable as compared While grid computing is low scalable in

7. to grid computing. comparison to cloud computing.

It can be accessed through While it is accessible through grid

8. standard web protocols. middleware.

Cloud computing is based on Grid computing is based on application-

9. service-oriented. oriented.

Grid computing uses service like

Cloud computing uses service like distributed computing, distributed
10. IAAS, PAAS, SAAS. pervasive, distributed information.
Scalable computing over the Internet

Over the past 60 years, computing technology has undergone a series of platform and environment changes. Evolutionary
changes in machine include architecture, operating system platform, network connectivity, and application workload. Instead
of using a centralized computer to solve computational problems, a parallel and distributed computing system uses multiple
computers to solve large-scale problems over the Internet. Thus, distributed computing becomes data-intensive and network-
centric.

2.1 The Age of Internet computing

• The platform evolution
• High performance computing
• High throughput computing
• Three new computing paradigm
• Computing paradigm distinction
• Distributed system families
2.2 Scalable computing trends and new paradigms
• Degrees of parallelism
• Innovative applications
• The trend towards utility computing
• The hype cycle of new technologies

2.3 The internet of things and cyber physical system

• The internet of things
• Cyber physical system

2.1 The Age of Internet Computing

• Billions of people use the Internet every day.
• Supercomputer sites and large data centers must provide high-performance computing services to huge numbers of
Internet users concurrently.
• The Linpack Benchmark for high-performance computing (HPC) applications is no longer optimal for measuring
system performance.
• The emergence of computing clouds instead demands high-throughput computing (HTC) systems built with parallel
and distributed computing technologies.
• The purpose is to advance network-based computing and web services with the emerging new technologies.

The Platform Evolution

• Computer technology has gone through five generations of development, with each generation lasting from 10 to 20
years.
• 1950 to 1970 – mainframes – eg: IBM 360 and CDC 6400.
• 1960 to 1980 - lower-cost mini-computers – eg: DEC PDP 11 and VAX Series .
• 1970 to 1990 - personal computers built with VLSI microprocessors.
• 1980 to 2000 - portable computers
High-Performance Computing
• For many years, HPC systems emphasize the raw speed performance.
• The speed of HPC systems has increased from Gflops in the early 1990s to now Pflops in 2010.
• This improvement was driven mainly by the demands from scientific, engineering, and manufacturing communities
High-Throughput Computing

• The development of market-oriented high-end computing systems is undergoing a strategic change from an HPC
paradigm to an HTC paradigm.
• The main application for high-flux computing is in Internet searches and web services by millions or more users
simultaneously.
• The performance goal thus shifts to measure high throughput or the number of tasks completed per unit of time.
• HTC technology needs to not only improve in terms of batch processing speed, but also address the acute problems
of cost, energy savings, security, and reliability at many data and enterprise computing centers.
Three New Computing Paradigms:
• The maturity of radio-frequency identification (RFID), Global Positioning System (GPS), and sensor technologies
has triggered the development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Computing Paradigm Distinctions:
The following list defines these terms more clearly; their architectural and operational differences are discussed
further in subsequent chapters.
• Centralized computing: This is a computing paradigm by which all computer resources are centralized in one
physical system. All resources (processors, memory, and storage) are fully shared and tightly coupled within one
integrated OS. Many data centers and supercomputers are centralized systems, but they are used in parallel,
distributed, and cloud computing applications.
• Parallel computing: In parallel computing, all processors are either tightly coupled with centralized shared memory
or loosely coupled with distributed memory. Some authors refer to this discipline as parallel processing. Inter
processor communication is accomplished through shared memory or via message passing
• Distributed computing: A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers, each having its own
private memory, communicating through a computer network. Information exchange in a distributed system is
accomplished through message passing. A computer program that runs in a distributed system is known as a
distributed program. The process of writing distributed programs is referred to as distributed programming.

• Cloud computing An Internet cloud of resources can be either a centralized or a distributed computing system. The
cloud applies parallel or distributed computing, or both. Clouds can be built with physical or virtualized resources
over large data centers that are centralized or distributed. Some authors consider cloud computing to be a form of
utility computing or service computing.
 • Distributed system families ---The system efficiency is decided by speed, programming, and energy factors (i.e.,
throughput per watt of energy consumed). Meeting these goals requires yielding the following design objectives:
• Efficiency
• Dependability.
• Adaptation in the programming model
• Flexibility in application deployment
2.2 Scalable computing trends and new paradigms
Degrees of Parallelism
• Bit-level parallelism (BLP) converts bit-serial processing to word-level processing gradually. Over the years, users
graduated from 4-bit microprocessors to 8-, 16-, 32-, and 64-bit CPUs.
• Instruction-level parallelism (ILP), in which the processor executes multiple instructions simultaneously rather
than only one instruction at a time. For the past 30 years, ILP practiced through pipelining, super-scalar computing,
VLIW (very long instruction word) architectures, and multithreading. ILP requires branch prediction, dynamic
scheduling, speculation, and compiler support to work efficiently.
• Data-level parallelism (DLP) was made popular through SIMD (single instruction, multiple• data) and vector
machines using vector or array types of instructions.

Innovative Applications
Both HPC and HTC systems desire transparency in many application aspects.
• For example, data access, resource allocation, process location, concurrency in execution, job replication, and failure
recovery should be made transparent to both users and system management.
• Users must deal with multiple database servers in distributed transactions. Maintaining the consistency of replicated
transaction records is crucial in real-time banking services.
• Other complications include lack of software support, network saturation, and security threats in these applications.

The Trend toward Utility Computing

• Characteristics:
Ubiquitous
Reliability
Scalability
Autonomic
Self-organized to support dynamic discovery.
Composable with QoS and SLAs (service-level agreements).
Utility vision - Utility computing focuses on a business model in which customers receive computing
resources from a paid service provider. All grid/cloud platforms are regarded as utility service providers.
a) The hype cycle of new technologies →
What is the Hype Cycle?
The Hype Cycle attempts to show the development of technology in terms of several phases described
as follows:
Innovation Trigger: This is where a new technology first emerges.
The Peak of Inflated Expectations: As the market begins to understand and scale this new product or
service, there is high interest from both investors as well as consumers, but eventually, that excitement
reaches an apex and then turns into disappointment as expectations are hard to meet for some reason
(e.g., too expensive, difficult to use, etc.).
Trough of Disillusionment: The realization sets in that what was promised may not be what exists at
this point, with many early adopters turning away from it because they feel like they were misled.
The Slope of Enlightenment: As more realistic expectations are set about what is possible with real-
world applications and as more forward-thinking companies find actual use cases, users start to see the
benefits of using it in their day-to-day lives. Adoption picks up speed here until everyone who wants
one has a device or service.
The Plateau of Productivity: The technology stabilizes when it becomes mainstream and reaches peak
market adoption/usage rates. Consumers have figured out how to best leverage its strengths while
minimizing weaknesses for most use cases. This is where it becomes a utility, and the price goes down
 For example, at that time consumer-generated media was at the disillusionment stage, and it was
predicted to take less than two years to reach its plateau of adoption. Internet micropayment systems were
forecast to take two to five years to move from the enlightenment stage to maturity. It was believed that
3D printing would take five to 10 years to move from the rising expectation stage to mainstream adoption,
and mesh network sensors were expected to take more than 10 years to move from the inflated
expectation stage to a plateau of mainstream adoption.

TECHNOLOGIES FOR NETWORK BASED SYSTEMS

PART-A 1) Give the Basic Operation of a VM (AU/April/May 2017)

1) Explain in detail about Multicore CPUs and Multithreading Technologies

2) Explain in detail about GPU Computing to Exascale and Beyond
3) Brief the interaction between the GPU and CPU in performing Parallel
PART-B execution of operation (AU/April/May 2017)
4) Illustrate the Architecture of Virtual machine and brief about the
operations(AU/Nov/Dec 2016)
o Multicore CPUs and multithreading technologies

Advances in CPU processors

Multicore CPU and manycore GPU architectures
Multithreading technology
o GPU computing to exascale and beyond
How GPUs work
GPU programming model
Power efficiency of GPU
o Memory, storage and Wide area networking
Memory technology
Disk and storage technology
System area interconnect
Wide area networking
o Virtual machines and virtualization middleware
Virtual machines
VM primitive operations
Virtual infrastructure
o Data center virtualization for cloud computing
Data center growth and cost breakdown
Low cost design philosophy
Convergence of technologies

1) Multicore CPUs and Multithreading Technologies

➢ A multicore architecture - with dual, quad, six, or more processing cores.
➢ These processors exploit parallelism at ILP and TLP levels.
➢ Processor speed growth is plotted in the upper curve in across generations of microprocessors or
CMPs.
➢ 1 MIPS - for the VAX 780 in 1978
➢ 1,800 MIPS - for the Intel Pentium 4 in 2002,
➢ 22,000 MIPS - the Sun Niagara 2 in 2008.
➢ As the figure shows, Moore law has proven to be pretty accurate in this case.
➢ The clock rate for these processors:10 MHz for the Intel 286,4 GHz for the Pentium 4
➢ However, the clock rate reached its limit on CMO S-based chips due to power limitations.
➢ The clock rate will not continue to improve unless chip technology matures.
➢ This limitation is attributed primarily to excessive heat generation with high frequency or high
voltages.
➢ Both multi-core CPU and many-core GPU processors can handle multiple instruction threads at
different magnitudes today.
➢ Each core is essentially a processor with its own private cache (L1 cache).
➢ Multiple cores are housed in the same chip with an L2 cache that is shared by all cores. In the
future, multiple CMPs could be built on the same CPU chip with even the L3 cache on the chip.
➢ Multicore and multi- threaded CPUs are equipped with many high-end processors, including the
Intel i7, Xeon, AMD Opteron, Sun Niagara, IBM Power 6, and X cell processors. Each core could
be also multithreaded.

Multicore CPU and Many-Core GPU Architectures

➢ Multicore CPUs may increase from the tens of cores to hundreds or more in the future.
➢ But the CPU has reached its limit in terms of exploiting massive DLP due to the memory wall
problem.
➢ A many-core GPUs have with hundreds or more thin cores.
➢ Both IA-32 and IA-64 instruction set architectures are built into commercial CPUs. Now, x-86
proc➢
essors have been extended to serve HPC and HTC systems in some high-end server processors.

Multithreading Technology
The dispatch of five independent threads of instructions to four pipelined datapaths (functional units) in each
of the following five processor categories from left to right: a
 ➢ The superscalar processor is single-threaded with four functional units. Each of the three
multithreaded processors is four-way multithreaded over four functional data paths.
➢ In the dual-core processor, assume two processing cores, each a single-threaded two-way
superscalar processor. Instructions from different threads are distinguished by specific shading
patterns for instructions from five independent threads.
➢ Fine-grain multithreading switches the execution of instructions from different threads per
cycle.
➢ Course-grain multi-threading executes many instructions from the same thread for quite a few
cycles before switching to another thread.
➢ The multicore CMP executes instructions from different threads completely. These execution
patterns closely mimic an ordinary program.
➢ The blank squares correspond to no available instructions for an instruction data path at a
particular processor cycle.
2) GPU computing to exascale and beyond
➢ A GPU is a graphics coprocessor or accelerator mounted on a computer’s graphics card or
video card.
➢ A GPU offloads the CPU from tedious graphics tasks in video editing applications.
➢ The world’s first GPU, the GeForce 256, was marketed by NVIDIA in 1999.
➢ These GPU chips can process a minimum of 10 million polygons per second.
➢ Traditional CPUs are structured with only a few cores.
➢ For example, the Xeon X5670 CPU has six cores., a modern GPU chip can be built with
hundreds of processing cores.
➢ GPUs have a throughput architecture that exploits massive parallelism by executing many
concurrent threads slowly, instead of executing a single long thread in a conventional
microprocessor very quickly.
➢ General-purpose computing on GPUs , known as GPGPUs, have appeared in the HPC field.
NVIDIA’s CUDA model was for HPC using GPGPU.

How GPUs Work

➢ Early GPUs functioned as coprocessors attached to the CPU.
➢ Today, the NVIDIA GPU has been upgraded to 128 cores on a single chip.
➢ Furthermore, each core on a GPU can handle eight threads of instructions.
 ➢ This translates to having up to 1 ,024 threads executed concurrently on a single GPU.
➢ Modern GPUs are not restricted to accelerated graphics or video coding.
➢ They are used in HPC systems to power supercomputers with massive parallelism at
multicore and multithreading levels.
➢ GPUs are designed to handle large numbers of floating-point operations in parallel.
➢ In a way, the GPU offloads the CPU from all data-intensive calculations.
➢ GPU are widely used in mobile phones, game consoles, embedded systems, PCs, and servers.
➢ The NVIDIA CUDA Tesla or Fermi is used in GPU clusters or in HPC systems for parallel
processing of massive floating-pointing data.
➢ The interaction between a CPU and GPU for performing parallel execution of floating-point
operations concurrently.
➢ The CPU is the conventional multicore processor with limited parallelism to exploit.
➢ The GPU has a many-core architecture that has hundreds of simple processing cores
organized as multiprocessors.

Power Efficiency of the GPU

➢ Bill Dally of Stanford University considers power and massive parallelism as the major benefits
of GPUs over CPUs for the future.
➢ By extrapolating current technology and computer architecture, it was estimated that 60
Gflops/watt per core is needed to run an exaflops system
➢ Power constrains what we can put in a CPU or GPU chip.

3) MEMORY, STORAGE AND WIDE AREA NETWORKING

The upper curve in Figure 1.10 plots the growth of DRAM chip capacity from 16 KB in 1976 to 64
GB in 2011. This shows that memory chips have experienced a 4x increase in capacity every three
years. Memory access time did not improve much in the past. In fact, the memory wall problem is
getting worse as the processor gets faster. For hard drives, capacity increased from260 MB in
1981 to 250 GB in 2004.
 Fig 1(a) Improvement in memory and disk technologies over Fig 1(B) Three interconnection
33 years networks for connecting servers, client
hosts, and storage devices.

System-Area Interconnects:
The nodes in small clusters are mostly interconnected by an Ethernet switch or a local area
network( LAN). As Figure 1(B) shows, a LAN typically is used to connect client hosts to big servers.
A storage area network (SAN) connects servers to network storage such as disk arrays. Network attached
storage(NAS) connects client hosts directly to the disk arrays. All three types of networks often appear in
a large cluster built with commercial network components. If no large distributed storage is shared, a
small cluster could be built with a multiport Gigabit Ethernet switch plus copper cables to link the end
machines.

4) VIRTUAL MACHINES AND VIRTUALIZATION MIDDLEWARE

Virtual Machine Definition:
A Virtual Machine (VM) is an operating system OS or application environment that is
installed on software which imitates dedicated Hardware. The end user has the same experience on a
virtual machine as they would have on dedicated hardware

➢ The host machine is equipped with the physical hardware.The VM can be provisioned for any hardware
system.
➢ The VM is built with virtual resources managed by a guest OS to run a specific application. Between the
VMs and the host platform, one needs to deploy a middleware layer called a virtual machine monitor
(VMM).).
➢ A native VM installed with the use of a VMM called a hypervisor in privi-leged mode. For example, the
hardware has x-86 architecture running the Windows system.

VM PRIMITIVE OPERATIONS:
With full virtualization, the VMM exports a VM abstraction identical to the physical
machine so that a standard OS such a Windows 2000 or Linux can run as it would on the physical hardware.
 ➢ First, the VMs can be multiplexed between hardware machines.
➢ Second, a VM can be suspended and stored in stable suspension.
➢ Third, a suspended VM can be resumed or provisioned to a new hardware platform. Finally, a
VM can be migrated from one hardware platform to another.
5) DATA CENTER VIRTUALIZATION FOR CLOUD COMPUTING

➢ Cloud architecture is built with commodity hardware and network devices.

➢ Low-cost terabyte disks and Gigabit Ethernet are used to build data centers.
➢ Data center design emphasizes the performance/price ratio over speed performance alone. In
other words, storage and energy efficiency are more important than shear speed performance.
➢ Worldwide, about 43 million servers are in use as of 2010. The cost of utilities exceeds the cost of
hardware after three years.
CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES
Essentially, cloud computing is enabled by the convergence of technologies in four areas:
(1) hard-ware virtualization and multi-core chips,
(2) utility and grid computing,
(3) SOA, Web 2.0, and WS mashups,
(4) autonomic computing and data center automation.

CLUSTERS OF COOPERATIVE COMPUTERS

PART –B
1) Write Short notes on Cluster of Cooperative computers (Nov/Dec 2016)
2) What are the Issues in Cluster Design? How can they be resolved?(AU/Nov/Dec 2017)
Definition:
A computer cluster consists of a set of loosely or tightly connected computers that work
together in many respect, they can be viewed as a single system. Clusters are generally deployed to
improve speed or reliability.
Cluster Architecture:
➢ The architecture of a typical server cluster built around a low-latency, high bandwidth
interconnection network. This network can be as simple as a SAN (e.g., Myrinet) or a LAN (e.g.,
Ethernet).
➢ To build a larger cluster with more nodes, the interconnection network can be built with multiple
levels of Gigabit Ethernet, Myrinet, or InfiniBand switches.
Through hierarchical construction using a SAN, LAN, or WAN, one can build scalable clusters with an
increasing number of nodes. The cluster is connected to the Internet via a virtual private network (VPN)
gateway. The gateway IP address locates the cluster. The system image of a computer is decided by the
way the OS manages the shared cluster resources.

Single-System Image
An ideal cluster should merge multiple system images into a single-system image (SSI). Cluster designers
desire a cluster operating system or some middleware to support SSI at various levels, including the
sharing of CPUs, memory, and I/O across all cluster nodes. An SSI is an illusion created by software or
hardware that presents a collection of resources as one integrated, powerful resource.SSI makes the
cluster appear like a single machine to the user. A cluster with multiple system images is nothing but a
collection of independent computers.
GRID COMPUTING INFRASTRUCTURES
Part B→Describe the Infrastructure requirements for grid Computing (AU/Nov/Dec 2017)
➢ Users have experienced a natural growth path from Internet to web and grid computing services.
Internet services such as the Telnet command enables a local computer to connect to a remotecomputer.
Web service such as HTTP enables remote access of remote web pages.
➢ Grid computing is envisioned to allow close interaction among applications running on distant
computers simultaneously.
Computational Grids
➢ Like an electric utility power grid, a computing grid offers an infrastructure that couples computers,
software/middleware, special instruments, and people and sensors together.
➢ The grid is often constructed across LAN, WAN, or Internet backbone networks at a regional,
national, or global scale Enterprises or organizations present grids as integrated computing
resources.
➢ They can also be viewed as virtual platforms to support virtual organizations. The computers used
in a grid are primarily workstations, servers, clusters, and supercomputers. Personal computers,
laptops, and PDAs can be used as access devices to a grid system

Grid Families
➢ Grid technology demands new distributed computing models, software/middleware support,
network protocols, and hardware infrastructures.
➢ National grid projects are followed by industrial grid platform development by IBM, Microsoft,
Sun, HP, Dell, Cisco, EMC, Platform Computing, and others.
➢ New grid service providers (GSPs) and new grid applications have emerged rapidly, similar to the
growth of Internet and web services in the past two decades.

CLOUD COMPUTING OVER THE INTERNET

Part –A → Highlight the importance of the term “Cloud Computing” (AU/Nov/Dec 2016)
 ➢ Definition - “A cloud is a pool of virtualized computer resources. A cloud can host a variety of
different workloads, including batch-style backend jobs and interactive and user-facing
applications”
➢ The cloud allows workloads to be deployed and scaled out quickly through rapid provisioning of
virtual or physical machines.
➢ The cloud supports redundant, self-recovering, highly scalable programming models that allow
workloads to recover from many unavoidable hardware/software failures.
➢ Finally, the cloud system should be able to monitor resource use in real time to enable
rebalancing of allocations when needed.
Internet Clouds
➢ Cloud computing applies a virtualized platform with elastic resources on demand by provisioning
hardware, software, and data sets dynamically.
➢ The idea is to move desktop computing to a service-oriented platform using server clusters and
huge databases at data centers.
➢ Cloud computing leverages its low cost and simplicity to benefit both users and providers.

The Cloud Landscape

The traditional systems have encountered several performance bottlenecks: constant system maintenance,
poor utilization, and increasing costs associated with hardware/software upgrades.
Cloud computing as an on-demand computing paradigm resolves or relieves us from these problems.

CLOUD SERVICE MODELS:

➢ Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)---This model puts together infrastructures demanded by users
— namely servers, storage, networks, and the data center fabric.
➢ Platform as a Service (PaaS) -→ This model enables the user to deploy user-built applications
onto a virtualized cloud platform. PaaS includes middleware, databases, development tools, and
some runtime support such as Web 2.0 and Java.
➢ Software as a Service (SaaS)-→The SaaS model applies to business processes, industry
applications, consumer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resources planning (ERP),
human resources (HR) , and collaborative applications.
The following list highlights eight reasons to adapt the cloud for upgraded Internet applications and web
services:
➢ Desired location in areas with protected space and higher energy efficiency
➢ Sharing of peak-load capacity among a large pool of users, improving overall utilization
➢ Separation of infrastructure maintenance duties from domain-specific application development
➢ Significant reduction in cloud computing cost, compared with traditional computing paradigms
➢ Cloud computing programming and application development
➢ Service and data discovery and content/service distribution
➢ Privacy, security, copyright, and reliability issues

SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE

Part- A Differentiate between Grid and Cloud Computing (AU/Nov/Dec 2017)
Part-B Write Short notes on Service Oriented Architecture (AU/Nov/Dec 2016)
➢ In grids/web services, Java, and CORBA, an entity is, respectively, a service, a Java object, and a
CORBA distributed object in a variety of languages.
➢ These architectures build on the traditional seven Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) layers that
provide the base networking abstractions.
➢ Eg: .NET or Apache Axis for web services,the Java Virtual Machine for Java, broker network for
CORBA.

Fig : Layered architecture for web services and the grids.

Layered Architecture for Web Services and Grids
➢ The entity interfaces correspond to the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), Java
method, andCORBA interface definition language (IDL) specifications in these example
distributed systems.
➢ These interfaces are linked with customized, high-level communication systems: SOAP, RMI,
and IIOP in the three examples.
➢ These communication systems support features including particular message patterns

Fig: SOA Architecture

Web Services and Tools

➢ Loose coupling and support of heterogeneous implementations make services more attractive
than distributed objects.
➢ In web services, one aims to fully specify all aspects of the service and its environment.
➢ This specification is carried with communicated messages using Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP).
➢ The hosting environment then becomes a universal distributed operating system with fully
distributed capability carried by SOAP messages.
➢ This approach has mixed success as it has been hard to agree on key parts of the protocol and
even harder to efficiently implement the protocol by software such as Apache Axis.
➢ In the REST approach, one adopts simplicity as the universal principle and delegates most of the
difficult problems to application (implementation-specific) software.
➢ For Java, this could be as simple as writing a Java program with method calls replaced
by Remote Method Invocation (RMI), while CORBA supports a similarmodel with a
syntax reflecting the C++ style of its entity (object) interfaces.
EVOLUTION OF SOA
➢ As shown in Figure 1.21, service-oriented architecture (SOA) has evolved over the years.
➢ SOA applies to building grids, clouds, grids of clouds, clouds of grids, clouds of clouds (also known
as interclouds), and systems of systems in general.
➢ A large number of sensors provide data-collection services, denoted in the figure as SS (sensor
service). A sensor can be a ZigBee device, a Bluetooth device, a WiFi access point, a personal
computer, a GPA, or a wireless phone, among other things.
➢ Raw data is collected by sensor services.
➢ All the SS devices interact with large or small computers, many forms of grids, databases, the
compute cloud, the storage cloud, the filter cloud, the discovery cloud, and so on. Filter services
(fs in the figure) are used to eliminate unwanted raw data, in order to respond to specific requests
from the web, the grid, or web services.

Fig: Evolution of SOA

Grid Vs Cloud
➢ In general, a grid system applies static resources, while a cloud emphasizes elastic resources.
➢ For some researchers, the differences between grids and clouds are limited only in dynamic
resource allocation based on virtualization and autonomic computing. One can build a grid out of
multiple clouds.
➢ This type of grid can do a better job than a pure cloud, because it can explicitly supportnegotiated
resource allocation.
➢ Thus one may end up building with a system of systems: such as a cloud of clouds, a grid of clouds,
or a cloud of grids, or inter-clouds as a basic SOA architecture.

INTRODUCTION TO GRID ARCHITECTURE AND STANDARDS – ELEMENTS OF GRID –

OVERVIEW OF GRID ARCHITECTURE
PART –B 1)Describe Layered Grid Architecture. How does it map on to internet Protocol architecture
(AU/Nov/Dec 2017
➢ Grid computing is applying the resources of many computers in a network to a single problem at
the same time.
 ➢ Grid computing technologies & infrastructure support the sharing & coordinated use of divers
resources in dynamics, distributed virtual organization.
➢ Grid architecture identifies the fundamental system components, specifies purpose and function
of these components and indicates how these components interact with each other.
➢ The grid can be thought of as a distributed system with non-interactive workloads that involve a
large no of files.
➢ The different Grid computing from conventional high performance computing system such as
cluster computing is that grid to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous& geographically
dispersed.
➢ Grids are often constructed with general purpose grid middleware software libraries.

GRID COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE:

Figure : Grid Computing architecture

ADVANTAGES OF GRID COMPUTING:-
➢ No need to buy large symmetric multiprocessor server.
➢ Much more efficient use of idle resources.
➢ Grid environment are much more modular and don’t have single point of failure.
➢ Polices can be managed by the grid software.
➢ Upgrading can be alone.
➢ Jobs can be executed in parallel speed.

DISADVANTAGES OF GRID COMPUTING:-

➢ For a small memory applications memory passing interfaces you may need to have a fast
interconnect between the computer resources.
➢ Some application may require full advantages of new model.
➢ Political challenges associated with sharing resources.

GRID COMPUTING STANDARDS:

a) OGSA (Open Grid Service Architecture): The aim of OGSA is to standardize grid computing and to
define a basic framework of a grid application structure. Some of the key concepts are first presented by
Ian Foster who still leads the OGSA working group. This Architecture combines different aspects from
grid computing with advantages from Web Services.
b) OGSA Services: The OGSA specifies services which occur within a wide variety of grid systems. They
can be divided into 4 broad groups: i) Core Services ii) Data Services iii)Program Execution Services and
iv) Resource Management Services.
c) OGSI (Open Grid Service Infrastructure): OGSA defines a Grid Application and what a Grid Service
should be able to do. OGSI specifies a Grid Services in detail.
 d) WSRF (Web Service Resource Framework): WSRF is a derivative of OGSI. A first implementation can
be found in GT4 (Global Toolkit 4). The framework combines 6 different WS specifications “that define what
is termed the WS-Resource approach to modeling and managing state in a Web services context. WSRF
Specifications: i) WS-ResourceLifetime: mechanisms for WSRessource destruction ii) WS- ResourceProperties:
manipulation and definition of WS properties iii) WS-Notification: event management iv) WS-
RenewableReference: defines updating proceeding v) WS-ServiceGroup: interface for by-reference collections
of WSs vi) WS-BaseFaults: standardization of possible failures.

ELEMENTS OF GRID:

Grid computing combines elements such as distributed computing, high-performance computing and disposable
computing depending on the application of the technology and the scale of operation. Grids can create a virtual
supercomputer out of the existing servers, workstations and personal computers.
Present-day grids encompass the following types
• Computational grids, in which machines will set aside resources to “number crunch” data or providecoverage
for other intensive workloads
• Scavenging grids, commonly used to find and harvest machine cycles from idle servers and desktopcomputers
for use in resource-intensive tasks (scavenging is usually implemented in a way that isunobtrusive to the
owner/user of the processor)
• Data grids, which provide a unified interface for all data repositories in an organization, and through which
data can be queried, managed and secured.
• Market-oriented grids, which deal with price setting and negotiation, grid economy management and utility
driven scheduling and resource allocation.

OVERVIEW OF GRID ARCHITECTURE:

The architecture of a grid system is often described in terms of “layers”, each providing a specific function as
shown in the following figure. Higher layers are user centric, whereas the lower layers are hardware-centric. In
Figure 1 a generic grid architecture showing the functionality of each layer.
 NETWORK LAYER: It is the bottom layer
which assures the connectivity for the
resources in the grid.
RESOURCE LAYER: It is made up of
actual resources that are part of the grid, such
as computers, storage systems, electronic data
catalogues, and even sensors such as
telescopes or other instruments, which can be
connected directly to the network.
MIDDLEWARE LAYER: It provides the
tools that enable various elements (servers,
storage, networks, etc.) to participate in a
unified grid environment.
APPLICATION LAYER: In which includes
different user applications (science,
engineering, business, financial), portal and
development toolkits-supporting applications.

Fig :Grid Layer Architecture Types of Layer & its Function

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF GRIDS:

The main characteristics of a grid computing environment can be listed as follows:
➢ Large scale: A grid must be able to deal with a number of resources ranging from just a few to
millions.
➢ Geographical distribution: Grid resources may be spread geographically.
➢ Heterogeneity: A grid hosts both software and hardware resources that can be ranging from data,
files, software components or programs to sensors, scientific instruments, display devices, personal
digital organizers, computers, super-computers and networks.
➢ Resource sharing and coordination: Resources in a grid belong to different organizations that
allow other organizations (i.e. users) to access them. The resources must be coordinated in order to
provide aggregated computing capabilities.
➢ Multiple administrations: Each organization may establish different security and administrative
policies under which resources can be accessed and used.
➢ Accessibility attributes: Transparency, dependability, consistency, and pervasiveness are
attributes typical to grid resource access. A grid should be seen as a single virtual computing
environment and must assure the delivery of services under established Quality of Service
requirements.

➢ Virtualization is software that separates physical infrastructures to create various dedicated

resources. It is the fundamental technology that powers cloud computing
➢ "Virtualization software makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple
applications on the same server at the same time, It enables businesses to reduce IT costs
 while increasing the efficiency, utilization and flexibility of their existing computer
hardware."
➢ The technology behind virtualization is known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or
virtual manager, which separates compute environments from the actual physical
infrastructure.
➢ Virtualization makes servers, workstations, storage and other systems independent of the
physical hardware layer,
TYPES OF VIRTUALIZATION:

➢ Storage virtualization
➢ Server virtualization
➢ Operating system-level virtualization
➢ Network virtualization:
➢ Application virtualization

Storage virtualization - Storage virtualization is the amalgamation of multiple network storage

devices into what appears to be a single storage unit. Storage virtualization is usually implemented
via software applications and often used in SAN (storage area network), a high-speed sub network of
shared storage devices, and makes tasks such as archiving, back-up, and recovery easier and faster.

Server virtualization - Server virtualization is the partitioning of a physical server into smaller virtual
servers to help maximize your server resources. In server virtualization the resources of the server
itself are hidden, or masked, from users, and software is used to divide the physical server into
multiple virtual environments, called virtual or private servers.

Operating system-level virtualization - More commonly called OS-level virtualization. A type

of server virtualization technology which works at the OS layer. The physical server and single
instance of the operating system is virtualized into multiple isolated partitions, where each partition
replicates a real server.
Network virtualization
➢ Network virtualization (NV) is using network resources through a logical segmentation of a
single physical network.
➢ Network virtualization is achieved by installing software and services to manage the sharing
of storage, computing cycles and applications.
➢ Network virtualization treats all servers and services in the network as a single pool of
resources that can be accessed without regard for its physical components.
➢ The term network virtualization is often used to describe many things including network
management, storage virtualization, and even grid computing.
Application virtualization
➢ Also called application service virtualization.
➢ Application virtualization is layered on top of other virtualization technologies, such
as storage virtualization or machine virtualization to allow computing resources to be
distributed dynamically in real time.
➢ In standard computing, applications install their settings onto the host operating system,
hard-coding the entire system to fit that application's needs.
➢ With application virtualization, each application brings down its own set of configurations
on-demand, and executes in a way so that it sees only its own settings.

LEVELS OF VIRTUALIZATION
➢ A traditional computer runs with a host operating system specially tailored for its hardware
architecture, as shown in Figure 1(a).
➢ After virtualization, different user applications managed by their own operating systems
(guest OS) can run on the same hardware, independent of the host OS. This is often done by
adding additional software, called a virtualization layer as shown in Figure 1(b).
➢ This virtualization layer is known as hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM). The
VMs are shown in the upper boxes, where applications run with their own guest OS over
the virtualized CPU, memory, and I/O resources.

Figure 1: Architecture of a computer system before and after virtualization

➢ The main function of the software layer for virtualization is to virtualize the physical
hardware of a host machine into virtual resources to be used by the VMs, exclusively.
➢ This can be implemented at various operational levels, as we will discuss shortly.
➢ The virtualization software creates the abstraction of VMs by interposing a virtualization
layer at various levels of a computer system. Common virtualization layers include the
instruction set architecture (ISA) level, hardware level, operating system level, library support
level, and application level.
 Figure 2: Virtualization ranging from hardware to applications in five abstraction levels.

Instruction Set Architecture Level

➢ For example, MIPS binary code can run on an x86-based host machine with the help of ISA
emulation.
➢ The basic emulation method is through code interpretation.
➢ An interpreter program interprets the source instructions to target instructions one by one.
➢ The performance, dynamic binary translation is desired.
➢ This approach translates basic blocks of dynamic source instructions to target instructions.
➢ The basic blocks can also be extended to program traces or super blocks to increase translation
efficiency.
➢ Instruction set emulation requires binary translation and optimization. A virtual instruction set
architecture (V-ISA) thus requires adding a processor-specific software translation layer to the
compiler.
Hardware Abstraction Level
➢ Hardware-level virtualization is performed right on top of the bare hardware. On the one hand, this
approach generates a virtual hardware environment for a VM. On the other hand, the process
manages the underlying hardware through virtualization.
➢ The intention is to upgrade the hardware utilization rate by multiple users concurrently.
➢ The idea was implemented in the IBM VM/370 in the 1960s. More recently, the Xen hypervisor
has been applied to virtualize x86-based machines to run Linux or other guest OS applications.

Operating System Level

➢ This refers to an abstraction layer between traditional OS and user applications. OS-level
virtualization creates isolated containers on a single physical server and the OS instances to utilize
the hardware and software in data centers.
➢ The containers behave like real servers. OS-level virtualization is commonly used in creating
virtual hosting environments to allocate hardware resources among a large number of mutually
distrusting users. It is also used, to a lesser extent, in consolidating server hardware by moving
services on separate hosts into containers or VMs on one server.

Library Support Level

➢ Most applications use APIs exported by user-level libraries rather than using lengthy system calls
by the OS.
➢ Virtualization with library interfaces is possible by controlling the communication link between
applications and the rest of a system through API hooks.
➢ The software tool WINE has implemented this approach to support Windows applications on top
of UNIX hosts.
➢ Another example is the vCUDA which allows applications executing within VMs to leverage
GPU hardware acceleration.

User-Application Level
➢ Virtualization at the application level virtualizes an application as a VM. On a traditionalOS, an
application often runs as a process. Therefore, application-level virtualization isalso known as
process-level virtualization. The most popular approach is to deploy highlevel language (HLL)
VMs.
➢ In this scenario, the virtualization layer sits as an application program on top of the operating
system, and the layer exports an abstraction of a VMthat can run programs written and compiled to
a particular abstract machine definition.
 ➢ Any program written in the HLL and compiled for this VM will be able to run on it.
➢ The result is an application that is much easier to distribute and remove from user workstations.
➢ An example is the LANDesk application virtualization platform which deploys software
applications as self-contained, executable files in an isolated environment without requiring
installation, system modifications, or elevated security privileges.
Relative Merits of Virtualization at Various Levels (More “X”’s Means Higher Merit,
With a Maximum of 5 X’s)

Virtualization Support at the OS Level

➢ As cloud computing has at least two challenges.
➢ The first is the ability to use a variable number of physical machines and VM instances depending
on the needs of a problem.
➢ For example, a task may need only a single CPU during some phases of execution but may need
hundreds of CPUs at other times.
➢ The second challenge concerns the slow operation of instantiating new VMs.
Why OS-Level Virtualization?
➢ Besides slow operation, storing the VM images also becomes an issue.
➢ To reduce the performance overhead of hardware level virtualization, even hardware modification
is needed.
➢ OS-level virtualization provides a feasible solution for these hardware-level virtualization issues.
➢ Operating system virtualization inserts a virtualization layer inside an operating system to partition
a machine’s physical resources.
➢ It enables multiple isolated VMs within a single operating system kernel. This kind of VM is called
a virtual execution environment (VE), Virtual Private System (VPS), or simply container. From the
user’s point of view, VEs look like real servers.
➢ This means a VE has its own set of processes, file system, user accounts, network interfaces with
IP addresses, routing tables, firewall rules, and other personal settings. Although VEs can be
customized for different people, they share the same operating system kernel. Therefore, OS-level
virtualization is also called single-OS image virtualization.

Advantages of OS Extensions
➢ Compared to hardware-level virtualization, the benefits of OS extensions are twofold:
➢ These benefits can be achieved via two mechanisms of OS-level virtualization:
 ➢ All OS-level VMs on the same physical machine share a single operating system kernel; and (2)
the virtualization layer can be designed in a way that allows processes in VMs to access as many
resources of the host machine as possible, but never to modify them.
Disadvantages of OS Extensions
➢ The main disadvantage of OS extensions is that all the VMs at operating system level on a single
container must have the same kind of guest operating system.
➢ For example, a Windows distribution such as Windows XP cannot run on a Linux-based
container.
➢ Some prefer Windows and others prefer Linux or other operating systems.

3.6 VIRTUALIZATION STRUCTURES/TOOLS AND MECHANISMS

Part –B 1.What is Virtualization? Describe para and Full virtualization architectures.

Compare and Contrast them (AU/Nov/Dec 2017)
➢ In general, there are three typical classes of VM architecture.
➢ Before virtualization, the operating system manages the hardware.
➢ After virtualization, a virtualization layer is inserted between the hardware and the operating
system.
➢ In such a case, the virtualization layer is responsible for converting portions of the real hardware
into virtual hardware. Therefore, different operating systems such as Linux and Windows can run
on the same physical machine, simultaneously.
➢ Depending on the position of the virtualization layer, there are several classes of VM architectures,
namely the hypervisor architecture, para-virtualization, and host-basedvirtualization.
➢ The hypervisor is also known as the VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor). They both perform the same
virtualization operations.

Hypervisor and Xen Architecture

➢ The hypervisor supports hardware-level virtualization on bare metal devices like CPU, memory,
disk and network interfaces.
➢ The hypervisor software its directly between the physical hardware and its OS. This virtualization
layer is referred to as either the VMM or the hypervisor.
➢ The hypervisor provides hyper calls for the guest OS and applications. Depending on the
functionality, a hypervisor can assume micro kernel architecture like the Microsoft Hyper-V Or it
can assume a monolithic hypervisor architecture like the VMware ESX for server virtualization.
➢ A micro-kernel hypervisor includes only the basic and unchanging functions (such asphysical
memory management and processor scheduling).
➢ The device drivers and other changeable components are outside the hypervisor.
➢ A monolithic hypervisor implements all the aforementioned functions, including those of the device
drivers.
➢ Therefore, the size of the hypervisor code of a micro-kernel hypervisor is smaller than that of a
monolithic hypervisor. Essentially, a hypervisor must be able to convert physical devices into
virtual resources dedicated for the deployed VM to use.

The Xen Architecture

➢ Xen is an open source hypervisor program developed by Cambridge University.
➢ Xen is a micro-kernel hypervisor, which separates the policy from the mechanism.
➢ The Xen hypervisor implements all the mechanisms, leaving the policy to be handled by Domain
0, Xen does not include any device drivers natively.
 ➢ It just provides a mechanism by which a guest OS can have direct access to the physical devices.
➢ As a result, the size of the Xen hypervisor is kept rather small.
➢ The core components of a Xen system are the hypervisor, kernel, and applications.
➢ The organization of the three components is important.
➢ Like other virtualization systems,many guest OS can run on top of the hypervisor. However, not
all guest OS are created equal, and one in particular controls the others. The guest OS, which has
controlability, is called Domain 0, and the others are called Domain U.
➢ Domain 0 is a privileged guest OS of Xen. It is first loaded when Xen boots without any file system
drivers being available.
➢ Domain 0 is designed to access hardware directly and manage devices.
➢ For example, Xen is based on Linux and its security level is C2.
➢ Its management VM is named Domain 0, which has the privilege to manage other VMs
implemented on the same host.
➢ If Domain 0 is compromised, the hacker can control the entire system.
➢ So, in the VM system, security policies are needed to improve the security of Domain 0.
➢ Domain 0, behaving as a VMM, allows users to create, copy, save, read, modify, share,migrate,
and roll back VMs as easily as manipulating a file, which flexibly provides tremendous benefits for
users.

3.6.1 FULL VIRTUALIZATION

➢ With full virtualization, noncritical instructions run on the hardware directly while
➢ critical instructions are discovered and replaced with traps into the VMM to be emulatedby
software.
➢ Both the hypervisor and VMM approaches are considered full virtualization.
➢ Noncritical instructions do notcontrol hardware or threaten the security of the system, but critical
instructions do.
Binary Translation of Guest OS Requests Using a VMM
➢ This approach was implemented by VMware and many other software companies.
➢ VMware puts the VMM at Ring 0 and the guest OS at Ring 1.
➢ TheVMM scans the instruction stream and identifies the privileged, control- and
behaviorsensitiveinstructions.
➢ When these instructions are identified, they are trapped into theVMM, which emulates the
behavior of these instructions.
➢ The method used in thisemulation is called binary translation.
➢ Therefore, full virtualization combines binarytranslation and direct execution.
➢ The guest OS is completely decoupled from theunderlying hardware.
➢ Consequently, the guest OS is unaware that it is being virtualized.
 ➢ The performance of full virtualization may not be ideal, because it involves binary translation
which is rather time-consuming.

3.6.2 HOST-BASED VIRTUALIZATION

➢ An alternative VM architecture is to install a virtualization layer on top of the host OS.
➢ This host OS is still responsible for managing the hardware.
➢ The guest OS are installed and run on top of the virtualization layer.
➢ Dedicated applications may run on the VMs.
➢ The host-based architecture has some distinct advantages, as enumerated next.
➢ First, the user can install this VM architecture without modifying the host OS.
➢ The virtualizing software can rely on the host OS to provide device drivers and other low-level
services.
➢ Second, the host-based approach appeals to many host machine configurations.
➢ Compared to the hypervisor/VMM architecture, the performance of the host-based architecture
may also be low.
➢ When an application requests hardware access, it involves four layers of mapping which
downgrades performance significantly.
➢ When the ISA of a guest OS is different from the ISA of the underlying hardware, binary
translation must be adopted.

3.6.3 PARA-VIRTUALIZATION WITH COMPILER SUPPORT

➢ Para-virtualization needs to modify the guest operating systems.
➢ A para-virtualized VM provides special APIs requiring substantial OS modifications in user
applications.
➢ Performance degradation is a critical issue of a virtualized system.
➢ No one wants to use a VM if it is much slower than using a physical machine.
➢ The virtualization layer can be inserted at different positions in a machine software stack. However,
para-virtualization attempts to reduce the virtualization overhead, and thus improve performance
by modifying only the guest OS kernel.
➢ The guest operating systems are para-virtualized.
➢ They are assisted by an intelligent compiler to replace the non virtualizable OS instructions by
hyper calls.
➢ The traditional x86 processor offers four instruction execution rings: Rings 0, 1, 2, and 3. The lower
the ring number, the higher the privilege of instruction being executed.
➢ The OS is responsible for managing the hardware and the privileged instructions to execute at
Ring0, while user-level applications run at Ring 3. The best example of para-virtualization is the
KVM to be described below.
3.7 VIRTUALIZATION OF CPU, MEMORY, AND I/O DEVICES

Part –B 1. Discuss how virtualization is implemented in CPU, Memory and I/O Devices.

➢ To support virtualization, processors such as the x86 employ a special running mode and
instructions, known as hardware-assisted virtualization.
➢ In this way, the VMM and guest OS run in different modes and all sensitive instructions of the
guest OS and its applications are trapped in the VMM.
➢ To save processor states, mode switching is completed by hardware. For the x86 architecture,
Intel and AMD have proprietary technologies for hardware-assisted virtualization.

HARDWARE SUPPORT FOR VIRTUALIZATION

➢ Modern operating systems and processors permit multiple processes to run simultaneously.
➢ Therefore, all processors have at least two modes, user mode and supervisor mode, to ensure
controlled access of critical hardware.
➢ Instructions running in supervisor mode are called privileged instructions.
➢ Other instructions are unprivileged instructions.
➢ In a virtualized environment, it is more difficult to make OS and applications run correctly
because there are more layers in the machine stack.

SOFTWARE:
➢ The VMware Workstation is a VM suite for x86 and x86-64 computers.
➢ This software suite allows users to set up multiple x86 and x86-64 virtual computers and to use
one or more of these VMs simultaneously with the host operating system.
➢ The VMware Workstation assumes the host-based virtualization.
➢ Xen is a hypervisor for use in IA-32,x86-64, Itanium, and PowerPC 970 hosts.
 ➢ Actually, Xen modifies Linux as the lowest and most privileged layer, or a hypervisor.
➢ One or more guest OS can run on top of the hypervisor.
➢ KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure. KVM can
support hardware assisted virtualization and para virtualization by using the Intel VT-x or AMD-
v and Virtual IO framework, respectively.
➢ The Virtual IO framework includes a para virtual Ethernet card, a disk I/O controller, a balloon
device for adjusting guest memory usage, and a VGA graphics interface using VMware drivers.

3.7.1. CPU VIRTUALIZATION

• A VM is a duplicate of an existing computer system in which a majority of the VM instructions
are executed on the host processor in native mode.
• Thus, unprivileged instructions of VMs run directly on the host machine for higher efficiency.
• The critical instructions are divided into three categories:
➢ Privileged Instructions,
➢ Control-Sensitive instructions, And
➢ Behavior-Sensitive Instructions.
• Privileged instructions execute in a privileged mode and will be trapped if executed outside this
mode.
• Control-sensitive instructions attempt to change the configuration of resources used. Behavior-
sensitive instructions have different behaviors depending on the configuration of resources,
including the load and store operations over the virtual memory.
• When the privileged instructions including control- and behavior-sensitive instructions of a VM
are executed, they are trapped in the VMM.
• In this case, the VM Macts as a unified mediator for hardware access from different VMs to
guarantee the correctness and stability of the whole system.
• However, not all CPU architectures are virtualizable.
• RISC CPU architectures can be naturally virtualized because all control and behavior-sensitive
instructions are privileged instructions. On the contrary, x86 CPU architectures are not primarily
designed to support virtualization.
• This is because about sensitive instructions, such as SGDT and SMSW, are not privileged
instructions. When these instructions execute in virtualization, they cannot be trapped in the VMM.
• On a native UNIX-like system, a system call triggers the 80h interrupt and passes control to the
OS kernel.
• The interrupt handler in the kernel is then invoked to process the system call.

HARDWARE-ASSISTED CPU VIRTUALIZATION

➢ This technique attempts to simplify virtualization because full or para virtualization is complicated.
➢ Intel and AMD add an additional mode called privilege mode level to x86 processors.
➢ Therefore, operating systems can still run at Ring0 and the hypervisor can run at Ring -1. All the
privileged and sensitive instructions are trapped in the hypervisor automatically. This technique
removes the difficulty of implementing binary translation of full virtualization. It also lets the
operating system run in VMs without modification.

3.7.2 MEMORY VIRTUALIZATION

➢ Virtual memory virtualization is similar to the virtual memory support provided by modern
operating systems.
 ➢ In a traditional execution environment, the operating system maintains mappings of virtualmemory
to machine memory using page tables, which is a one-stage mapping from virtual memory to
machine memory.
➢ All modern x86 CPUs include a memory management unit (MMU) and a translation look aside
buffer (TLB) to optimize virtual memory performance.
➢ However, in a virtual execution environment, virtual memory virtualization involves sharing the
physical system memory in RAM and dynamically allocating it to the physical memory of the VMs.
➢ That means a two-stage mapping process should be maintained by the guest OS and the VMM,
respectively: virtual memory to physical memory and physical memory to machine memory.
➢ MMU virtualization should be supported, which is transparent to the guest OS. The guest OS
continues to control the mapping of virtual addresses to the physical memory addresses of VMs.
➢ But the guest OS cannot directly access the actual machine memory. The VMM is responsible for
mapping the guest physical memory to the actual machine memory.

➢ Since each page table of the guest OSes has a separate page table in the VMM corresponding to
it, the VMM page table is called the shadow page table.
➢ Nested page tables add another layer of indirection to virtual memory. The MMU already handles
virtual-to-physical translations as defined by the OS.
➢ Then the physical memory addresses are translated to machine addresses using another set of
page tables defined by the hypervisor.
➢ VMware uses shadow page tables to perform virtual-memory-to-machine-memory address
translation. Processors use TLB hardware to map the virtual memory directly to the machine
memory to avoid the two levels of translation on every access.
➢ When the guest OS changes the virtual memory to a physical memory mapping, the VMM updates
the shadow page tables to enable a direct lookup.
➢ The AMD Barcelona processor has featured hardware-assisted memory virtualization since 2007.
➢ It provides hardware assistance to the two-stage address translation in a virtual execution
environment by using a technology called nested paging.

3.7.3 I/O VIRTUALIZATION

➢ I/O virtualization involves managing the routing of I/O requests between virtual devices and the
shared physical hardware. These are three ways to implement I/O virtualization: full device
emulation, para-virtualization, and direct I/O.
➢ Full device emulation is the first approach for I/O virtualization. Generally, this approach emulates
well-known, real-world devices.
➢ All the functions of a device or bus infrastructure, such as device enumeration, identification,
interrupts, and DMA, are replicated in software.
➢ This software is located in the VMM and acts as a virtual device.
➢ The I/O access requests of the guest OS are trapped in the VMM which interacts with theI/O
devices.
➢ A single hardware device can be shared by multiple VMs that run concurrently.
➢ However, software emulation runs much slower than the hardware it emulates.
➢ The para-virtualization method of I/O virtualization is typically used in Xen.
➢ It is also known as the split driver model consisting of a frontend driver and a backend driver.
➢ The front end driver is running in Domain U and the backend driver is running in Domain 0.
➢ They interact with each other via a block of shared memory.
➢ The frontend driver manages the I/O requests of the guest OS and the backend driver is
responsible for managing the real I/O devices and multiplexing the I/O data of different VMs.
➢ Direct I/O virtualization lets the VM access devices directly.
➢ It can achieve close-to native performance without high CPU costs.
➢ Since software-based I/O virtualization requires a very high over head of device emulation,
hardware-assisted I/O virtualization is critical.
➢ Intel VT-supports the remapping of I/O DMA transfers and device-generated interrupts. The
architecture of VT-d provides the flexibility to support multiple usage models that may run
unmodified, special-purpose, or “virtualization-aware” guest OS.
➢ Another way to help I/O virtualization is via self-virtualized I/O (SV-IO).
➢ The key idea of SV-IO is to harness the rich resources of a multicore processor.
➢ All tasks associated with virtualizing an I/O device are encapsulated in SV-IO.
➢ It provides virtual devices and an associated access API to VMs and a management API to the
VMM. SV-IO defines one virtual interface (VIF) for every kind of virtualized I/O device, such as
virtual network interfaces, virtual block devices (disk), virtual camera devices, and others.
➢ The guest OS interacts with the VIFs via VIF device drivers.
➢ Each VIF consists of two message queues. One is for outgoing messages to the devices and the
other is for incoming messages from the devices.