Cloud Computing

Fall 2023
Virtualization
Dr. Rashid Amin
You Know Virtualization Is Real
When It Makes It To Dilbert

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 The Traditional Server Concept

VMware Inc., Virtualization Overview, http://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization.pdf 3

 Size of the Web (Darcy Benoit)
• Web servers are approximately 0.56% of the total number of
IP addresses (4.3 billion), or 0.64% of the "valid" usable IP
addresses (3.8 billion)
• If we could put one server every foot, the web servers would
span from St. John's, NFLD to Victoria, BC
• If each server used only 100 Watts of power:
– The equivalent of 3.275 Advanced CANDU 6 nuclear reactors (each CANDU 6
= 740 MegaWatts)
• If each server used 500 Watts of power:
– That is 16.375 Advanced CANDU 6 nuclear reactors
– Or more than half of the electricity produced by the Three Gorges Dam in
China, the world's largest hydroelectric dam (gross output = 22,500MW, $39
Billion and 17 years to build)
 What is Virtualization?
• Perhaps the most important step for modern
data centers in terms going Green
• Reduces energy and costs
• Provides tremendous flexibility and increase
availability and reliability
 What is Virtualization?
• Virtualization, in computing, refers to:
– the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual)
version of something
– including but not limited to:
• a virtual computer hardware platform
• operating system (OS)
• disk storage device
• computer network resource
– Began in 1960s on mainframes as a method of
logically dividing the resources across applications
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
 Client/Server History: 1980
Centralized DP, DS, DC

IBM Mainframe

3174 Controller
SNA
Frontend

Dumb
3270 Display
Screen
 Client/Server History: 1990
Decentralized DP, DS, DC
Mainframe or
Mini-Computer

LAN
TCP/IP Controller
Frontend
File I/O and
Hardware
Terminal Emulation PC
Local DP, DS,
LAN Low speed DC
Controller Terminal Emulation
 Client/Server History: 2000
Distributed DP, DS, DC
Mainframe,
Mini-Computer or
Servers
LAN
Server
Internet Thick Client
Firewall Web / Internet
Distributed
DP, DS,
LAN Mod speed DC
Server Peer-to-Peer
 Client/Server History: 2007
Mixed Centralized / Distributed

Rows and Racks

of Internet Servers LAN

Virtualized Servers Internet Early Thin Client

Web / Internet
Distributed
Applications
DP, DS,
LAN High speed DC
 Client/Server History: 2014
Cloud Services
Rack-mounted
Multi-core
Virtual Servers
Virtual Clients
LAN

Cloud
Thin Client
Web Inter-operative
Presentation DP,
Higher Speed DC
LAN + Wireless
 Internet / Processor Speeds
are Key Factors
• Most significant factors in centralized/
distributed computing:
– Dial-up (9600 bps - 1 Mbps)
• Processing must be done at mainframe
– LAN (10 Mbps)
• Decentralized processing and display with file /IO
– High-speed LAN (100 Mbps)
• Distributed computing and local display
– High-speed, parallel (multi-core) processing
• Virtualization
 Consolidation
A A A A A A
P P P P P P
P P P P P P
1 2 3 4 5 6 Each server
10% busy
OS 1 OS 1 OS 1 2 kW power each
H/W H/W H/W

A A A A A A
P P P P P P
Consolidated P P P P P P OS 1 must be
Server 1 2 3 4 5 6 active for all
60% busy OS 1 apps.
4 kW power
H/W
 Full Virtualization
A A A A A A
P P P P P P
P P P P P P
1 2 3 4 5 6 Each server
10% busy
Win Linux Unix 2 kW power
H/W H/W H/W

A A A A A A
P P P P P P
Virtualization P P P P P P Hypervisor
Server 1 2 3 4 5 6 creates and
60% busy Win Linux Unix maintains a
4 kW power virtual machine
Hypervisor
H/W
Hosted vs Hypervisor
 Impact in the Data Center is Huge
• Separate servers require:
– Network infrastructure: NICS, cables, switches
– Separate disk drives
– Limited by disk I/O and cable speeds (Mbps)
• Virtualized servers require:
– None of the above
– Share disk drives
– In-memory data transfer speeds (Tbps)
 Virtualization System Vendors and
Products
• IBM – System z/VM, System p/Hypervisor
• VMWare – VMware Server, Vmware ESXi
• MicroSoft – MS Hyper-V Server
• Xen – Open source hypervisor

• Also see this Wikipedia list of hypervisors

• Not a new concept – see IBM CP/CMS (1962)

Advantages of Server Virtualization
and Centralization
• Disaster recovery
– Server state is always in a file, just recover to
check-point
• Flexibility
– Server creation, mods and movement on the fly
• Reduced energy use lower carbon footprint
– One server versus 10
– Less cooling needed
Advantages of Server Virtualization
and Centralization
• Reduced operational costs
– Care for 1 larger server versus 10 smaller servers
• Better support for users
– One stop help desk for all server users
• Greater availability
– Hot standby made easy
• Improved reliability
– High quality server components can be purchased
and shared
 Partitioning
• A tool used to support virtualization
• Ability to pool resources (CPU, memory, I/O)
into a single logical computer, or logical
partition (LPAR)
CPU
I/O LPAR 1
RAM (Windows)
Disk
CPU
I/O
CPU

RAM
I/O LPAR 2
Disk RAM (Linux)
Disk
 A Virtual Machine is a File
• An LPAR can be completely defined in a file
CPU
I/O

RAM
File
Disk

• This means that the state of a virtual machine

can be saved and moved easily, even on the fly
• Vmware offers Vmotion
– Decrease downtime and improve reliability
– Decrease energy use by dynamically powering down unused servers
– Reduce IT costs and improve flexibility
 Network Virtualization
• VMware ESX and IBM System p (Live Partition Mobility)
• Network is virtualized = virtual machine
retains network identity (IP address) and
connections
• Ensures seamless migration of LPARs from one
physical server to another over high-speed
physical network
 Para-virtualization
• Xen (open source) full or
“para-virtualization”
• Full virtualization approach:
– OS is not aware that its is running on
a virtual machine
– H/W and hypervisor handle all
virtualization
• Partial “para” approach:
– OS must be aware that its is running
on a virtual machine
– OS works with hypervisor to handle
virtualization
– Some restrictions of OS function
 Operating System Level
Virtualization
• One operating system per physical machine
• Example: SUN Solaris containers
• OS is capable of making virtual instances of
itself
• Great for consolidation of e-mail and web
servers
• Limitation: can only be used by apps that run
on that generation of OS
 SAN – Storage Area Network
• A dedicated network of data storage
hardware and software
• Integrates various storage devices: disks,
arrays, CD towers, magnetic tape drives,
I/O connect services
• Software manages all physical storage
resources into one logical storage resource
• Shared access across various servers
• High inter-connection rates between storage
devices and servers
• Tape backup / recovery can also be
virtualized
 Client Virtualization
• Estimated savings if desktops replaced by thin
clients: 60% energy, 50% costs
• Installed PCs show very low average use rate
• Try monitoring your laptop
– Search disk for “supercalifragilisticexpialidocoius”
– Download a large file from the web
– View a YouTube video
– Run a complex calculation or CPU stress tester
Client Virtualization
 Client Virtualization
• Benefits:
– Low cost of ownership (purchase, energy)
– Low cost of maintenance (centralized)
– Security (logins are never local, always monitored)
– Reliability (boot image control)
– Common knowledge pool
• Consequents:
– Loss of flexibility
– Loss of multi-media performance on some tasks
 Blade Servers

Why use blade system servers?

 Blade Servers
• Standard server-rack configuration:
– 1RU (one rack unit, 19" [48 cm] wide and 1.75" [4.45 cm] tall)
– Typically a rack can hold 42 RUs, or 42U high
• Blade server:
– Stripped down server computer with a modular design optimized to
minimize the use of physical space and energy.
• Blade enclosure:
• holds multiple blade servers
• provides services such as power, cooling, networking

• Densities of up to 128 discrete blade

servers per rack (2009)
 Blade Servers
• Reduces complexity of IT components
• Modular and flexible platform
• Hardware counter-part to virtualization
• Economizes on space, power, cooling,
management
• Comes with strong management tools
• Suppliers: HP, IBM, SUN/Oracle
 Combining Blades and
Virtualization
• Increased utilization, reliability, flexibility and
serviceability
• IT Admins spend less time managing and
reorganizing physical data centre
• Moves a step closer to dynamic IT or utility
computing
• Backbone of cloud computing
 The Disadvantages of Virtualization
• Virtualization may not work well for:
– Resource-intensive applications
• VMs may have RAM/CPU/SMP limitations
– Performance testing
– Hardware compatibility testing
– Specific hardware requirements
• Custom hardware devices
• Some hardware architectures or features are impossible to virtualize
– Certain registers or state not exposed
– Unusual devices and device control
– Clocks, time, and real-time behavior

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 System Virtualization - Present State

•Data center and desktop computing successfully use virtualization to

•Better utilize computing capacity
•Balance computing load
•Manage complexity and parallelism
•Improve security by isolation

•Mobile and embedded computing currently lag behind since

•Most hypervisors only support the x86 platform
•Most hypervisors require large memories
•Most hypervisors have poor real-time support
•Most hypervisors are inefficient with microkernel OSs
•Full-virtualization is not available. Operating system source code
needs to be available and must be modified
•Suitable open source-code hypervisors are not available

©2009 Nokia V1-stm06468.ppt / 2009-09-28 / STConsequence :

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 References
• http://www.vmware.com/pdf/virtualization.pdf **
• http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/docu
ments/guides/cloud-computing-virtualization-building-
private-iaas-guide.pdf
• http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/virtualization-
basics/what-is-virtualization.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLJbP6vBk2M
• https://cloudacademy.com/cloud-
computing/courses/introduction-to-virtualization-
technologies/
• http://www.slideshare.net/sasisatyam/introduction-to-
virtualization-14723491