Implementation Levels of Virtualization, Virtualization Structures/ Tools and mechanisms,

Virtualization of CPU, Memory and I/O Devices, Virtual Clusters and Resource Management,
Virtualization for Data Center Automation

Lecture 1: Implementation Levels of Virtualization

Definition: Virtualization is a computer architecture technology by which multiple virtual

machines (VMs) are multiplexed in the same hardware machine.

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.
Instruction set

 The hardware on the physical server in cloud computing has its own instruction set
that it will process.

 Hence, these instructions act as an interface between hardware and software.

Therefore, by the instruction set, hardware immediately assigns its services to its
upper layers.
Emulator

 The emulator serves as an interpreter, and the fundamental role of this is to set
communication between the virtualization and hardware layers in cloud computing.
Mapping of the instruction

 Instructions that the emulator gets for the resources from the virtual machine can get
mapped to the hardware instruction presented in the host machine.
  Therefore, after the processing emulator got the result back from the host machine, it
sent services to the user with the help of the virtual machine.

Hardware Abstraction Level (HAL)

Hardware-Abstraction level virtualization is available right on top of the bare hardware. On the
one side, this approach produces a virtual hardware environment for a VM.
On the other side, the process controls the underlying hardware through virtualization.
Therefore, the purpose is to virtualize computer resources, such as processors, memory, and I/O
devices. Also, the aim is to upgrade the hardware utilization rate by various users concurrently.
Activity happenings within the Hardware-Abstraction level (HAL):
Hardware resources in the host machine get mapped using a virtualization layer to the virtual
resources present on the guest operating system. Thus, the virtual machine will create for all of
them.
Hence, virtualized computing system holds thousands of resources. All of them need some
directions for processing, which was not an easy task. And due to, this instruction was classified
into two primary forms to make the processing smooth.

 Non-privileged instruction– These instructions execute directly without interfering

with other tasks.

 Privileged instruction– These instructions require some modification before it

executes.

Operating System Level

The virtualization model can create an abstract layer between the operating system and the user
application at this operating system level.
It is an isolated container on the operating system and the physical server, which uses the
software and hardware. Thus, each of these then operates in the form of a server.
Therefore, when there are numerous users and no one wants to share the hardware, then at this
point, the virtualization level comes into use.
Each user will get one virtual environment using a virtual hardware resource that is dedicated.
Hence, in this manner, there is no issue of any conflict.
Activity happenings within the Operating System Level:

 Any hardware which is in a virtualized environment will process within this operating
system.

 And the essential requirement at the operating system level is that all the user systems
on the virtualized environment will hold the same family operating system. Otherwise,
we can’t transfer the service to the users.

Library Support Level

Most utmost applications use APIs exported by user-level libraries rather than practicing lengthy
system calls by the OS.
Since most of the systems provide well-documented APIs, such an interface becomes another
applicant for virtualization.
Therefore, virtualization with library interfaces is possible by checking the communication link
between applications and the system through API hooks.
Activity happenings within the Library Support Level:

 Use of the application programming interface (API).

 At this level, the emulator’s idea worked as a tool and provided the guest operating
system to practice the resources they want. In short, users use the emulator to run
different applications of the other operating systems.

User-Application Level

The application-level virtualization works where there is a desire to virtualize only one
application and is the last of the implementation levels of virtualization in cloud computing.
One does not require to virtualize the complete environment of the platform.
Therefore, it generally works when you run virtual machines that practice high-level languages.
Also, it lets the high-level language programs compiled be of use in the application level of the
virtual machine that runs seamlessly.
Activity happenings within the Library User-Application Level:

 Virtual machine as an application operates at the user system with the help of the
virtualization layer.

 Also, the users excess the services if the environment in which user and host were of a
different type

Lecture 2: Virtualization Structures/ Tools and mechanisms

 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.
 There are several classes of VM architectures, namely the
Hypervisor architecture,
paravirtualization
Host-based virtualization
The hypervisor is also known as the VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor). They both
perform the same virtualization operations

Hypervisor architecture

Hyper-V is a hypervisor-based virtualization technology for certain x64 versions of

Windows. The hypervisor is core to virtualization. It is the processor-specific
virtualization platform that allows multiple isolated operating systems to share a single
hardware platform.
 APIC – Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller – A device which allows priority
levels to be assigned to its interrupt outputs.
 Child Partition – Partition that hosts a guest operating system - All access to physical
memory and devices by a child partition is provided via the Virtual Machine Bus (VMBus)
or the hypervisor.
 Hypercall – Interface for communication with the hypervisor - The hypercall interface
accommodates access to the optimizations provided by the hypervisor.
 Hypervisor – A layer of software that sits between the hardware and one or more
operating systems. Its primary job is to provide isolated execution environments called
partitions. The hypervisor controls and arbitrates access to the underlying hardware.
 IC – Integration component – Component that allows child partitions to communication
with other partitions and the hypervisor.
 I/O stack – Input/output stack
 MSR – Memory Service Routine
  Root Partition – Sometimes called parent partition. Manages machine-level functions
such as device drivers, power management, and device hot addition/removal. The root (or
parent) partition is the only partition that has direct access to physical memory and devices.
 VID – Virtualization Infrastructure Driver – Provides partition management services,
virtual processor management services, and memory management services for partitions.
 VMBus – Channel-based communication mechanism used for inter-partition
communication and device enumeration on systems with multiple active virtualized
partitions. The VMBus is installed with Hyper-V Integration Services.
 VMMS – Virtual Machine Management Service – Responsible for managing the state of
all virtual machines in child partitions.
 VMWP – Virtual Machine Worker Process – A user mode component of the virtualization
stack. The worker process provides virtual machine management services from the
Windows Server 2008 instance in the parent partition to the guest operating systems in the
child partitions. The Virtual Machine Management Service spawns a separate worker
process for each running virtual machine.
 VSC – Virtualization Service Client – A synthetic device instance that resides in a child
partition. VSCs utilize hardware resources that are provided by Virtualization Service
Providers (VSPs) in the parent partition. They communicate with the corresponding VSPs
in the parent partition over the VMBus to satisfy a child partitions device I/O requests.
 VSP – Virtualization Service Provider – Resides in the root partition and provide synthetic
device support to child partitions over the Virtual Machine Bus (VMBus).
 WinHv – Windows Hypervisor Interface Library - WinHv is essentially a bridge between
a partitioned operating system’s drivers and the hypervisor which allows drivers to call the
hypervisor using standard Windows calling conventions
 WMI – The Virtual Machine Management Service exposes a set of Windows Management
Instrumentation (WMI)-based APIs for managing and controlling virtual machines.

Paravirtualization
paravirtualization is a computer hardware virtualization technique that allows virtual machines
(VMs) to have an interface similar to that of the underlying or host hardware. This technique
aims to improve the VM’s performance by modifying the guest operating system (OS).
Virtual Machine Manager (VMM): Also called a “hypervisor,” this is one of many hardware
virtualization techniques that allow multiple operating systems, termed guests, to run
concurrently on a host computer.

What Is Paravirtualization Ideal For?

Below are some uses of paravirtualization:

 Partitioning test environments: One of the most common uses of paravirtualization is to

partition test environments during a software development process.

 Data replication: Organizations use paravirtualization to make different copies of data

and storing them in multiple locations within the same system.

 Disaster recovery (DR): Paravirtualization allows organizations to store backups so they

will not lose data when natural disasters, such as floods and fires, hit.
  Capacity management: Paravirtualization enables companies to plan and manage their
resources, specifically network capacity, memory, and storage.

A host-based virtual machine

A host-based virtual machine is an instance of a desktop operating system that runs on a

centralized server. Access and control is provided to the user by a client device connected over a
network. Multiple host-based virtual machines can run on a single server.

logical volume management (LVM)

Virtual machine software(vmware)
RAID (redundant array of independent disks)

Lecture 5: Virtualization of 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.
CPU Virtualization
Memory Virtualization

I/O Virtualization

I/O virtualization involves managing the routing of I/O requests between virtual devices and the
shared physical hardware.
LECTURE 6: Virtual Clusters and Resource Management

A physical cluster is a collection of servers (physical machines) interconnected by a physical

network such as a LAN.

Physical versus Virtual Clusters

Virtual clusters are built with VMs installed at distributed servers from one or more physical
clus-ters. The VMs in a virtual cluster are interconnected logically by a virtual network across
several physical networks.

LECTURE 6: Virtualization for Data Center Automation

Data centers have grown rapidly in recent years, and all major IT companies are pouring their
resources into building new data centers. In addition, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, Microsoft, HP,
Apple, and IBM are all in the game. All these companies have invested billions of dollars in
data-center construction and automation. Data-center automation means that huge volumes of
hardware, software, and database resources in these data centers can be allocated dynamically to
millions of Internet users simultaneously, with guaranteed QoS and cost-effectiveness.
In data centers, a large number of heterogeneous workloads can run on servers at various times.

1. Server Consolidation in Data Centers

These heterogeneous workloads can be roughly divided into two categories:
chatty workloads :Chatty workloads may burst at some point and return to a silent state at some
other point. A web video service is an example of this, whereby a lot of people use it at night and
few peo-ple use it during the day.
Noninteractive workloads: THESE do not require people’s efforts to make progress after they
are submitted. High-performance computing is a typical example of this.
2. Virtual Storage Management
virtual storage includes the storage managed by VMMs and guest OSes. Generally, the data
stored in this environment can be classified into

two categories: VM images and application data.

 The VM images are special to the virtual environment
 application data includes all other data which is the same as the data in traditional OS
environments.