CHAPTER 3: Virtual Machines and

Virtualization of Clusters and Data Centers

•Presented by Faramarz Safi (Ph.D.) Islamic Azad

University, Najafabad Branch
 SUMMA
RY
• The reincarnation of virtual machines (VMs) presents a great opportunity for
parallel, cluster, grid, cloud, and distributed computing.
• Virtualization technology benefits the computer and IT industries by enabling users
to share expensive hardware resources by multiplexing VMs on the same set of
hardware hosts.
• This chapter covers virtualization levels, VM architectures, virtual networking,
virtual cluster construction, and virtualized data-center design and automation in
cloud computing.
• In particular, the designs of dynamically structured clusters, grids, and clouds are
presented with VMs and virtual clusters.

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3.1 IMPLEMENTATION
LEVELS OF
VIRTUALIZATION
• Virtualization is a computer architecture technology by which multiple virtual
machines (VMs) are multiplexed in the same hardware machine.
• The idea of VMs can be dated back to the 1960s [53]. The purpose of a VM is
to
enhance resource sharing by many users and improve computer performance
• in terms of resource utilization and application flexibility.
• Hardware resources (CPU, memory, I/O devices, etc.) or software resources
(operating system and software libraries) can be virtualized in various functional
layers.
• This virtualization technology has been revitalized as the demand for distributed
and cloud computing increased sharply in recent years [41].

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3.1.1 Levels of
Virtualization
Implementation
• A traditional computer runs with a host operating system specially tailored for its
hardware architecture, as shown in Figure 3.1(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 3.1(b).
• This virtualization layer is known as hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM)
[54]. 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.
• 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.

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3.1.1 Levels of Virtualization Implementation

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 2.1.2 Design Objectives of Computer
Clusters
• 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.

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3.1.1.1 Instruction Set Architecture Level
• At the ISA level, virtualization is performed by emulating a given ISA by the ISA
of the host machine.
• For example, MIPS binary code can run on an x86-based host machine with
the help of ISA emulation. With this approach, it is possible to run a large
amount of legacy binary code written for various processors on any given new
hardware host machine. Instruction set emulation leads to virtual ISAs
created on any hardware machine.
• The basic emulation method is through code interpretation. An interpreter
program interprets the source instructions to target instructions one by one.
One source instruction may require tens or hundreds of native target
instructions to perform its function. Obviously, this process is relatively slow.
• For better performance, dynamic binary translation is desired. This approach
translates basic blocks of dynamic source instructions to target instructions.
• A virtual instruction set architecture (V-ISA) thus requires adding a processor-
specific software translation layer to the compiler.

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3.1.1.2 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. The process manages the underlying hardware through
virtualization.
• The idea is to virtualize a computer’s resources, such as its processors,
memory, and I/O devices.
• 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.
• We will discuss hardware virtualization approaches in more detail in
Section 3.3.

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3.1.1.3 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.
• OS-level virtualization is depicted in Section 3.1.3.

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3.1.1.4 Library Support
Level

• Most applications use APIs exported by user-level libraries rather than using
• lengthy system calls by the OS.
• Since most systems provide well-documented APIs, such an interface becomes another candid
virtualization. Virtualization with library interfaces is possible by controlling the communicatio
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 o
hosts.
• Another example is the vCUDA which allows applications executing within VMs to leverage GPU ha
acceleration.
• This approach is detailed in Section 3.1.4.

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3.1.1.5 User-Application
Level
• Virtualization at the application level virtualizes an application as a VM. On a
traditional OS, an application often runs as a process.
• Therefore, application-level virtualization is also known as process-level virtualization.
• The most popular approach is to deploy high level 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 VM that 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 Microsoft .NET CLR and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) are two good examples of this
class of VM.
• Other forms of application-level virtualization are known as application isolation,
application sandboxing, or application streaming. The process involves wrapping the
application in a layer that is isolated from the host OS and other applications. 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.

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3.1.1.6 Relative Merits of Different Approaches
• Table 3.1 compares the relative merits of implementing virtualization at various levels. The
column headings correspond to four technical merits.
• “Higher Performance” and “Application Flexibility” are self-explanatory.
• “Implementation Complexity” implies the cost to implement that particular virtualization
level.
• “Application Isolation” refers to the effort required to isolate resources committed to
different VMs.
• Each row corresponds to a particular level of virtualization.
• The number of X’s in the table cells reflects the advantage points of each implementation
level. Five X’s implies the best case and one X implies the worst case.
• Overall, hardware and OS support will yield the highest performance. However, the hardware
and application levels are also the most expensive to implement.
• User isolation is the most difficult to achieve. ISA implementation offers the best application
flexibility.

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3.1.2 VMM Design Requirements and Providers

• As mentioned earlier, hardware-level virtualization inserts a layer between real hardware and
traditional operating systems. This layer is commonly called the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)
and it manages the hardware resources of a computing system.

• Each time programs access the hardware, the VMM captures the process. In this sense, the VMM
acts as a traditional OS. One hardware component, such as the CPU, can be virtualized as several
virtual copies. Therefore, several traditional operating systems which are the same or different can
sit on the same set of hardware simultaneously.

• There are three requirements for a VMM.

• First, a VMM should provide an environment for programs which is essentially identical to the
original machine.
• Second, programs run in this environment should show, at worst, only minor decreases in speed.
• Third, a VMM should be in complete control of the system resources. Any program run under a
VMM should exhibit a function identical to that which it runs on the original machine directly.

• Two possible exceptions in terms of differences are permitted with this requirement:
• 1) differences caused by the availability of system resources . This one arises when more than one
VM is running on the same machine. The hardware resource requirements, such as memory, of
each VM are reduced, but the sum of them is greater than that of the real machine installed.
• 2) differences caused by timing dependencies. This qualification is required because of the
intervening level of software and the effect of any other VMs concurrently existing on the same
hardware.
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3.1.2 VMM Design Requirements and Providers

• Obviously, these two differences pertain to performance, while the

function a VMM provides stays the same as that of a real machine.
• A VMM should demonstrate efficiency in using the VMs. Compared with a
physical machine, no one prefers a VMM if its efficiency is too low.
• Traditional emulators and complete software interpreters (simulators)
emulate each instruction by means of functions or macros. Such a
method provides the most flexible solutions for VMMs. However,
emulators or simulators are too slow to be used as real machines.
• To guarantee the efficiency of a VMM, a statistically dominant subset of
the virtual processor’s instructions needs to be executed directly by the
real processor, with no software intervention by the VMM.

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3.1.2 VMM Design Requirements and Providers

• Table 3.2 compares four hypervisors and VMMs that are in use today.

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3.1.2 VMM Design Requirements and Providers

• Complete control of these resources by a VMM includes the following aspects:

• (1) The VMM is responsible for allocating hardware resources for programs;
• (2) It is not possible for a program to access any resource not explicitly allocated
to it;
• (3) It is possible under certain circumstances for a VMM to regain control of
resources already allocated.
• Not all processors satisfy these requirements for a VMM. A VMM is tightly
related to the architectures of processors. It is difficult to implement a VMM for
some types of processors, such as the x86. Specific limitations include the
inability to trap on some privileged instructions.
• If a processor is not designed to support virtualization primarily, it is necessary to
modify the hardware to satisfy the three requirements for a VMM. This is known as
hardware-assisted virtualization.

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3.1.3 Virtualization Support at the OS Level

• With the help of VM technology, a new computing mode known as cloud

computing is emerging.
• Cloud computing is transforming the computing landscape by shifting the
hardware and staffing costs of managing a computational center to third parties,
just like banks.
• However, cloud computing has at least two challenges.
• The first challenge 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.
Currently, new VMs originate either as fresh boots or as replicates of a template
VM, unaware of the current application state. Therefore, to better support cloud
computing, a large amount of research and development should be done.

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3.1.3 Virtualization Support at the OS Level

• As mentioned earlier, it is slow to initialize a hardware-level

VM because each VM creates its own image from scratch.
• In a cloud computing environment, perhaps thousands of
VMs need to be initialized simultaneously.
• Besides slow operation, storing the VM images also
becomes an issue. As a matter of fact, there is considerable
repeated content among VM images.
• Moreover, full virtualization at the hardware level also has
the disadvantages of slow performance and low density,
and the need for para-virtualization to modify the guest
OS.
• To reduce the performance overhead of hardware-level
virtualization, even hardware modification is needed.

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3.1.3.1 Why OS-Level Virtualization?

• 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
often 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.
• Figure 3.3 illustrates operating system virtualization from the point of view of a machine stack.

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3.1.3.1 Why OS-Level Virtualization?

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3.1.3.2 Advantages of OS Extensions

• Compared to hardware-level virtualization, the benefits of OS extensions are

twofold:
• (1) VMs at the operating system level have minimal startup/shutdown costs, low
resource requirements, and high scalability;
• (2) for an OS-level VM, it is possible for a VM and its host environment to
synchronize state changes when necessary.

• These benefits can be achieved via two mechanisms of OS-level virtualization:

• (1) All OS-level VMs on the same physical machine share a single operating
system kernel;
• (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.

• In cloud computing, the first and second benefits can be used to overcome
the defects of slow initialization of VMs at the hardware level, and being
unaware of the current application state, respectively.

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3.1.3.3 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.
That is, although different OS-level VMs may have different operating system
distributions, they must pertain to the same operating system family.
• For example, a Windows distribution such as Windows XP cannot run on a Linux-
based container. However, users of cloud computing have various preferences.
Some prefer Windows and others prefer Linux or other operating systems.
Therefore, there is a challenge for OS-level virtualization in such cases.
• Figure 3.3 illustrates the concept of OS-level virtualization. The virtualization layer
is inserted inside the OS to partition the hardware resources for multiple VMs to
run their applications in multiple virtual environments. To implement OS-level
virtualization, isolated execution environments (VMs) should be created based on
a single OS kernel.
• Furthermore, the access requests from a VM need to be redirected to the VM’s
local resource partition on the physical machine. For example, the chroot
command in a UNIX system can create several virtual root directories
within a host OS.

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3.1.3.4 Virtualization on Linux or Windows Platforms

• By far, most reported OS-level virtualization systems are Linux-based.

Virtualization support on the Windows-based platform is still in the
research stage. The Linux kernel offers an abstraction layer to allow
software processes to work with and operate on resources without
knowing the hardware details.
• New hardware may need a new Linux kernel to support. Therefore,
different Linux platforms use patched kernels to provide special support
for extended functionality. However, most Linux platforms are not tied to a
special kernel. In such a case, a host can run several VMs simultaneously
on the same hardware.
• Table 3.3 summarizes several examples of Oslevel virtualization tools that
have been developed in recent years. Two OS tools (Linux vServer and
OpenVZ) support Linux platforms to run other platform-based applications
through virtualization. These two OS-level tools are illustrated in Example
3.1.
• The third tool, FVM, is an attempt specifically developed for virtualization
on the Windows NT platform.
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Example 3.1 Virtualization Support for the Linux
Platform

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