Cloud Computing

Sandeep Bhowmik

Chapter 7

Resource Virtualization

Cambridge University Press

Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

What Is Virtualization

• Virtualization refers to the representation of physical computing

resources in simulated form made through software.

• This special layer of software (installed over active physical

machines) is referred as layer of virtualization.

• Virtualization decouples the physical computing resources from

direct access of users.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

What Is Virtualization

• Users’ interaction with computer in traditional and virtualized

computing environment -

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Virtualizing Physical Computing Resources

• Any kind of computing resources can be virtualized.

• Processor
• Memory
• Storage
• Network devices (like switch, router etc.)
• Communication links
• Peripheral devices (like keyboard, mouse, printer etc.)

• Virtualization decouples the physical computing resources from

direct access of users.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

What Is Virtualization

• A virtualized component can be operational when a physical

resource empowers it from backend.

• The layer of virtualization transforms the physical computing

devices into virtual form and presents them before user.

• The simulated devices produced through virtualization may or

may not resemble the actual physical components in
• Quality
• Architecture
• Quantity

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What Is Virtualization

Virtualized computing environment comprising of processor,

memory and storage disk.

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What Is Virtualization

• The software for virtualization consists of a set of control

programs.

• It offers all the physical computing resources in custom made

simulated (virtual) form.

• Virtual computers can be built using virtual computing

resources produced by virtualization.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Understanding Abstraction

• The theory of virtualization is rooted around the idea of

providing logical access to physical resources.

• Virtualization creates a layer of abstraction and masks physical

resources from external access.

• Abstraction is the process of hiding the complex and non-

essential characteristics of a system.

• Virtualization can be defined as the abstraction of different

computing resources like processor, memory, storage, network.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Machine or Server Level Virtualization

• It is the concept of creating virtual machine (that is, virtual

computer) on actual physical machine.

• The parent system on which the virtual machines run is called

the host system.

• The virtual machines are themselves referred as guest systems.

• Virtualized physical server can host multiple virtual machines,

each one having different OS.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Machine or Server Level Virtualization

Conventional computing system vs. virtualized computing system.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Machine or Server Level Virtualization

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment.

Non-Virtualized Machine Environment Virtualized Machine Environment

Multiple OS can run

At a moment, one single OS can
simultaneously on one physical
run on a physical machine.
machine.

Virtual Machines isolates

Application and hardware system
applications from the underlying
remain tightly coupled.
hardware.

Resource utilization improves as

Resources utilization rate is low
multiple VMs share same set of
in most of the times.
physical resources.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Machine or Server Level Virtualization

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment (contd.).

Non-Virtualized Machine Environment Virtualized Machine Environment

Increases cost of business due to

Cost effective if planned properly.
low resource utilization.

Provides lot of flexibility to system

Inflexible approach.
designers.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

The Layer of Virtualization

• Virtual machines are created over the virtualization layer.

• This layer provides the system resources’ access to the virtual

machines.

• This software layer is referred as the Hypervisor or Virtual

Machine Monitor (VMM).

• The hypervisor abstracts the underlying software and/or

hardware environments and represents virtual system resources
to its users.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Machine Virtualization Techniques

• There are two different techniques of server or machine

virtualization -

• Hosted approach
• Bare metal approach.

• The techniques differ depending on the type of hypervisor used.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hosted Approach

• In this approach, an operating system is first installed on the

physical machine to activate it.

• This OS installed over the host machine is referred as host

operating system.

• The hypervisor is then installed over this host OS.

• This type of hypervisor is referred to as Type 2 hypervisor or

Hosted hypervisor.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hosted Approach

A model of hosted machine virtualization approach.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hosted Approach

• Benefits

• In this approach the host OS supplies the hardware drivers for

the underlying physical resources.

• This eases the installation and configuration of the hypervisor. It

makes the type-2 hypervisors compatible for a wide variety of
hardware platform.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hosted Approach

• Drawbacks

• A hosted hypervisor does not have direct access to the hardware

resources. This may degrade the performance of the virtual
machines.

• Since the underlying host OS controls the scheduling of jobs, it

becomes unrealistic to run a real-time OS inside a VM using
hosted virtualization.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hosted Approach

• Example

• Hosted Approach
• Microsoft Virtual PC

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Bare Metal Approach: Removal of the host OS

• In this approach of machine virtualization, the hypervisor is

directly installed over the physical machine.

• Since, the hypervisor is the first layer over hardware resources

hence, the technique is referred as bare metal approach.

• Here the VMM or the hypervisor communicates directly with

system hardware.

• The hypervisor acts as low-level virtual machine monitor and

also called Type 1 Hypervisor or Native Hypervisor.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Bare Metal Approach: Removal of the host OS

A model for the bare metal approach of machine virtualization.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Bare Metal Approach: Removal of the host OS

• Benefits

• Since the bare metal hypervisor can directly access the

hardware resources, in most of the cases it provides better
performance.

• Administrators get more control over the host environment.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Bare Metal Approach: Removal of the host OS

• Drawbacks

• As any hypervisor usually have limited set of device drivers

built into it, so, bare metal hypervisors have limited hardware
support and can’t run on a wide variety of hardware platform.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Bare Metal Approach: Removal of the host OS

• Example

• VMware’s ESX
• VMware’s ESXi Servers
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Open source solution Xen

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hypervisor Based Virtualization Approaches

• Hypervisor based virtualization techniques can be divided into

three categories –

• Full virtualization,
• Paravirtualization,
• Hardware assisted virtualization

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Full Virtualization

• In full virtualization, the hypervisor fully simulates or emulates

the underlying hardware.

• The guest operating systems assume that they are running on

actual physical resources.

• This enables the unmodified versions of available operating

systems (like Windows, Linux) to run as guest OS over
hypervisor.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Full Virtualization

A model of full virtualization

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Full Virtualization

• The guest OS remains completely isolated from physical

resource layer by the hypervisor.

• This provides flexibility, as almost all the available operating

systems can work as guest OS.

• Full virtualization solution –

• VMWare ESXi Server
• Microsoft Virtual Server

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Paravirtualization or OS-assisted Virtualization

• “Para” is an English affix of Greek origin that means "beside"

or "alongside.”

• A portion of the virtualization management task is transferred

(from the hypervisor) towards the guest operating systems.

• Guest operating systems need special modification for this

capability inclusion.

• This modification is called porting.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Paravirtualization or OS-assisted Virtualization

A model of paravirtualization

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Paravirtualization or OS-assisted Virtualization

• Paravirtualization requires hypervisor specific modifications of

guest operating systems.

• The unmodified versions of available operating systems (like

Windows, Linux) can’t be used in paravirtualization.

• Since it involves modifications of the OS, paravirtualization is

referred to as OS-assisted Virtualization also.

• Example of paravirtualization hypervisor is the open source Xen

project.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Paravirtualization or OS-assisted Virtualization

• Advantages

• Paravirtualization allows calls from guest OS to directly

communicate with hypervisor.

• In paravirtualization the system is not restricted by the device

drivers provided by the virtualization software layer.

• Paravirtualization reduces the load of host machine and can run

more number of VMs over a host machine in comparison to full
virtualization.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Paravirtualization or OS-assisted Virtualization

• Limitations

• Unmodified versions of available operating systems (like

Windows, Linux) are not compatible with paravirtualization
hypervisors.

• Security is compromised in this approach, as the guest OS has a

comparatively more control of the underlying hardware.

Paravirtualization can provide enhanced virtualization

performance at the cost of security.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Hardware Assisted Virtualization

• Inspired by software enabled virtualization, hardware vendors

later started manufacturing devices tailored to support
virtualization.

• Intel and AMD started this by including new virtualization

features in their processors.

• They allows some privileged CPU calls from the guest OS to be

directly handled by the CPU.

• Hypervisors like Xen, Microsoft’s Hyper-V or VMWare ESXi

Server can take advantage of the hardware assisted
virtualization.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

A side-by-side Comparison

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment.
Paravirtualization or Hardware Assisted
Full Virtualization
OS Assisted Virtualization Virtualization

Guest OS has no role Guest OS plays role in Guest OS has no role in

in virtualization. virtualization. virtualization.

Guest OS remains Guest OS has to be Guest OS remains

unaware about the aware about the unaware about the
virtualization. virtualization. virtualization.
Normal version of Modified version of Normal version of
available OS can be available OS is available OS can be
used as guest OS. required. used as guest OS.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

A side-by-side Comparison

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment.
Paravirtualization or Hardware Assisted
Full Virtualization
OS Assisted Virtualization Virtualization

Provides good options Provides lesser options Provides good options

for guest OS. for guest OS. for guest OS.

Guest OS is not Guest OS is tailored to Guest OS is not

hypervisor specific. be hypervisor specific. hypervisor specific.

No special feature is No special feature is Requires explicit

required in the host required in the host features in the host
CPU. CPU. CPU.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

A side-by-side Comparison

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment.
Paravirtualization or Hardware Assisted
Full Virtualization
OS Assisted Virtualization Virtualization

Hardware does not

Hardware does not play Hardware plays role in
play role in
role in virtualization. virtualization.
virtualization.
Specialized hardware
Hypervisor takes care Guest OS, along with
device along with
of all the virtualization hypervisor takes care of
hypervisor takes care of
tasks. the virtualization tasks.
virtualization tasks.

Virtualization overhead Virtualization overhead Virtualization overhead

of hypervisor is more. of hypervisor is less. of hypervisor is less.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

A side-by-side Comparison

• Comparison between non-virtualized and virtualized machine

environment.
Paravirtualization or Hardware Assisted
Full Virtualization
OS Assisted Virtualization Virtualization

Virtualization
Virtualization Virtualization
performance is little
performance is better. performance is better.
slow.

Provide high level of Security is

Security is
security as all compromised as calls
compromised as guest
virtualization controls from guest OS can
OS has some control in
remain with the directly access the
virtualization.
hypervisor. hardware.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Advantages of Virtualization

• Better utilization of existing resources

• Reduction in hardware cost
• Reduction in computing infrastructure costs
• Improved fault tolerance or Zero downtime maintenance
• Simplified system administration
• Simplified capacity expansion
• Simplified system installation
• Support for legacy systems and applications
• Simplified system-level development
• Simplified system and application testing
• Security

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Advantages of Virtualization

• The benefits of virtualization directly propagates into cloud

computing and have empowered it.

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Downsides of Virtualization

• Every technology has its own shortcomings and virtualization is

no exception.

• The area of concerns are -

• Single point of failure problem
• Lower performance issue
• Difficulty in root cause analysis

• However, the positive effects of virtualization outweigh the

negatives by far.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Virtualization Security Threats

• The traditional threats of any computing system are all

applicable to virtual computing system also.

• Additional security threats to virtualized system include -

• The single point host
• Threats to hypervisor
• Complex configuration
• Privilege escalation
• Inactive virtual machines
• Consolidation of different trust zones

• However, Any virtualization threats can be mitigated by

maintaining security recommendations while designing a
computing system.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Virtualization Security Recommendations

• Hardening virtual machines

• Hardening the hypervisor
• Hardening the host operating system
• Restrictive physical access to the host
• Implementation of single primary function per VM
• Use of secured communications
• Use of separate NIC for sensitive VM

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Virtualization and Cloud Computing

• Resource pooling is one important feature of cloud computing.

• But consumers of cloud services are given access to virtualized

pool of resources.

• This way all resources at cloud data center are virtualized and it
is referred as data center virtualization.

• Data center virtualization is one foundation of cloud computing.

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Virtualization and Cloud Computing

• Virtualization is considered as a major step in the direction of

cloud computing.

• Virtualization is the key enabler of most of the fundamental

attributes of cloud computing, like
• Shared service
• Elasticity
• Service orientation
• Metered usage

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Chapter 7 Resource Virtualization

Thank You

Cloud Computing; Sandeep Bhowmik @ Cambridge University Press