Usages of Virtualization Technology

Argentina Software Pathfinding and Innovation Intel ® Corporation

29 July 2008

Prev. day revisit

Virtualization Technology key takeways

• Requirements for HW Architecture Virtualization Goldberg – Popek and • Evolution for virtualization: from mainframes to x86 architecture due to business reasons • Challenges around x86 virtualization -> ISA doesn’t comply with P&G • Server virtualization approaches – Full Virtualization – Paravirtualization – Hardware Assisted Virtualization • Client virtualization approaches – Desktop virtualization – Server-side workspace virtualization – Client-side workspace virtualization • Application virtualization – Application isolation – Application streaming

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Agenda

• Usages in Server platforms • Usages in Client platforms

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Virtualization In Servers

Server Platforms

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Server Platforms

Workload Consolidation description

• Too many servers: Hot and underutilized – Server virtualization consolidates many systems onto one physical platform – Higher physical resource utilization • Improved utilization: Several users with different OS requirements can more easily share a virtualized server – It allows to run legacy and new operating systems concurrently

VM1 VMn VM1 VMn App OS HW0 … App OS HWn App OS … App OS VMM HW Focus in Equivalence prop (P&G)

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Hardware is more stressed: More intense IO

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More intense mem usage INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Server Platforms

Workload Consolidation pros/cons

• Pros: – Each application can run in a separate environment delivering true isolation – Cost Savings: Power, space, cooling, hardware, software and management – Ability to run legacy applications in legacy Oss – Ability to run through emulation legacy applications in legacy HW • Cons: – Disk and memory footprint increase due to multiples OSs – Performance penalty caused by resource sharing management

Workload consolidation provides the basis most usages/benefits of virtualization INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Server Platforms

Workload Isolation

• Virtualization can improve overall system security and reliability by isolating multiple software stacks in their own VMs – Security: intrusions can be confined to the VM in which they occur – Reliability: software failures in one VM do not affect the other VMs – As a side effect, if the hypervisor or drivers are compromised, the whole VMs can be compromised (equivalent to BIOS attack)

App … App OS HWn VM1 App OS … App OS VMM HW VMn Focus in Efficiency prop (P&G) INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Server Platforms

Workload Migration

• Migrate (move) running VMs to a different platform – Resources can be adjusted dynamically • VM migration can be triggered automatically by workload balancing or failure-prediction agents – It facilitates hardware maintenance operations • Both at server and data-center level

VM1 App OS … App OS VMM HW0 VMn VM1 App OS … App OS VMM HWn VMn INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

What if these VMMs are different?

Server Platforms

Workload Migration for Dynamic Load balancing

• If a given application needs more resources, it could be easily moved to other physical host with more power • Several application replicas can be started in different physical machines and split the workload among them – While the applications should be engineered for this behavior, the deployment is simplified

VM1 VMn VM1 VMn App OS … App OS VMM HW0 App … OS VMM HWn App OS INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

What happens with the established connections, mem pages, disk?

Server Platforms

Workload Migration for Disaster Recovery

• High Availability: if an application goes down, it is not necessary to wait for the reboot of the operating system/application – Virtualization allows to immediately put another replica up – State-less applications can be immediately restored from snapshots – Disk images should exist in external network storage (SAN, NAS)

VM1 VMn VM1’ VMn’ App OS VMM HW0 App OS VMM HW0 App OS VMM HW App OS

How often should the VMM store the VM’s

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status?

Server Platforms

Deployment of standard environments

• Service providers usually offer some standard services – Standard images can be provided instantaneously – Simplifies deployment procedures: everything is stored in a file that represents the VM – Easier backward compatibility (Gold Image 1, 2, 3, etc)

Gold Image INTEL CONFIDENTIAL VM1 VM2 VM3 VMn App OS VMM HW0 App OS VMM HW0 App OS VMM HW1 App OS

Server Platforms

Test and Development

• Development and testing environments – A VM with standard tools is distributed amongst developers – Releasing new revisions of tools, patches, etc. is very simple • Business Agility and Productivity – It allows to easily transform environments (Development to test, back to development, etc) • Deployment of Patches in controlled environments • Allows for testing in production hardware before formal activation

INTEL CONFIDENTIAL App OS VMM HW App OS

Server Platforms

Virtual Appliances

• The convergence of virtual machine technology and a new initiative by several tool vendors is giving birth to this new form of software packaging called Virtual Appliance – Software appliance that includes necessary components to run in a virtual computing environment (VMware, Xen, Virtual Iron, …) – Both, software and virtual appliances, are aimed to eliminate the installation, configuration and maintenance costs associated with running complex stacks of software A software appliance is a software application combined with a tailored operating system App.

Middleware OS Virtual Platform Virtual Machine Fully pre-installed and pre configured application and operating system environment

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Client Platforms

Windows games emulation in Mac

• Games are very dependant of the platform for which they were programmed – Creating games for each platform is too costly • Minimal emulation is needed for minimal performance degradation

Game VMM OS HW HW App OS INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Client Platforms

Test and Development – also for clients

• Development and testing environments – A VM with standard tools is distributed amongst developers – Releasing new revisions of tools, patches, etc. is very simple • Business Agility and Productivity – It allows to easily transform environments (Development to test, back to development, etc) • Deployment of Patches in controlled environments • Simplifies testing of P2P applications

INTEL CONFIDENTIAL App OS VMM HW App OS

Client Platforms

Desktop infrastructure management

• Migration to new hardware due to OS compatibility is too costly – Windows Vista slow adoption is an example – Gradual upgrade can be implemented • Desktops are underutilized (as opposed to previous) – Consolidate in the server, run remotely in the client

VM1 VM2 VM2’ App App App OS HW OS OS VMM HW (new)

Connectivity becomes the critical path

VM1’ App OS HW INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Client Platforms

My corporate PC within my PC

• Users sharing their own PC with the corporate – A VM for own work – A VM for corporate usages – Can be extended to more profiles (secure, entertainment, etc) • Temporary remote employees are given a VM with expiration date

VM1 VM2 Personal Corp App App OS OS OS OS VMM HW (personal) VMM HW (corporation)

Connectivity becomes the critical path

Personal Corp OS OS VMM HW (personal) INTEL CONFIDENTIAL

Any Platform

Common virtual machines format

• New specification created by Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware, XenSource aims to become an industry standard – Will help ensure portability, integrity and automated installation/configuration of virtual machines • The proposed format, called the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF), uses existing packaging tools to combine one or more virtual machines together with a standards-based XML wrapper, giving the virtualization platform a portable package containing all required installation and configuration parameters for the virtual machines – This allows any virtualization platform that implements the standard to correctly install and run the virtual machines • With OVF, an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) can potentially ship its solutions as a single virtual deployment package that is capable of running on any hypervisor

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Unit wrap-up

• Server virtualization usages – Consolidation is the root of usages for Server platforms – Migration allows for dynamic planning in data centers, but require VMM compatibility – Server market is highly mature • Client virtualization usages – Usages are emerging to simplify IT management – No single solution has dominated yet – Look for new products in this area in the near future • DMTF Consortium working in cross VMM compatibility

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Questions?

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Backup

Contacts

Argentina Software Pathfinding and Innovation team from Virtualization Technology: • Guillermo Colsani: [email protected]

• Gisela Giusti: [email protected]

• Pablo Pássera: [email protected]

• Duilio Protti: [email protected]

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