Virtualization

Open Data Management & the Cloud

(Data Science & Scientific Computing / UniTS – DMG)

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Web server App server E-mail Database

Windows Linux Windows Linux
IIS Glassfish Exchange MariaDB

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Problems

★ Multiple servers are deployed to serve

different operational use cases
★ Increase the operational costs
★ Servers capacity is not fully exploited
⇒ Inefficiency and too high operating costs

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Virtualization

Virtualization is abstraction
★ ability to simulate a hardware platform, such as a server,
storage device or network resource. All of the functionality is
separated (abstracted) from the hardware and simulated as a
“virtual instance” with the ability to operate just like the hardware
solution. (Hardware or Server Virtualization)

★ Ability to create an abstraction mechanism so that a logical

address can be mapped to a physical resource. Example: load
balancing. This kind of abstraction enables the key benefit of cloud
computing: shared, ubiquitous access. (Cloud computing)
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What is Hardware (or Server) Virtualization?
Hardware Virtualization, in computing, is the ability to simulate a
hardware platform, such as a server, storage device or network resource.
All of the functionality is separated (abstracted) from the hardware and
simulated as a “virtual instance” with the ability to operate just like the
hardware solution. A single hardware platform can be used to support
multiple virtual devices or machines, which are easy to spin up or down
as needed.
Virtual Machine is the software simulation of a computer. It is able to run
an Operating Systems and applications interacting with the virtualized
abstracted resources, not with the physical resources, of the actual host
computer.
Hypervisor is a software tool installed on the physical host system to
provide the thin software layer of abstraction that decouples the OS from
the physical bare-metal. It allows to split a computer in different separate
environment, the Virtual Machines, distributing them the computer
resources
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Virtual Server Architecture

Host machine is the

actual machine on
which the virtualization
takes place

Guest machine is the

virtual machine.

Hypervisor or VM
Manager is the
software or firmware
that creates a
virtualization layer on
the host hardware

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Traditional vs. Virtualized Server Architecture

Traditional architecture:
add a server every time a
new service/application is
needed.

Virtualized architecture:
different Operating
Systems supporting
different applications
coexist on the same
hardware

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Virtual Server Architecture details

Virtual Machine is a virtual computing system.

It has tightly isolated software container with an operating
system and applications inside.

Each Virtual Machine in a host is independent.

In a single physical server can be put multiple VMs

enabling the run of multiple OSes and applications.

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Virtual Machines features

⇒ Partitioning
➢ Run different OSes on the same physical host
➢ Partition physical resources between VMs

⇒ Isolation
➢ Fault and security isolation at the hardware level
➢ Preserve performance with advanced resource control

⇒ Encapsulation
➢ Save the VM state to files
➢ VMs can be moved and copied moving and copying files

⇒ Hardware Independence
➢ VMs can be copied, moved or migrated to different physical
servers

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Hypervisors

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Hardware Virtualization Types
⇒ Full Virtualization: the hypervisor provides complete hardware
abstraction creating simulated hardware devices. The guest OS
don’t know (or care) about the presence of a hypervisor and issue
commands to what it thinks is actual hardware.

⇒ Paravirtualization: para means partial. The guest OS is aware

that it is a guest, it recognizes the presence of an hypervisor and it
has drivers to issue some commands, mainly I/O operations,
directly to the host OS, more efficiently than inside a virtual
environment. The guest OS must be modified

⇒ Hardware assisted virtualization: is a type of full virtualization

where the microprocessor architecture has special instructions to
aid the virtualization of the hardware. These hardware extensions
help the hypervisor tackle complex tasks at the processor level
rather than through software emulation
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VirtualBox example

VirtualBox Demo

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Desktop Virtualization
Desktop virtualization or client virtualization, is a virtualization
technology abstracting (isolating) the computer desktop (client)
environment from the physical computer.

Desktop virtualization is a type of client-server computing

because the virtualized desktop is hosted on server and streamed
to end user via different means.
The virtualized desktop is served to the user on the network, so
the user can login remotely and access his desktop from any
location. The user interacts with the virtual desktop in the same
way he uses the physical desktop.

VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) is a method of desktop

virtualization. VDI hosts the desktop environment in a virtual
machine (VM) that runs on a centralized or remote server. In this
desktop virtualization method it is a virtual machine per user. There
are other methods where it is a session per user.
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Remote Desktop example
➢ Guacamole
web application that supports graphical access via
remote desktop protocols (RDPs) directly in the
browser

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Network Virtualization

Is the ability to create logical, virtual networks that are

decoupled from the underlying network hardware.

Virtualization applied to the network creates a logical

software-based view of the hardware and software
networking resources (switches, routers, ports, etc.). The
physical networking devices are simply responsible for the
forwarding of packets, while the virtual network (software)
provides an intelligent abstraction that makes it easy to
deploy and manage network services and underlying network
resources.

Applications run on a virtual network as they where running

on a physical network.

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Virtual Network example

OpenStack Network Demo

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OpenStack Network Virtualization Example (2)

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Storage Virtualization
Storage virtualization is the process of grouping the
physical storage from multiple network storage devices so
that it looks like a single storage device.

⇒ Types of storage virtualization: they are mainly two

➢ file-based storage, which eliminates the
dependencies between the data accessed at the file
level and the location where the files are physically
stored
➢ block-based storage which abstracts (separate)
logical storage (partition) from physical storage, so that
it may be accessed without regard to physical storage
location or heterogeneous structure.
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Virtualization vs. Cloud

Virtualization is software that manipulates hardware,

while cloud computing refers to a service that results
from that manipulation. You can't have cloud computing
without virtualization.

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Cloud Computing and Virtualization relationship
Virtualization is a key enabler of the first four of five key attributes of cloud
computing:

➢ Service-based: A service-based architecture is where clients are abstracted

from service providers through service interfaces.

➢ Scalable and elastic: Services can be altered to affect capacity and

performance on demand.

➢ Shared services: Resources are pooled in order to create greater

efficiencies.

➢ Metered usage: Services are billed on a usage basis.

➢ Internet delivery: The services provided by cloud computing are based on

Internet protocols and formats.

Gartner, “Server Virtualization: One Path that Leads to Cloud Computing” by

Thomas J. Bittman, 10/29/2009, Research Note G00171730
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Traditional vs. Virtualization vs. Cloud arch.

Cloud

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Machine imaging and Virtual Appliances

Machine images are sometimes referred to as “virtual appliances”—systems

that are meant to run on virtualization platforms.

Virtual appliance is a virtual machine image file consisting of a pre-configured

operating system environment and a single application. The OS is minimized to
the features needed to run the specific application hosted.

A virtual application is an application that has been optimized to run on virtual

infrastructure. The application software along with just enough operating system
(JeOS or "juice") is combined inside a virtual machine container in a manner that
maximizes the performance of the application.
Most virtual appliances are configurable from a Web page.

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Load balancing

One characteristic of cloud computing is virtualized network access to a service.

The user access the available resource, no matter where the resource is located.

The load balancing is a technique to distribute the workload across multiple

computing resources, such as computers, a computer cluster, network links,
central processing units, or disk drives.

The workload is distributed on the base of scheduling algorithms. Examples:

●
Round robin - Requests are distributed across the group of servers sequentially:
the next system in a list of systems gets the request
●
Round robin DNS - IP addresses are assigned out of a pool of available IP
addresses
●
Least Connections - A new request is sent to the server with the fewest current
connections to clients. The relative computing capacity of each server is
factored into determining which one has the least connections
●
Fastest response time - New connections are sent to the server that is currently
providing the fastest response to new connections or requests

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Load balancing example

One

HAproxy

keepalived

HAproxy

Reference:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/what-is-load-balancing
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Workload managers

The more sophisticated load balancers are workload

managers. They determine the current utilization of the
resources in their pool, the response time, the work queue
length, connection latency and capacity, and other factors in
order to assign tasks to each resource. Among the features
you find in load balancers are polling resources for their
health, the ability to bring standby servers online (priority
activation), workload weighting based on a resource’s
capacity (asymmetric loading), HTTP traffic compression,
TCP offload and buffering, security and authentication,
and packet shaping using content filtering and priority
queuing.

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