Virtualization Techniques

Anupinder Singh
Objective
● Classification on Virtualization techniques
● Virtual SAN.
Machine Reference Model
CPU Protection Ring
Virtualization Implementation Methods
● Based on how much change is required and at what level
● Categories
○ Modified Guest OS
■ Operating system level
■ Para-virtualization.
○ Unmodified Guest OS
■ Binary Translations
■ Hardware assisted
Operating system level virtualization
● Requires a modification in the Host OS kernel.
● Allows execution of multiple isolated containers, each sharing the same kernel
● google compute containers, virtual private servers etc.
● low over heads of virtualization but does not support multiple kernels
Para-Virtualization
● Guest operating system requires modifications.
● Replace real machine instructions set architecture with special set of
instructions called Hypercalls.
● Hypervisor runs in ring 0 and Guest OS runs in higher ring levels.
● Low virtualization overheads and multiple kernel support.
Binary Translation
● Emulates processor architecture over another processor architecture.
● allows execution of unmodified Guest OS.
● Requires translation of one set of instruction into another.
● supports direct CPU execution for privileged instructions from Guest OS.
● multi platform portability but translation overheads are high.
Hardware assisted
Local Area Network
● Single broadcast domain.
● to prevent broadcast across network routers are used.
● routers are layer 3 devices, therefore takes more time to process the packets.
● Traditional LAN used Hubs, switches and bridges for packet transfer and
delivery.
● VLAN is an alternative of routers to prevent the broadcast across networks.
Flow of packets in Traditional LAN
 More about Traditional LAN
● In traditional LAN, there were two different
setups
○ Collision domains.
○ Broadcast domains.
● Issues with Traditional LAN
○ Collision propagation.
○ Congestion with increase in size of network.
● Two solutions used were:
○ Routers to segment LAN.
■ Expensive
■ slow due to layer 3 routing devices(works in
software layer)
■ Non-routable protocols require bridges
○ Switches to segment LAN.
■ Combination of chained hubs and switches.
■ Reduces collisions and congestions.
■ Limits the user to physical location.
VLAN, the need of time.
● A virtual LAN (VLAN) is any broadcast
domain that is partitioned and
isolated in a computer network at the
data link layer (OSI layer 2).
● partitioning is done on the basis of:
○ set of switch ports.
○ can be distributed across multiple
switches, but behaves as isolated single
LAN.
● minimum or no use of router in
internal LAN
Scenario for VLANs
VLAN Implementation
● Port Based VLAN
○ Ports of switch are simply assigned to VLANs, with no extra criteria.
● Distributing a single VLAN across multiple switches
○ achieved by frame tagging.
○ required a change in fundamental signature of ethernet header.
■ 4 bytes are inserted in ethernet packet header
● 2 bytes: Tag protocol identifier
● 2 bytes: Tag control Information
Various other ways of defining VLANs
● Protocol based VLANs.
● Subnet-based VLANs.

* multiple types of VLAN can exist in single setup.

Advantages of VLAN
● Performance.
● Formation of virtual Workgroups.
● Flexibility.
● Ease of partitioning of resources.
Secondary Storage Devices
SSD vs HDD
Virtual SAN
● Direct vs Network vs Storage network
● Concept of Virtual SAN
● Advantages
○ Enhanced Application availability
○ higher application performance
○ centralized and consolidated storage
○ data transfer and vaulting to remote sites
○ simplified centralized management
Citrix XenServer based storage solution
Queries