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Chapter: Distributed and Cloud Computing: From Parallel Processing to the Internet of Things : Virtual Machines and Virtualization of Clusters and Data Centers

Para-Virtualization with Compiler Support

Para-virtualization needs to modify the guest operating systems. A para-virtualized VM provides special APIs requiring substantial OS modifications in user applications.

Para-Virtualization with Compiler Support

 

Para-virtualization needs to modify the guest operating systems. A para-virtualized VM provides special APIs requiring substantial OS modifications in user applications. Performance degradation is a critical issue of a virtualized system. No one wants to use a VM if it is much slower than using a physical machine. The virtualization layer can be inserted at different positions in a machine soft-ware stack. However, para-virtualization attempts to reduce the virtualization overhead, and thus improve performance by modifying only the guest OS kernel.

 

Figure 3.7 illustrates the concept of a paravirtualized VM architecture. The guest operating systems are para-virtualized. They are assisted by an intelligent compiler to replace the nonvirtualizable OS instructions by hypercalls as illustrated in Figure 3.8. The traditional x86 processor offers four instruction execution rings: Rings 0, 1, 2, and 3. The lower the ring number, the higher the privilege of instruction being executed. The OS is responsible for managing the hardware and the privileged instructions to execute at Ring 0, while user-level applications run at Ring 3. The best example of para-virtualization is the KVM to be described below.

 

1. Para-Virtualization Architecture

 

When the x86 processor is virtualized, a virtualization layer is inserted between the hardware and the OS. According to the x86 ring definition, the virtualization layer should also be installed at Ring 0. Different instructions at Ring 0 may cause some problems. In Figure 3.8, we show that para-virtualization replaces nonvirtualizable instructions with hypercalls that communicate directly with the hypervisor or VMM. However, when the guest OS kernel is modified for virtualization, it can no longer run on the hardware directly.

 

Although para-virtualization reduces the overhead, it has incurred other problems. First, its compatibility and portability may be in doubt, because it must support the unmodified OS as well. Second, the cost of maintaining para-virtualized OSes is high, because they may require deep OS kernel modifications. Finally, the performance advantage of para-virtualization varies greatly due to workload variations. Compared with full virtualization, para-virtualization is relatively easy and more practical. The main problem in full virtualization is its low performance in binary translation. To speed up binary translation is difficult. Therefore, many virtualization products employ the para-virtualization architecture. The popular Xen, KVM, and VMware ESX are good examples.

 

 

2. KVM (Kernel-Based VM)

This is a Linux para-virtualization systema part of the Linux version 2.6.20 kernel. Memory management and scheduling activities are carried out by the existing Linux kernel. The KVM does the rest, which makes it simpler than the hypervisor that controls the entire machine. KVM is a hardware-assisted para-virtualization tool, which improves performance and supports unmodified guest OSes such as Windows, Linux, Solaris, and other UNIX variants.

 

3. Para-Virtualization with Compiler Support

 

Unlike the full virtualization architecture which intercepts and emulates privileged and sensitive instructions at runtime, para-virtualization handles these instructions at compile time. The guest OS kernel is modified to replace the privileged and sensitive instructions with hypercalls to the hypervi-sor or VMM. Xen assumes such a para-virtualization architecture.

 

The guest OS running in a guest domain may run at Ring 1 instead of at Ring 0. This implies that the guest OS may not be able to execute some privileged and sensitive instructions. The privileged instructions are implemented by hypercalls to the hypervisor. After replacing the instructions with hypercalls, the modified guest OS emulates the behavior of the original guest OS. On an UNIX system, a system call involves an interrupt or service routine. The hypercalls apply a dedicated service routine in Xen.

Example 3.3 VMware ESX Server for Para-Virtualization

 

VMware pioneered the software market for virtualization. The company has developed virtualization tools for desktop systems and servers as well as virtual infrastructure for large data centers. ESX is a VMM or a hypervisor for bare-metal x86 symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers. It accesses hardware resources such as I/O directly and has complete resource management control. An ESX-enabled server consists of four components: a virtualization layer, a resource manager, hardware interface components, and a service console, as shown in Figure 3.9. To improve performance, the ESX server employs a para-virtualization architecture in which the VM kernel interacts directly with the hardware without involving the host OS.

 

The VMM layer virtualizes the physical hardware resources such as CPU, memory, network and disk controllers, and human interface devices. Every VM has its own set of virtual hardware resources. The resource manager allocates CPU, memory disk, and network bandwidth and maps them to the virtual hardware resource set of each VM created. Hardware interface components are the device drivers and the


VMware ESX Server File System. The service console is responsible for booting the system, initiating the execution of the VMM and resource manager, and relinquishing control to those layers. It also facilitates the process for system administrators.


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