Virtualization: where it came from and where it's going

Virtualization: where it came
from and where it’s going

Kyle Smith
Sr. Member of Technical Staff
VMware, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Kyle Smith and VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Who am I?

! " Working on cloud computing at VMware (vCloud)
! " Previously at IBM working with Linux on the mainframe
! " Introduced to virtualization by folks at Clarkson University in
2003

Copyright © 2009 Kyle Smith and VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 2

Agenda

! " How it came about
! " The early days
! " The transition from mainframe to commodity
! " Competition in the commodity space
! " The state of virtualization today
! " The future


Motivation for virtualization

! " On the mainframe, it originated in time-sharing
!" Computers too expensive for many to own
!" Turned out to be better to give people a whole virtual S/360 than to
run multiple copies of the app
! " On commodity systems, consolidation was the driving force


Early work from IBM

! " S/360 didn’t support time sharing
! " IBM wanted to win business from MIT
! " Proposal rejected, CSC began working on an OS that would
allow S/360 to TS
! " Result was the control program (CP)
! " Up to 14 VMs, 256K of memory each


CP/CMS and S/370

! " CP/CMS ended in 1972
! " IBM introduced VM/370 for the new hardware family
! " Virtual storage introduced


Fast forward to the 1990s

! " Client/server is the architecture du jour
! " 1 app per server
! " Virtualized hardware available, but $$$
! " Disco: commodity OSes on scalable multiprocessors
!" Namely, IRIX


Disruptive change

! " As with most ideas from academia in the late 1990s...
! " N faculty members + M students + venture capital = $$$
! " And VMware was born


Old model: traditional x86 architecture

>" Operating system and hardware tightly
coupled

>" Applications often interfere with each
other

>" Expensive resources are underutilized


“New” model: virtual machines

>" Separate
OS and hardware – break
hardware dependencies

>" Manage OS and application as single
unit by encapsulating them in VMs

>" Strong fault and security isolation

>" Standard,
hardware independent
environments can be provisioned
anywhere

>" Flexibility
to choose the right OS for
the right application

>" Different
from emulation. Instructions
mostly executed by physical hardware.


Competition heats up

2003: Xen
2005: Parallels, Solaris containers
2005/2006: Intel and AMD add VT extensions
2007: KVM, Sun logical domains
2008: Microsoft Hyper-V


From solution to platform
Early Generation Focus Platform Focus
Multiple Apps per Machine Infrastructure Abstraction

High
Availability
Dynamic
Resource
Scheduling
vShield
Zones
vMotion vNetwork
Distributed
SwitchStorage
vMotion

Key Benefit = Consolidation Key Benefit =
Dynamic, Flexible Infrastructure


Wild claim?

! " All the good ideas for virtualization up until 2003 came from the
mainframe
! " The good ideas since then have come from VMware
!" (Xen had some too)
! " Without VMware driving the state of the art, the mainframe
probably would be dead today


Record and replay

! " The problem: A rare timing dependent bug
!" Race conditions, deadlocks, etc.

!" Could occur only 1 in 1000 times

! " Exceedingly painful to debug
!" Test test test…crash – debug a little

!" Test test test…crash – debug a little

! " Solution: Replay execution with the exact same timings each
time. But how?


Non-determinism

Storage I/O
! " Latency depends on caching, disk positioning
Network I/O
! " Timing dependent on other machines, traffic
! " Other machines may not be present during replay, won’t be in same state as before
User I/O
! " Keyboard, Mouse, etc depends on humans


Recording

VMware is the hardware
! " Hypervisor can record any external events
! " Complete control over when events are visible to the guest OS
& applications
All events happen on instruction boundaries
! " Log events with instruction counter value
!" Well, not really, but close.


Application - debugging

Debugging
! " Reproducible bugs
! " Mobile bugs
!" Zip up the statelog and
snapshot state, mail your bug
to the developers

! " Reverse execution debugging
!" Revert to snapshot, play forward to desired point
!" Gives illusion of (slow) reverse execution


Applications – continuous availability

Goal: Seamless failover
Primary machine
! " Records a state log of its execution
! " Sends each entry to the secondary machine
Secondary machine
! " Replays primary’s state log in real time
! " If primary fails, simply “go live”
! " Secondary has become the primary


Where it’s going

! " Appliances/vApps
! " Mobile virtualization
! " Virtual desktops
! " Cloud computing


Appliances/vApps

! " Based on Open Virtualization Format
!" A DMTF standard
! " Self-contained application
! " Disks + metadata
! " N-tier apps in a single package


Attach policies


Security


Mobile virtualization


Virtual desktop infrastructure

Multiple alternative computing options emerging:

Common Thread: solutions targeted at enabling centralized
management and control of data, image and applications


Why server-based desktop virtualization?

! " The need for “access anywhere” with increasing
numbers of remote workers and offshoring.
! " The promise of operating cost reductions
!" Longer hardware cycles
!" Fewer client-side visits
!" Increased uptime
! " Centralized management = control
! " Centralized data = security


VDI architecture


VDI architecture (2)


The shift
“Cloud”

Web + Frictionless
deployment
Client/Server + Simplified mgmt
+ Simple to deploy thru abstraction
and manage
+ On-demand
Mainframe + Distributed CPU + Broader access scale
utilization
+ Scale
+ Unparalleled
+ Centralized mgmt + Added flexibility
- Limited flexibility flexibility
+ Secure - Complex / costly
- Limited efficiency + Secure
to deploy &
- Limited access manage - Not secure + Highly efficient
- Inflexible - Not secure
- Costly - Not efficient


Acknowledgements

! " Julia Austin
! " Steve Herrod
! " Carl Waldspurger
! " Eric Newcomer


vCloud API coffee talk

Tomorrow, 9/16 at noon
http://vmware.com/go/vcloudapi


Q&A


Further questions?

Send email to
kmsmith@vmware.com


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