Xen devel - Aug 2012 - Introducing O.S. system level virtualization in Xen

We have gone through various virtualization techniques and have found
these few advantages about the operating system virtualization which
we can integrate with Xen.

Advantages of O.S. level virtualization platform :
1) Virtual servers share the same system call interface and do not
have any emulation overhead.
2) Processes within the virtual server run as regular processes on the
host system. This is somewhat more memory-efficient and I/O-efficient
than whole-system emulation
3)Processes within the virtual server are queued on the same scheduler
as on the host, allowing guests processes to run concurrently on SMP
systems. This is not trivial to implement with whole-system emulation.
4) Networking is based on isolation rather than virtualization, so
there is no additional overhead for packets.

But operating system level virtualization has the disadvantage that we
cant create Virtualization environment for propitiatory O.S. like
Windows. For which we have to use Hardware level virtualization like
Xen.

So we are planning to introduce features of O.S. level virtualization
in Xen, by proposing one integrated architecture[1] having Operating
system virtualization over one of the VM of Xen.
Please review our architecture and let us know whether it is worth to
implement it or not.

[1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7782516274/in/photostream
--
Be Happy Always
+919579650250

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Kumar Sukhani <kumarsukhani@gmail.com>
wrote:
> So we are planning to introduce features of O.S. level virtualization
> in Xen, by proposing one integrated architecture[1] having Operating
> system virtualization over one of the VM of Xen.
> Please review our architecture and let us know whether it is worth to
> implement it or not.
>
> [1] http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7782516274/in/photostream

How is this "integrated"?

For example, what is the difference of that proposal with running lxc
on an Ubuntu domU (which you can already do)?

-- 
Fajar

On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Fajar A. Nugraha <list@fajar.net>
wrote:
>
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Kumar Sukhani
<kumarsukhani@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > So we are planning to introduce features of O.S. level virtualization
> > in Xen, by proposing one integrated architecture[1] having Operating
> > system virtualization over one of the VM of Xen.
> > Please review our architecture and let us know whether it is worth to
> > implement it or not.
> >
> > [1]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7782516274/in/photostream
>
>
> How is this "integrated"?
>
> For example, what is the difference of that proposal with running lxc
> on an Ubuntu domU (which you can already do)?
>
> --
> Fajar
We are planning to do the same thing but with a different approach,
which will be some what efficient.
[Note: I am assuming we are using lxc for O.S. level virtualization,
even though we can use any other platform].

Consider one scenario:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7795262950/in/photostream/

Simple case:
       Here for xen their are 3 V.M.s running
       1) Dom 0
       2) Dom 1 (lxc)
       3) Dom 2 (windows)

Modified case:
       Here we will modify the lxc implementation to make it aware
that its running over xen in virtualize mode and will also make some
changes in hypervisor and Dom0 to make it aware that we are also
having one or more VMs running over Dom1.
       So hypervisor and Dom0 will be aware that total 5 V.M.s are running.

Few Advantages:
       1. This implementation will make the distribution of resources
simple, because xen is aware of how much actual VMs are running.
       2. Process migration of VMs(running over lxc) will be possible
here in the case like, we want to migrate VM to other hardware where
lxc might not be available.

[Note: It will also have all the advantages of O.S. level virtualization].
--
Be Happy Always
+919579650250

After some research and discussion with our project mentor, the possible
improvements that we may get by developing our model compared with simply
running OpenVZ on Xen will be very less.
This leads to reducing the use case of the whole project very much.
So we are planning to drop this idea.

But we are also open for discussion, which might help to develop some
useful idea for community.

On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 7:49 PM, Kumar Sukhani
<kumarsukhani@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Fajar A. Nugraha <list@fajar.net>
wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:31 AM, Kumar Sukhani
<kumarsukhani@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > So we are planning to introduce features of O.S. level
virtualization
> > > in Xen, by proposing one integrated architecture[1] having
Operating
> > > system virtualization over one of the VM of Xen.
> > > Please review our architecture and let us know whether it is
worth to
> > > implement it or not.
> > >
> > > [1]
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7782516274/in/photostream
> >
> >
> > How is this "integrated"?
> >
> > For example, what is the difference of that proposal with running lxc
> > on an Ubuntu domU (which you can already do)?
> >
> > --
> > Fajar
>
> We are planning to do the same thing but with a different approach,
> which will be some what efficient.
> [Note: I am assuming we are using lxc for O.S. level virtualization,
> even though we can use any other platform].
>
> Consider one scenario:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/84959360@N02/7795262950/in/photostream/
>
> Simple case:
>        Here for xen their are 3 V.M.s running
>        1) Dom 0
>        2) Dom 1 (lxc)
>        3) Dom 2 (windows)
>
> Modified case:
>        Here we will modify the lxc implementation to make it aware
> that its running over xen in virtualize mode and will also make some
> changes in hypervisor and Dom0 to make it aware that we are also
> having one or more VMs running over Dom1.
>        So hypervisor and Dom0 will be aware that total 5 V.M.s are running.
>
> Few Advantages:
>        1. This implementation will make the distribution of resources
> simple, because xen is aware of how much actual VMs are running.
>        2. Process migration of VMs(running over lxc) will be possible
> here in the case like, we want to migrate VM to other hardware where
> lxc might not be available.
>
> [Note: It will also have all the advantages of O.S. level virtualization].
> --
> Be Happy Always
> +919579650250
>


-- 
Be Happy Always
+919579650250


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