Virtualization VMWare technology

The VMWare View

Virtualization

Sanjoy Sanyal: Tech for Non Geek

Virtualization – what is it?

Separation of a resource or a request for service from the physical delivery of the service

Provides a layer of abstraction between computing, storage and networking hardware and the applications running on it

Virtualization makes possible:Hardware independence of OS and applications Virtual machines can be provisioned to any system OS and Application can be encapsulated into one

virtual system


Each virtual machine represents a complete system with processors, memory, networking, storage…..

Virtualization - ConceptsPartitioning

Running multiple services on the same machine and sharing the underlying resources

Two approaches:Hosted approach provides partitioning services on top of a

standard OS Hypervisor architecture – layer of software first installed on a

clean x86 system (“bare metal”) More efficient as it has direct access to hardware resources

Source: VMware website


Hardware

Host Operating System

Applica-tion

Application

Virtualization Layer

Guest OS

Application

Virtualization Concepts


Full (Transparent) Virtualization

Paravirtualization Hardware

Allows OSs to run inside virtual machines without modifications

Requires OSs to be modified before it run inside the virtual machine

Can provide explicit support for virtualization

CPU Virtualization Memory ManagementI/O Virtualization

Certain Operating Systems such as Windows cannot be modified.

VMware has released the specifications of paravirtualization interface, the Virtual Machine Interface (VMI),

The Open Source Xen project uses a modified Linux kernel.

Intel’s VT and AMD’s Pacifica has hardware assisted virtualization as its aims

VMware product portfolio: Data Center

VM Ware Product for DataCenters

Description

VMware Infrastructure

Flagship product to build virtual data centers

VMware ESX Server Hypervisor

VMware Server Uses the Hosted Approach

Vmware ESXi Free download

VMware vCenter Management and provisioning of virtual machines, workload consolidation across physical machines


Vmware ESX Server is the building block of VMware Infrastructure

VMware Infrastructure: Virtual DataCenter OS

Components: Application vServices guarantee availability, security and scalability to applications.Infrastructure vServices abstract, aggregate and allocate on-premise servers, storage and network Cloud vServices federate the on-premise infrastructure with third party cloud infrastructure. Management vServices help manage the virtual datacenter OS and the applications running on it.


Virtual DataCenter OS: Products & Services

Application Services Function

VMware VMotion Eliminates disruption through live migration of running VMs

VMware Storage VMotion Eliminates disruption thru live migration of VM disk files across storage

VMware HA Enables restart of virtual machines in the case of hardware failures

VMware Consolidated BackUp

Enables VM backup and restore

VMware DRS Enables Priority based management of apps

VMware vStorage VMFS Cluster file system that allows multiple versions of ESX server read-write access to the same virtual machine storage concurrently


Management Services FunctionVMware vCenter AppSpeed Enables centralized applications management

VMware vCenter Server Enables centralised management

VMware vCenter Lifecycle Manager Enables policy driven provisioning and lifecycle management of virtual machines

VMware vCenter Update Manager Enables automated enforcement of patch policies

VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Enables automated disaster recovery processes

VMware Product Portfolio: Desktop


VMware Product for Dektops

Description

VMware View Delivers desktops to users and not to a machine by decoupling a desktop image and the physical PC . Allows centralised management of desktops

VMware Workstation Runs multiple operating systems simultaneously on a single physical machine. Runs multi-tier enterprise applications (client, server, database virtual machines) on a single piece of hardware.

VMware Thin App Uses application virtualization to decouple applications from operating systems thereby allows an application on multiple operating systems without modification.

Vmware ACE Provisions standardized client PC environments inside secure, centrally managed virtual machines called ACEs. Each ACE contains a complete client with device and network access control, there by protecting confidential data and compliance with IT polices.

VMware Fusion (For the Mac) Allows Windows’ applications on Mac

VMWare Product: Mobile VMware MVP: VMware Mobile Virtualization PlatformA thin layer of software embedded on a mobile phone

to decouple the applications and data from the underlying hardware.

It is optimized to run efficiently on low power consuming and memory constrained mobile phones.

Currently supports Windows CE 5.0 and 6.0, Linux 2.6.x, Symbian 9.x, eCos, µITRON NORTi and µC/OS-II.

Benefits :Accelerate time to market by is reducing the effort in porting

the software stack for multiple mobile platforms. Easily migrate to richer OssAllows multiple personas for the user.


Standards

Open Virtualization Format (OVF)how virtual appliances can be packaged in a vendor-

neutral format to be run on any hypervisor. Virtual Appliances are pre-built software solutions,

comprised of virtual machines packaged, updated, maintained and managed as a unit.

Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK) Describes the virtual machine environment and how it

is stored. (critical to how virtual environments are provisioned, manipulated, patched, updated, scanned and backed up.)

Vmware has released a toolkit for developers creating Virtual Disk management applications .


Acknowledgements


VMware Website

Technology

Virtualization VMWare technology