Virtualization Methodologies strategies and experiences Definition the

Virtualization Methodologies, strategies and experiences

Definition the abstraction of computer resources a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources 1 1 Enterprise Management Associates CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Types and Players Emulation - simulates complete hardware – Wine/Crossover Hardware - simulates enough hardware – VMWare Workstation Para-Virtualization - no hardware emulation, uses special API – Xen, VMWare ESX, User Mode Linux OS-Virtualization - OS allows multiple secure virtual servers – Solaris Zones, BSD Jails, Linux-Vserver CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Advantages Consolidation (of course!) – Cost cutting via: • People resources - arguable • Hardware resources Security - depends on type Rapid reboot of virtual environment Rapid deployment of another environment Cloning - rapid test environment CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Considerations Shared memory - changes coming soon Storage The kitchen sink effect Patch deployment / multiple versions – Positive or negative? Many virtualization systems suffer from performance loss on some types of workloads (most loss found to be related to network and disk intensive tasks) – Solaris Zones does not suffer from this CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Xen Para-virtualization Primarily modified Linux and Net. BSD systems as host system Support for various Linux and BSD, Open. Solaris, Netware as guests Version 3. 0 unmodified Windows ok(? ) Can run multiple guest operating systems Commercial support available from Xen. Source Full virtualization now available with new hardware Can migrate live domains to new hosts CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

VMWare Server (formerly GSX) – – Para-virtualization, Windows/Linux host OS Support for various guest OS Can run multiple guest OS Free! - but need to buy add-ons for some features ESX – – Full virtualization Support for various guest OS Can run multiple guest OS Expensive ($5 K+ for full version per physical system) CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Solaris Zones Operating system-level virtualization Included with Solaris 10 Global zone vs Non-global zones – – Global zone runs kernel Global zone contains and used to administer non-global zones Non-global zones can be given access to devices Non-global zones cannot export filesystems via NFS Non-global zones can be whole or sparse – Whole zones include own copy of all filesystems – Sparse zones share filesystems such as /usr with global zone – Sparse zones can take as little as 50 -100 MB CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Architecture Considerations Solaris zones setup as sparse to save on disk space Patching installed globally to all zones Each zone has /zones for local files CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Where we are - Solaris Zones All Solaris 10 servers setup with zones Running on multiple hardware platforms Global zone only used for server administration All applications run on non-global zones Zones setup as sparse zones Largest implementation is on a T 2000 with 8 nonglobal zones CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Where we are - Xen/VMWare All Xen servers run ubuntu Hardware platforms include Sun x 2100, x 4 x 00 System setup to clone zones VMWare used primarily on streaming services (Windows based) Using virtualization as a tool for change/revision management - more information on change/revision management at Ramon’s “Pure Production” talk later this week CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences

Future Consideration Private Network to manage global zones – “Real root” not accessible – Single VLAN for network booting Virtuozzo Solaris zone cloning Hardware-level virtualization – Sun LDOMs will create a hardware hypervisor VMWare ESX PXE Boot - VMWare imaged systems CANHEIT | Power Through Collaboration | May 27 -30, 2007 | Virtualization - methodologies, strategies and experiences