Virtualization Review and Discussion Omer Khalid 5th July 2010

Objectives To explore and evaluate how virtualization could be useful for us as a group in facilitating quick deployment for our test use cases Virtualization Only a very brief overview Based on interest, a more detailed presentation later About the nitty-gritty aspects of virtualization technology it self

Outline Virtualization overview Grid use case EN-ICE scenario Commercial solutions Conclusion

Virtualization Overview “An efficient, isolated duplicate of a real machine” -”Formal Requirements for Virtualizable 3rd Generation Architectures” Popek and Goldberg, 1974 In early 70’s, IBM introduced its VM system Multiplexing a single machine among many users Multiple techniques: Emulation, containers, para-virtualization, bit-translation Key features: Multiple operating systems Execution isolation Fine grained resource allocation Portability

Deployment Source: Citrix.com

Grid use case – slide 1 Grid middleware certification Constant testing and validation of patches for bug fixes By a team of 10-12 people Each patch has to be certified against a certain release Constant re-installation of physical machines after each validation For that period of time, no other user could touch that machine Multiple releases at a given time Difficult to track the installation configuration for quick deployment Solution: kickstart installation scripts for each release Additional overhead for preparing test enviornment Wastage of resources: Each server with 4GB RAM, 250 GB disk, dual-core SMP processors Rate of progress constrained by availability of physical servers

Use case – slide 2 Solution single managed service How? Benefits running virtualization hypervisor on each server maintaining an VM image library for each software release and OS type custom-developed web portal for users to create/remove VMs quick deployment of VM with a required software pre-installed ~ 3 mins 4 VM’s per server ≈ 4x more concurrent patch certification

Snapshot

EN ICE Scenario Number of developer/engineer teams in various sections Individual evaluations: Running virtual machines on their machines Managing their own images fixing networking and other configuration issues to get it working What if: A managed service for the group With user access portal for quick VM deployment and testing Pre-configured images with PVSS 3.6/3.8 or else OS types: Win XP, Win Server 2003, Linux Advantages: Simplicity and Flexibility for users to quickly deploy their test VM and focus on the “ends” rather then “means”

Available Solutions Mainstreams solutions has emerged VMWare, Citrix, Eucalyptus etc No need for custom development higher development cost over the long run Requires some one to maintain Available solutions: Software life cycle development Lab development solutions for small teams Virtualization based desktop services to remote clients Application delivered remotely using virtualization

Lab life cycle management -II Features available: Web based self-service portal for users To create and deploy virtual machines To access VM console from any machine To check-point save live VM images as differential snapshots Very useful for remote development teams (e.g. ETM for PVSS) Roles and rights for users and groups For image management, system administration, users etc LDAP/Active Directory integration Will allow to use CERN Login credentials

Architecture Source: VMWare.com

Conclusion QUESTIONS  Virtualization and commercial solutions can be very useful Considerations: Software/hardware cost Part-time man power to manage it Evaluation Compatibility between our test use cases and capabilities provided by these tools e.g. hardware access, specific networking configurations Trial setup with 2-3 servers Rolling it out to limited users to validate QUESTIONS 